Entries for July 2012

In King County, Washington, a portion of all sales tax collected is dedicated to substance abuse, mental health and therapeutic court services. The Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Plan, passed by the King County Council in 2007, has helped prevent and reduce the involvement of people with substance use disorders and mental illness in the criminal justice system, says the plan’s project manager.

Colombia’s cocaine production dropped 25 percent from the previous year, the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy announced Monday. Peru and Bolivia are now the world’s top producers of the drug.

The Affordable Care Act makes changes to the health insurance system and to health insurance benefits, which may affect the cost of insurance and healthcare for people with substance use disorders, according to The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

Party buses, promoted as a safe way to transport teens and adults to nightclubs and other hot spots, turn a blind eye to teen drinking, according to critics. The vehicles also dump hard-drinking partygoers in neighborhoods that don’t want them, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

A new study by Harvard researchers finds former smokers have an increased risk of developing two common types of inflammatory bowel disease, compared with people who have never smoked.

A federal appeals court has upheld a federal judge’s order that requires tobacco manufacturers to run corrective ads about the dangers of smoking, the Associated Press reports.

A pilot program in Ohio is using fingerprint scans in an effort to fight prescription drug abuse. Patients submit to a scan before seeing doctors in one hospital system, while several pharmacies are using the scans for patients filling prescriptions.

Some trucking companies are using hair tests to test drivers for drug use, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Medical marijuana may worsen driving skills, but typical sobriety tests do not detect the impairment, a small study suggests.

Tobacco manufacturers have promoted menthol cigarettes as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes. The FDA needs to do the right thing and ban menthol, for adults who currently smoke and young people who may be susceptible to initiating smoking, explains Amber E. Bullock of Legacy®.