Commentary: From community mental health to substance abuse treatment: bridging treatment cultures

News: Teen drug use fluctuates, says NIDA

News: Cannabis and schizophrenia
Evidence indicates a relationship between marijuana use and later schizophrenia. Should this be a factor in debates about legalizing marijuana?(online surveys) Smoking marijuana (cannabis), an icon of the bandana-wearing flower-child generation, is a subject of ongoing medical debate and a ballot measure in many states. Is cannabis use harmless recreation, a medical necessity for end-of-life pain, or a disorder contributing to psychosis and associated with schizophrenia? Perhaps all three? It is the latter question that engaged a team of...
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News: In the journals. . .focus on youth
From the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine: In the 1960s an anti-war poster read, "War is not healthy for children or other living things." A study in the Nov. issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine confirmed this sentiment with a study of 169 families: "Children age 3 and older who had a deployed parent had significantly higher scores on measures of externalizing and overall behavior problems than children of the same age without a deployed parent."...
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News: Substance use highest in US
A recent survey of 17 countries by the World Health Organization found the United States ranked highest for drug and alcohol use. Roughly 16 percent of those surveyed had tried cocaine, about four times higher than the next country which was New Zealand. Slightly moer than four out of 10 people had tried marijuana in both countries. The survey consisted of 54,068 people....
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News: No two alike: study on substance use and mental health
Communities differ in substance abuse and mental health problems, and a new report from SAMSHA details the use of addictive substances -- pain relievers, marijuana, cocaine -- based on responses from 200,000 people in 345 selected regions of all 50 states. Some of the findings: Nationally, 7.7 percent of the population aged 12 or older was classified with being dependent on or having abused alcohol in the past year in 2004-2006. Nationally, 7.6 percent of adults aged 18 or older...
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News: Decriminalizing marijuana
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) intends to introduce a federal bill decriminalizing marijuana. While some view this as exciting news, the evidence linking marijuana addiction to the onset of psychosis and as a trigger for schizophrenia, along with the clinical impact of withdrawal of this highly addictive agent, should be part of any conversation. He followed his announcement on the Bill Maher show, with a press release today....
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News: Marijuana withdrawal
Cannabis withdrawal was observed in a pilot study of adolescents (n=21) voluntarily attending a substance abuse program. An article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry reports that during the month of observation, the 13-19 year olds displayed clinical symptoms of withdrawal including twitching, irritability and cravings....
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News: Smoking, dopamine and mental illness
Nicotine has long been known to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and cancer, but it also is a gateway to substance abuse and marijuana, and a factor in mental illness. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has now published Tobacco -- The Smoking Gun (for purchase or free pdf download) discussing the damage done to the adolescent brain. Anxiety symptoms are stronger for smokers than for non-smokers, and twice as many (22 percent)...
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News: Anxiety and substance abuse in teens
A study (N=816) reported in the ">Journal of Psychiatric Research concludes that social anxiety is a more likely risk factor for alcohol and marijuana abuse in teens than mood or other anxiety disorders....
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News: MRI pinpoints how cannabis promotes psychosis
San Diego Tribune, April 30, 2007 Researchers from London’s Institute of Psychiatry have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to link cannabis to “reduced function in the inferior frontal cortex brain region.” The association between THC, a potent ingredient of cannabis, and psychosis has long been suspected, and this study pinpoints where it interferes with the part of the the brain controlling emotional and behavioral responses. Recent strains of cannabis, also called "marijuana, " “skunk” or “weed,” show greater concentrations of...
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