Feature Channels: Addiction

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Media campaigns that offer positive encouragement can have an impact on getting African-Americans to quit smoking.

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Global Bridges, a healthcare alliance for tobacco dependence treatment based at Mayo Clinic, and its regional partner, the InterAmerican Heart Foundation (IAHF) in Dallas, Texas, announced today the first of a series of training courses for health care providers in Latin America on how to successfully treat tobacco users.

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Global Bridges, a healthcare alliance for tobacco dependence treatment based at Mayo Clinic, and its regional partner, King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC) in Amman, Jordan, announced today that they will start training health care providers in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) on how to successfully treat tobacco users.

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Unintentional overdose deaths in teens and adults have reached epidemic proportions in the U.S.

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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has developed a series of Metro Briefs providing detailed statistical snapshots of drug- related visits to hospital emergency departments occurring in 11 metropolitan areas across the nation. This series of briefs is based on SAMHSA’s Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), a public health surveillance system which collects data from nationally representative emergency departments participating in the program.

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A study has found that binge drinking could change the body's immune system response to orthopaedic injury. This could complicate the care of binge-drinking trauma patients.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have uncovered a new link between genetic variations associated with alcoholism, impulsive behavior and a region of the brain involved in craving and anxiety.

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A new report based on a national survey shows that only 1.2 percent of the nation’s more than 7.4 million adults aged 21 to 64 with an untreated alcohol abuse disorder perceive they could benefit from treatment. The report released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in conjunction with National Alcohol Screening Day, April 7, highlights the need to raise awareness about adult problem drinking, how to identify when someone has a problem, how to confront a problem drinker and how to get help.

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In an analysis of opioid prescription patterns and deaths, receiving higher prescribed doses is associated with an increased risk of opioid overdose death, but receiving both as-needed and regularly scheduled doses is not associated with overdose risk, according to a study in the April 6 issue of JAMA.

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Q&A with Dr. Vivian B. Faden on kids drinking for Alcohol Awareness Month.

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A new study done by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center sheds light on the increasingly popular pastime of hookah smoking, and the results are discouraging.

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The American Board of Addiction Medicine Foundation today accredited 10 training programs, the nation’s first post-graduate addiction medicine residencies for physicians.

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For some people, alcohol is a social lubricant. For others, it's an unpleasant downer. New research shows that a person's response to alcohol can predict their future drinking behavior, including their frequency of binge drinking and the risk of developing an alcohol-use disorder.

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Persons with an addictive-like eating behavior appear to have greater neural activity in certain regions of the brain similar to substance dependence, including elevated activation in reward circuitry in response to food cues, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the August print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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A new national study indicates that the number of hospital emergency visits involving the illicit drug Ecstasy increased from 10,220 in 2004 to 17,865 visits in 2008 – a 74.8 percent increase. According to this new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) most of these Ecstasy-related visits (69.3 percent) involved patients aged 18 to 29, but notably 17.9 percent involved adolescents aged 12 to 17.

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A new book edited by RTI International and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration describes the adaptation and implementation of workplace substance abuse prevention programs intended for young adults for the Young Adults in the Workplace (YIW) initiative.

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A key question in protein biochemistry is how proteins recognize "correct" interaction partners in a sea of cellular factors. Nowhere is that more critical to know than in the brain, where interactions governing channel protein activity can alter an organism's behavior. A team of biologists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has recently deciphered a molecular code that regulates availability of a brain channel that modulates neuronal excitability, a discovery that might aid efforts to treat drug addiction and mental disorders.

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Inhalant abuse is now a multi-generational problem. “Huffing,” or intentionally inhaling a chemical vapor to get “high,” has been thought to be a serious, life-threatening risk primarily among children and adolescents, but a new government study shows that 54 percent of treatment admissions related to inhalants abuse in 2008 involved adults ages 18 or older.

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As youth across the nation prepare for the annual “Kick Butts Day” to speak out against “Big Tobacco,” experts from New Jersey’s only NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center are available for comment on cessation efforts, the development of lung cancer and other related effects of smoking.

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From 1965 to 2007, the population prevalence of persons who smoked 20 or more cigarettes per day declined significantly, and there was also a decrease in the prevalence of smoking 10 or more cigarettes a day, with these declines greater in California than in the rest of the U.S., according to a study in the March 16 issue of JAMA.

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The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), will hold a press conference March 17 to discuss disturbing new government data about the public health problem of inhalant abuse by adults.

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Heavy alcohol consumption, specifically three or more glasses of liquor a day, is associated with an increased risk of death from pancreatic cancer, according to a report in the March 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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A meta-analysis of nine previous studies found that quitting smoking shortly before surgery was not associated with an increased risk of postoperative complications, according to a report published online today that will appear in the July 11 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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What factors are associated with a higher or lower risk of marijuana use among adolescents? There are some important differences for boys versus girls, according to a study in the March Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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A pair of related studies on smoking cessation by researchers at the University of Oregon and other institutions have isolated the brain regions most active in controlling urges to smoke and demonstrated the effectiveness of text-messaging to measure and intervene in those urges.

