Editorial: Tobacco Still Leading Preventable Cause of Death Richard G. Soper, MD, JD, FASAM, Editor-In-Chief
“Tobacco remains, by far, the single leading preventable cause of death in the United States and the world," said Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the latest surgeon general's report, smoking has killed more than 20 million people since the first report was issued. Two and a half million of those people were nonsmokers who died from breathing secondhand smoke.
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NIHSeniorHealth.gov Offers Info on Quitting Smoking for Older Adults NIH Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable, premature death and illness in the United States, responsible for almost half a million deaths each year. The National Institutes of Health has released a new Web resource to help older adults stop smoking...
Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program 2013 Report ONDCP The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring II (ADAM II) survey gathers information on drug use and related issues from booked adult male arrestees within 48 hours of their arrest. In 2013, marijuana remained the most commonly detected drug in urine testing – those who obtained marijuana in the prior 30 days reported little difficulty obtaining the drug. Cocaine use continued a significant decline in all sites since 2000...
Archived Webinar: Managing Pain in Patients with an Addiction History PCSS-MAT The goal of this presentation is to familiarize clinicians with the tools to identify chronic pain patients at risk for misuse of opioids, and provide strategies for managing chronic pain patients with addictive disorders. Guidelines for risk stratification, safe prescribing, and assessing, monitoring and managing aberrant behavior will be discussed.
UM School of Law Develops Parity & Addiction Equity Resource Guide University of Maryland Carey School of Law Student-attorneys of the University of Maryland Carey School of Law Drug Policy Clinic, Darci Smith and Will Dwyer, have created a Parity Act Resource Guide to assist providers and consumers with federal and state parity regulations that are currently in place. The Guide also has tips for identifying parity violations, disclosure provisions and how to submit appeals through insurers.
Screening for Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Nonpregnant Adolescents and Adults US Preventative Services Taskforce Approximately 700,000 to 2.2 million persons in the United States have chronic HBV infection. In the United States, persons considered at high risk for HBV infection include those from countries with a high prevalence of HBV infection, HIV-positive persons, injection drug users, household contacts of persons with HBV infection, and men who have sex with men.
Transitions in Illicit Drug Use Status Over 3 Years: A Prospective Analysis of a General Population Sample The American Journal of Psychiatry The authors examined 3-year transitions among nonuse, asymptomatic use, and problem use of illicit drugs for U.S. adults in the general household population. Data were from the nationally representative National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a study of 34,653 adults interviewed twice, 3 years apart...
Substance Abuse Intensive Outpatient Programs: Assessing the Evidence Psychiatric Services Substance abuse intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) are direct services for people with substance use disorders or co-occurring mental and substance use disorders who do not require medical detoxification or 24-hour supervision. IOPs are alternatives to inpatient and residential treatment. They are designed to establish psychosocial supports and facilitate relapse management and coping strategies. This review assessed the evidence base for IOPs.
Italy Court Overturns Law Equating Cannabis with Heroin BBC Europe Italy's constitutional court has overturned a law that tripled sentences for selling, cultivating and possessing cannabis, declaring it "illegitimate.” Prison rights group Antigone say the law has caused prison overcrowding, with 40% of all inmates serving sentences for drug crimes. It could affect some 10,000 people who may be released from jail as a result.
Predicting Pain Patient Response to Opioid Detoxification Pain Medicine News A series of analyses suggests it is possible to accurately predict which chronic pain patients will respond to a medical detoxification program...
Top 100 Most Prescribed, Top Selling Drugs Medscape The hypothyroid medication levothyroxine (Synthroid, AbbVie) continues to be the nation's most prescribed drug, and the antipsychotic aripiprazole (Abilify, Otsuka Pharmaceutical) continues to have the highest sales...
New Technology Shows Habitual Behavior Circuitry Activation, Could be Target for Novel Addiction Medications Canadian Association for Neuroscience New research presented by Dr. Jonathan Britt, from McGill University, helps to better understand how reward signals, such as those produced by addictive drugs, travel through the brain and modify brain circuits. Dr. Britt obtained these results using optogenetics, which use light-responsive proteins to study the activation of neural circuits in distinct locations, allowing the researcher to precisely dissect the roles of different neural circuits in the brain. Dr. Britt's studies have helped reveal circuits that are responsible for habitual behavior, which could be suitable targets for pharmacotherapies designed to treat drug addiction.
Evidence for the Role of EPHX2 Gene Variants in Anorexia Nervosa Molecular Psychiatry Anorexia nervosa (AN) and related eating disorders are complex, multifactorial neuropsychiatric conditions with likely rare and common genetic and environmental determinants. To identify genetic variants associated with AN, the authors pursued a series of sequencing and genotyping studies focusing on the coding regions and upstream sequence of 152 candidate genes in a total of 1205 AN cases and 1948 controls...
Richard G. Soper, MD, JD, MS, FASAM, Editor-in-Chief, ASAM Weekly
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