Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly articles from December 2008

Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly archives from December 2008

Longer stays mean better outcomes? The relationship isn't that simple.
December 22, 2008... The idea that longer stays in treatment produce better outcomes for clients has taken on mantra-like status in the addiction field. But research is showing that the relationship between length of stay and outcome can hardly be summarized in a...

Tobacco hits lowest rate since survey began 33 years ago.(Monitoring the Future)(Survey)
December 22, 2008... The best and biggest news out of the annual Monitoring the Future survey, released Dec. 11 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the University of Michigan, doesn't involve alcohol, prescription drugs, or street drugs--all of...

Utah offender treatment program facing immediate cuts.(Monitoring the Future)
December 22, 2008... Utah's Drug Offender Reform Act (DORA), a program that provides substance abuse screening, assessment, and treatment services to felony offenders and has received high praise for its encouragement of collaboration among state agencies, is...

Using public relations to get your treatment program noticed.(Monitoring the Future)
December 22, 2008... Treatment programs can use public relations in order to attract attention--and patients. In this article, Missy Orlando, executive vice president of corporate planning and communications for Caron Treatment Centers, shared her thoughts about...

Alkermes moves new oral drug for alcohol dependence into clinical trials.
December 22, 2008... ALKS 29, an oral treatment for alcohol dependence under study by Cambridge-based Alkermes, will go into open-label clinical trials with 16 subjects this month. Alkermes also makes Vivitrol, the injectable form of naltrexone which is used for...

Study finds negative consequences of Montana Meth Project.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... An independent review finds a number of negative outcomes from the publicly-funded Montana Meth Project (MMP). In his review in the December issue of Prevention Science, David Erceg-Hurn found that after 6 months of exposure to MMP's graphic...

Ecstasy study to examine role of metabolism in neurotoxicity.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... A five-year investigation will explore the role of metabolism in the neurotoxicity of the Schedule I drug "Ecstasy" (methylenedioxymethampetamine, MDMA), reported the University of Arizona on November 21. Lead researcher and head of the...

Alcohol use higher among young adults attending college.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... A study finds that nearly half of college-aged individuals meet the criteria for substance abuse, personality disorders or another mental health problem, but only one fourth of this group seeks treatment. In a study appearing in the December...

Massachusetts drunken-driving program expands capacity.(STATE WATCH)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... The private non-profit Middle-sex Driving Under the Influence of Liquor Program, a two-week inpatient program for individuals with two or more drunken-driving convictions, is expanding its capacity up to about 100 beds at the Tewksbury...

Lewis E. Gallant, Ph.D.(NAMES IN THE NEWS)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... Lewis E. Gallant, Ph.D., executive director of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD), will retire effective Feb. 6, 2009. Effective immediately, Robert Morrison, director of public policy, will serve as...

FDA rejects Pain Therapeutics NDA for Remoxy.(BUSINESS)(new drug application )(Food and Drug Administration )(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has rejected Pain Therapeutics, Inc.'s new drug application (NDA) for Remoxy, an abuseresistant controlled-release form of oxycodone for moderate-to-severe chronic pain. The company wrote on December 11...

SAMHSA white paper: Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention.(RESOURCES)(Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)(Brief article)
December 22, 2008... The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released a new white paper, "Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention: Evidence and Implications," focusing on current knowledge and stressing the importance of...

NIDA 2009 Avant-Garde Award.(CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS)
December 22, 2008... The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is seeking submissions for its 2009 Avant-Garde Award for Innovative Research in the Treatment of HIV/AIDS in Drug Abusers. The awards were created to honor "pioneering and possibly transformative...

Coming up ...(Calendar)
December 22, 2008... The Southeast Conference on Addictive Disorders (SECAD) will be held February 9-11, 2009 in Atlanta. Visit www.secad09.com for more information and to register. The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) will hold its 19th...

In case you haven't heard ...
December 22, 2008... Were you really just "tipsy"? Or might you actually have been "hammered"? Researcher Ash Levitt found that our "rich and diverse vocabulary of intoxication-related slang" can be misleading and varies significantly between men and women. For...

Study says prescription opioids lead cause of overdose deaths in West Virginia: OTPs not exonerated but not blamed.(opioid treatment programs)(Report)
December 15, 2008... A new study on unintentional prescription overdose deaths in West Virginia found that prescription opioids were involved in 93 percent of the deaths, and that 95 percent of the people who died had at least one indicator of substance abuse....

Flurry of activity to help veterans reflects provider-government cooperation.(Report)
December 15, 2008... While many see the arrival of a new administration and plans to name a general to run the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as an opportunity to fix systemic flaws in veterans' health care, many agencies serving returning soldiers with...

