Data Analysis

The Penn State Live website this week reported on new “early intervention” research conducted by their own scholars that may help students from becoming binge drinkers.

This week, The Fix, a website about addiction, recovery and the drug war, published Former Obama Administration drug policy advisor Kevin A. Sabet’s commentary discussing a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that claims occasional marijuana use doesn’t harm the lungs.

The first issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2012’s Vital Signs includes the latest findings on binge drinking from the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) which included combined landline and cellular telephone respondents.

Two ingredients in marijuana have opposite effects on certain regions of the brain, according to a new study published online in MyHealthNewsDaily.

New research by scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicates that, just like MDMA (Ecstasy), the active compounds in “bath salts” — mephedrone and methylone — bind to monoamine transporters on the surface of some neurons. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the brain chemicals serotonin, and, to a lesser extent dopamine, suggesting a mechanism that could underlie the addictive potential of these compounds. The study was published last week in Neuropsychopharmacology.

NIDA-funded researchers have demonstrated that a family-centered program, the Strong African American Families-Teens, reduced substance use, conduct problems, and symptoms of depression among African-American adolescents in a geographically rural area by more than 30 percent across nearly two years.

The 2011 Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey, released on Wednesday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan, showed a continued increase in marijuana use rates among all grades measured in the survey – 8th, 10th and 12th graders. In fact, the annual prevalence rates among 8th graders during the past two years are higher than any time since 2003. Also concerning is that the rate of daily marijuana use rose among all three grades, with 1.3 percent of 8th graders, 3.6 percent of 10th graders and 6.6 percent of 12th graders reporting that they smoked marijuana on a daily basis. Among high school seniors, the daily use rate is now at a 30-year-peak level.

Most American adults who smoke wish they could quit, and more than half have tried within the past year, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

People addicted to prescription painkillers reduce their opioid abuse when given sustained treatment with the medication buprenorphine plus naloxone (Suboxone), according to research published in yesterday’s Archives of General Psychiatry and conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study, which was the first randomized large scale clinical trial using a medication for the treatment of prescription opioid abuse, also showed that the addition of intensive opioid dependence counseling provided no added benefit.

A landmark study in mice identifies a biological mechanism that could help explain how tobacco products could act as gateway drugs, increasing a person’s future likelihood of abusing cocaine and perhaps other drugs as well, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study is the first to show that nicotine might prime the brain to enhance the behavioral effects of cocaine.

The death toll from overdoses of prescription painkillers has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an analysis in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vital Signs report released this week. This new finding shows that more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving narcotic pain relievers like hydrocodone (Vicodin), methadone, oxycodone (OxyContin), and oxymorphone (Opana). The death rate was highest among persons aged 35–54 years.