The Latest News from Our Field

A new medically supervised space where people can go after they inject heroin has opened in Boston. ABC News reports the room, run by the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, is part of a growing movement to use harm reduction strategies to reduce the risk of overdose.

The health insurance company Cigna is teaming up with the American Society of Addiction Medicine to study which substance abuse treatments are effective, Forbes reports.

Too many children ages 2 to 5 who are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are receiving medication as the first treatment, before behavioral therapy is tried, a new government report states.

A panel of experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration is meeting this week to consider whether to require doctors to undergo training to prescribe opioid painkillers. Doctors’ groups have resisted mandatory training, The New York Times reports.

A new national poll finds 44 percent of Americans say they personally know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers, CNBC reports.

A new federal policy will allow 96,000 inmates in halfway houses after release from prison to be eligible for Medicaid benefits, according to USA Today. The policy will allow the former inmates access to treatment for addiction and mental health issues in states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

A growing number of foreign investors are putting their money into drug rehabilitation and psychiatric clinics, according to The Boston Globe. The investments are being made under the EB-5 program, which lets foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in a development that creates jobs qualify for an America visa.

Addiction treatment centers are struggling to find enough qualified personnel as the opioid crisis worsens, The Wall Street Journal reports.

People addicted to methamphetamine may be helped by exercise along with addiction counseling, a new small study suggests. The researchers report exercise increased the number of dopamine receptors in the brain, which can lower the desire for the drug.

A facility in Baltimore that offers a full range of opioid addiction treatment options is serving as a model to centers in other parts of the country, according to Stateline.

The Los Angeles Police Department announced 15 people were hospitalized over the weekend after consuming synthetic marijuana.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, April 22- Thursday, April 28, 2016.

2016 marks the first year in the history of Major League Baseball that some stadiums will be tobacco free. Getting smokeless tobacco out of these venues is a real home run and another example of how we can tap into culture in order to save lives, explains Robin Koval of Truth Initiative.

A new study finds some of the nation’s areas with high rates of drug overdose deaths do not have a corresponding high rate of drug trafficking. This suggests drugs are passing through counties with high rates of drug trafficking without affecting the death rates of people in those regions, the researchers said. Instead, those drugs are causing overdose deaths in other parts of the country, CBS News reports.

Some addiction recovery groups say a U.S. House bill, the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Reduction Act, does not focus enough on recovery, The Huffington Post reports. The groups say the House measure, to be introduced Wednesday, is weaker than the Senate version of the bill.

Police in Edmonton, Canada are reporting the seizure of a large amount of a synthetic drug, W-18, which they say is 100 times more powerful than fentanyl, according to Fox News.

There is no safe amount of alcohol to drink before people put themselves at risk of blacking out, a review of studies concludes. Individual biological differences, not just alcohol consumption, influence the risk of blackouts, Medical Daily reports.

The suicide rate in the United States rose 24 percent between 1999 and 2014, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers say increasing drug use may be one of the contributing factors.

A bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday presented 15 bills aimed at fighting opioid addiction, according to The Hill.

The United Nations’ three-day special session to address global drug policy ended last week without a major shift in approach, The Wall Street Journal reports. It was the first special session to address the topic in almost 20 years.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has given approval for a study that will evaluate the effectiveness of marijuana as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to The Denver Post.

As the heroin crisis continues to escalate in the United States, interest is growing in the experience of North America’s only facility allowed to prescribe diacetylmorphine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in heroin. The facility, located in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been successful in keeping participants out of jail and away from emergency rooms, The New York Times reports.

At this week’s three-day special session to address global drug policy, nations’ widely varying approach to drug policy is striking, the Associated Press reports. It is the first special session to address the topic in almost 20 years.

A group of scientists in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia is warning about the potential mental health consequences of marijuana use, The Guardian reports. They say frequent use of marijuana increases the risk of psychotic disorders in vulnerable people.

A single 30-minute session with a trained therapist during an emergency room visit can motivate people who misuse prescription opioid painkillers to reduce their use, a new study concludes.