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.
Here’s a retailer that doesn’t discount public opinion: the owner of TJ Maxx pulled drinking games from store shelves after an inquiry from a Boston reporter ... a Saudi treatment program is looking to the U.S. for a model for improving services in a country where Islam prohibits any use of alcohol or other drugs ... Pink cigarettes, anyone? Tobacco companies are ramping up marketing to women in poor countries as smoking among men declines ... No spitting, smoking or swearing: An upstate New York college is using positive peer pressure to fight bad behaviors.
Cutting out the middleman: A new study says that heroin addicts who don’t respond to methadone can benefit from heroin maintenance ... Highly pure heroin from Mexico is causing more overdoses in the U.S. ... An energy drink called "Four Loko" has 12 percent alcohol ... Some doctors won’t perform elective surgery on smokers, citing liability concerns and risk of complications.
The Legal Action Center has always been one of the most valuable advocacy resources for the addiction field, but it’s website has lagged behind. So it’s great news that the site has been upgraded to make it more useful and user-friendly...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has unveiled a draft strategic framework for improving the health of people with multiple co-occurring long-term or chronic health conditions (e.g., health disease, diabetes, other behavioral health disorders) and is soliciting comments on the plan. Comments on the plan from the HHS Interagency Workgroup on Multiple Chronic Conditions can be submitted through June 16.
Keep an eye on those coolers this weekend: youth ER visits related to drinking spike over the Memorial Day holiday, SAMHSA reports ... Treatment services continue to get gutted by California’s fiscal crisis: first prison-based programs, and now methadone maintenance funded by MediCal face the budget axe ...
A bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Youth Drug Prevention is in the works, and Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) says preventionists need to urge their local members of Congress to join. Prevention advocates can use the CapWiz system to find and contact legislators.
The caucus was cofounded by Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.).
In another step in their drive for legitimacy, medical-marijuana workers in Oakland, Calif., have joined a local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. "Medical cannabis industry workers" at a half-dozen sites -- including the prominent Oaksterdam University -- have voted to join the Retail, Statewide Agriculture, Food Processing and Community Patient Care Union, UFCW Local 5.
Something called the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) -- which claims to be "the nation’s largest non-profit, non-partisan coalition of law enforcement professionals, crime victims, and concerned citizens united for justice" -- apparently feels that Big Tobacco needs police protection from bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently detailed a debate among doctors focusing on the question of whether a patient called "Mr. Q" should continue to consume moderate amounts of alcohol for health reasons. The 10-page article from Kenneth J. Mukumal, M.D., focuses on issues discussed at Grand Rounds at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston on Jan. 15, 2009.
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