New Jersey comptroller, in first audit, blasts GCADA.(Governor's Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse)
December 15, 2008... The New Jersey Comptroller has found in an audit that the Governor's Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (GCADA) has been giving out $10 million in grants without proper review. The audit, released Dec. 4, was the first done by the new...

It's time for accountability--cost shifting to the public sector: exclusive for Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly.(FROM THE FIELD ...)
December 15, 2008... The Drug and Alcohol Service Providers Organization of Pennsylvania and the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws have jointly funded an analysis of the shifting of costs of addiction treatment from private insurance to public funding...

French doctor promotes baclofen as alcoholism cure.(Report)
December 15, 2008... Baclofen, a muscle relaxant, has become a celebrity in France, where a cardiologist says he has cured his alcoholism by self-administering large doses of the drug. In a book called Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass), Dr. Olivier Ameisen,...

Drug and alcohol use doubles risk of ICU visit.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(intensive care unit)(Report)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Drug and alcohol use doubles an individual's risk of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), inflating overall medical costs for this group, according to a study published in the December issue of Intensive Care Medicine. Reviewing...

Random drug testing common in New Jersey schools.(STATE WATCH)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Relative to other states, New Jersey takes an "aggressive" approach to student drug testing, reported the New York Times November 23, with 27 school districts currently implementing random testing. Ridge High School in Basking Ridge could...

Markus Heilig, M.D., Ph.D.(NAMES IN THE NEWS)(Brief article)
December 15, 2008... Markus Heilig, M.D., Ph.D., clinical director at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), has been awarded Hazelden's 2008 Dan Anderson Research Award for his identification of a novel neurotransmitter system involved...

Coming up ...(Calendar)
December 15, 2008... Southeast Conference on Addictive Disorders (SECAD) will be held February 9-11, 2009 in Atlanta. Visit www.secad09.com for more information and to register. The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) will hold its 19th Annual...

In case you haven't heard ...
December 15, 2008... A sugar binge has an effect similar to that of drug abuse, according to research presented last week at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Scottsdale, Ariz. A study of rats, funded by the National Institute on Mental Health,...

Sober home deaths in New York spur calls for regulation.
December 8, 2008... Two deaths last month in a Hempstead, New York "sober home"--and the arrest of the home's supervisor for allegedly putting one body in a truck and burning it--have put increased pressure on the state's Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse...

Federal data show self-help groups as integral part of individuals' support.
December 8, 2008... An annual average of 5 million people attend self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) for support as they combat substance use problems, and for two of every three attendees this participation appears to...

Methadone programs in Massachusetts warn of more cuts.(The Economic Crisis)(Report)
December 8, 2008... Some opioid treatment programs (OTPs) in Masschusetts must close their doors to anyone who doesn't have Medicaid because of budget cuts. The block grant combined with state dollars--known as the payer of last resort--is supposed to fund...

Arkansas task force calls for treatment expansion.(Report)
December 8, 2008... Calling untreated alcohol and drug abuse the "single greatest drain on Arkansas' state budgets," a state legislative task force last month issued a report recommending expanding treatment services. The report from the Legislative Task...

Buprenorphine offered at the window for stable patients.(FROM THE FIELD ...)(Report)
December 8, 2008... In response to the need for treatment services for employed opioid dependent individuals, West Midtown Medical Group has expanded its buprenorphine program. Our buprenorphine program now offers two types of therapy services in...

Illinois governor restores $55 million.(Update and correction)(Correction notice)
December 8, 2008... Gov. Rod Blagojevich has signed SB 1103 which restores $55 million to Illinois treatment funds. This ends the worst case of budget cutting in any state. Treatment advocates applauded the action, which took place Nov. 20, as the Nov. 24...

Study finds genetic variation linked with drinking intensity.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Report)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... An individual's drinking intensity may be partially explained by a variation in a gene coding for human serotonin, according to research to appear in the January issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. In the study (published...

Both methadone and buprenorphine improve cognitive functioning.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Report)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Whether on methadone or buprenorphine, opioid-dependent patients had significant improvements in concentration and executive function after 8 to 10 weeks of treatment, according to research published in the December issue of the Journal of...

Mo. highlights treatment shortage for substance-abusing soldiers.(STATE WATCH)(Report)(Brief article)
December 8, 2008... Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said the state's Fort Leonard Wood substance abuse treatment program had been "in shambles" for years. She suggested that Missouri's treatment shortage (in recent months only one counselor has been available for...

Coming up ...(Calendar)
December 8, 2008... The Southeast Conference on Addictive Disorders (SECAD) will be held February 9-11, 2009 in Atlanta. Visit www.secad09.com for more information and to register. The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) will hold its 19th...

In case you haven't heard ...
December 8, 2008... An alcoholic beverage may make the season seem brighter, but it will also make your pants feel tighter. Male drinkers consume an average of 8,210 calories each month from alcohol, while women drink 3,790 calories, according to a study...