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Nearly half of American teen drinkers would rather have a shot of liquor than a bottle of beer, a new study finds.

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In the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers report that residential treatment for tobacco dependence among heavy smokers greatly improves the odds of abstinence at six months compared with standard outpatient treatment. The study reports that 52 percent of the patients were still not smoking six months after residential treatment, compared with 26 percent in the outpatient treatment setting.

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Vanderbilt researchers are studying heavy users of marijuana to help understand what exercise does for the brain, contributing to a field of research that uses exercise as a modality for prevention and treatment. Participants saw a significant decrease in their cravings and daily use after just a few sessions of running on the treadmill, according to a Vanderbilt study published today in the journal PLoS ONE. It is the first study to demonstrate that exercise can reduce cannabis use in persons who don't want to stop.

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Few primary care physicians pay adequate attention to patients taking prescription opioid drugs - despite the potential for abuse, addiction and overdose, according to a new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study found lax monitoring even of patients at high risk for opioid misuse, such as those with a history of drug abuse or dependence.

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A new study shows that the most commonly abused substances among those 18 and older referred to substance abuse treatment from parole or probation was alcohol, followed by marijuana and methamphetamines. The study, sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), also shows that more than half (59.2 percent) of those who entered substance abuse treatment based on referrals from probation or parole reported using more than one substance at admission.

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A new nationwide survey of substance abuse treatment facilities reveals that in 2008 nearly two thirds (65 percent) accepted some private health insurance payment. The survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) also indicated that there were significant differences in the level of private insurance payment acceptance among different types of substance abuse treatment facilities.

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Dermatologist at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center who has done tanning research is available to comment about the American Academy of Pediatrics support of legislation to ban tanning by minors.

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A strong link between victimization experiences and substance abuse has been discovered by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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The federal anti-drug campaign “Above the Influence” appears to have effectively reduced marijuana use by teenagers, new research shows.

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Bans on using credit cards to pay for cigarettes bought on Internet sites – combined with bans on commercial shippers delivering the products – appear to have effectively reduced the size and reach of the online cigarette sales industry, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study shows.

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While alcohol problems and antisocial behavior tend to decrease in addiction-prone women as they age, depression increases, U-M study finds.

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A new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) indicates that 5.9 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 14 drank alcohol in the past month and that the vast majority of them (93.4 percent) received their alcohol for free the last time they drank. About 317,000 (44.8 percent) 12 to14 year olds who drank in the past month received their alcohol for free from their family or at home. This includes 15.7 percent (or an estimated 111,000) who were provided alcohol for free by their parents or guardians.

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A common index for assessing adolescent drinking-related problems has been found to be effective at predicting adult alcoholism. An Indiana U. study also found the association to be stronger for adolescent female drinkers.

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While a new study finds that consumer interest in electronic cigarettes runs high, a companion study underscores that e-cigarettes' ability to help smokers cut down or quit is unknown, as is their safety.

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A new study finds that iPhone software applications designed to help people quit smoking fall short of the mark.

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The FDA, through the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is considering banning outdoor tobacco product advertising at various distances from schools and playgrounds. The tobacco industry is challenging these rules on First Amendment grounds, arguing that they would lead to a near complete ban on tobacco advertising in dense urban areas. A new study by the Center for Tobacco Policy Research (CTPR) at Washington University in St. Louis found that a 1000-foot buffer would still allow for tobacco ads. Smaller buffer zones of 350 feet may result in almost no reduction of outdoor tobacco advertising.

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Cannabis use appears to be associated with an earlier onset of psychotic illness, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies posted online today that will appear in the June print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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Illicit drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin have always been a parent’s nightmare. But perfectly legal and easily accessible prescription medications are now the recreational drugs of choice for many teenagers, prompting physicians at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center to urge pediatricians to screen specifically for their abuse during routine visits.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatry researchers are leading the Texas arm of a national network that conducts clinical trials aimed at finding effective treatments for drug addiction.

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New research could produce novel therapies that increase natural resistance to addiction to smoking.

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Participating in community service activities and helping others is not just good for the soul; it has a healing effect that helps alcoholics and other addicts become and stay sober, a researcher from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine reports.

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Retired NFL players use painkillers at four times the rate of the general population, according to new research conducted by investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers say the brutal collisions and bone-jarring injuries associated with football often cause long-term pain, which contributes to continued use and abuse of pain-killing medications.

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Highly-caffeinated energy drinks – even those without alcohol – may pose a significant threat to individuals and public health, say researchers at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and Wake Forest University School of Medicine. They recommend action by health providers, consumer, manufacturers and federal regulators.

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For the first time in alcohol addiction research, UVA investigators have successfully treated alcohol-dependent individuals with medication that is tailored specifically to match their genetic profile.

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Eight percent of fans who agreed to be tested after attending professional football and baseball games were too drunk to legally drive, a new study finds, and 40 percent had alcohol in their bodies.