We curate a digest of the latest news in our field for advocates, policymakers, community coalitions and all who work toward shaping policies and practices to effectively prevent substance use and treat addiction.
The Rhode Island Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap initiative released its report this morning. They asked me to speak at the event. That got me thinking. Why do we have this enormous gap? Why is such a complicated but treatable brain/behavioral disease treated mostly in a separate and unequal system where care is provided almost entirely without physicians by individuals with relatively modest formal training?
Fifteen states enacted increases in cigarette excise taxes in 2009, but three states haven’t raised their cigarette taxes in more than a decade, according to the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) programs are hot right now -- there’s an impressive research base showing they work to cut costs and can nip addiction in the bud. SBIRT also stars in the Obama administration’s new National Drug Control Strategy.
But what about the human side of this somewhat nebulous protocol?
Higher prices and restrictions on advertising will help prevent excessive drinking, World Health Organization says in new policy resolution (too bad it’s non-binding) ? How do you reconcile ’drug-free schools’ with medical-marijuana laws? That’s what school districts in Colorado are trying to figure out ?
The Obama administration’s 2011 budget calls for flat funding of the $1.79-billion Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant, but advocates are appealing to Congress to boost funding for the formula grant to states by $210 million.
’Hey, Friend -- have you tried the new vodka in the skull bottle?’: New report says the alcohol industry is engaged in ’stealth’ marketing to youth on social-networking sites online ... Oh, about that vodka: Yes, there really is a brand of vodka being sold in a bottle shaped like a crystal skull. It just got banned in Ontario ...
Daniel Okrent’s new book on the history of Prohibition, "Last Call," is chockablock with fascinating anectodes and factoids about American’s dalliance as a dry nation, but also points to some useful parallels to contemporary debates on drug policy.
Get Support
