Featured Drug Articles

The Youth Task Force (YTF) of Martha's Vineyard, Mass. circulated a flyer in the town newspaper suggesting alternative activities to substance use and providing information and helpful resources, The Martha's Vineyard Times reported recently.

The medical and economic costs of secondhand smoke totaled about $6 billion in 2004, according to a study released by the American Academy of Actuaries.

The owner of a Los Angeles cafe says that he makes a point of hiring people in addiction recovery because they make good employees, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Students who take prescription stimulant medications to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) report relatively low rates of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and ecstasy use compared to students who illicitly use prescription stimulants, according to a recent study of Detroit middle and high school students.

Children often believe that common household substances like glue, nail polish or gasoline are harmless. In fact, using inhalants can cause sudden sniffing death from heart or lung failure, asphyxiation, paralysis of breathing mechanisms or accidental from intoxication. Long-term effects include: brain, respiratory, liver, kidney and bone marrow damage; short-term memory loss; and hearing impairment.

New Jersey is the only U.S. state that still bans the distribution of clean needles by government programs to prevent the spread of AIDS among drug users, but lawmakers may vote to change that next week, the New York Times reported Sept. 25.

Researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have identified 51 chromosomal regions that may play a genetic role in alcoholism.

A team of scientists has interviewed college students about their alcohol consumption and then analyzed their genetic profiles, or genotypes. They found that students who shared a particular variant of the serotonin transporter gene (5HTT) consumed more alcohol per occasion, more often drank expressly to become inebriated, and were more likely to engage in binge drinking than students without the variant.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said that he plans to collect tobacco taxes from Native American tribes that sell cigarettes from reservations around the state, reversing the position of former Gov. George Pataki.

Tom Ammiano, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has proposed an ordinance calling on police to scale back almost all law enforcement pertaining to marijuana, focusing only on crimes involving minors, driving under the influence, or public sales of the drug, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sept. 12.

A complex study of alcoholism treatment medications and counseling has found that most stand-alone and combined therapies were effective in promoting short-term abstinence, with only the drug acamprosate (Campral) proving to be disappointing.

Smoke Less Ohio, a group that is pushing a weaker alternative to a tough indoor-smoking proposal endorsed by health groups, failed to report to the Secretary of State's office that the vast majority of its funding comes from tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, the Toledo Blade reported Sept. 14.

Reynolds American Inc. and Philip Morris USA have spent at least $55 million in an attempt to defeat a California ballot proposal that would raise taxes on cigarettes by $2.60 per pack, the Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 10.

New-found independence can sometimes be dangerous: Alcohol use and abuse among college students is a serious cause for concern. Many students are under the legal drinking age and many engage in heavy episodic, or binge, drinking. There are a variety of simple screening methods that can help identify those students at greatest risk for alcohol problems so that preventative steps can be taken before it's too late.

People on probation because of drug convictions will be banned from Los Angeles' "skid row" area under a new policy unveiled by the city's district attorney, the Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 27.

More young American women are drinking to get drunk, and are putting themselves at risk by trying to "keep up with the boys" when it comes to alcohol use, Newsweek recently reported.

A $1-million award to a smoker in a negligent-design lawsuit against two major tobacco companies has been upheld by the Missouri Court of Appeals, reported Sept. 29.

Patients who received addiction treatment within 30 days of going through detoxification took 40 percent longer to relapse if they fell off the wagon at all, according to research from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

About 13 percent of San Francisco residents told federal researchers they used some type of illicit drug in the past month, the highest reported drug-use rate in the country, USA Today reported Jan. 8.

Western states like Wyoming, Montana and North and South Dakota have binge-drinking levels far higher than the national average, and local experts say that boredom plays a huge role in the problem, the New York Times reported Sept. 2.