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Laws and attitudes regarding cannabis have changed over the last 20 years. In 1991, no Americans lived in states with medical marijuana laws, while in 2012, more than one-third lived in states with medical marijuana laws, and fewer view cannabis use as entailing any risks. The new study is among the first to analyze the differences in cannabis use and cannabis use disorders before and after states passed medical marijuana laws, as well as differentiate between earlier and more recent periods and additionally examine selected states separately. The researchers used data from three national surveys collected from 118,497 adults: the 1991-1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey, the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions and the 2012-2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III. Overall, between 1991-1992 and 2012-2013, illicit cannabis use increased significantly more in states that passed medical mar...

Recently, scientists have been studying compounds called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are made of metal ions linked to organic ligands, for drug delivery. Active ingredients can be packed inside MOFs, which are porous, and some of them have additional traits such as water solubility that make them good candidates for drug couriers. But few studies have so far investigated whether such MOFs could be used in oral formulations. J. Fraser Stoddart and colleagues wanted to test promising MOFs using ibuprofen as a model drug. The researchers loaded therapeutically relevant concentrations of ibuprofen into easily prepared, biocompatible MOFs with cyclodextrin and alkali metal cations. Testing in mice showed that the compounds reached the blood stream quickly in about 10 to 20 minutes and lasted twice as long as ibuprofen salts, which are the active ingredient in commercial liquid gel formulations. The researchers say the promising findings suggest that these compounds could tak...

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco use kills more people worldwide than any other preventable cause of death. Global health experts believe the best way to reduce tobacco use is by stopping people starting to use tobacco, and encouraging and helping existing users to stop. The introduction of standardized (or 'plain') packaging was recommended by the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) guidelines. This recommendation was based on evidence around tobacco promotion in general and studies which examined the impact of changes in packaging on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. Standardized tobacco packaging places restrictions on the appearance of tobacco packs so that there is a uniform colour (and in some cases shape), with no logos or branding apart from health warnings and other government-mandated information; the brand name appears in a prescribed uniform font, colour, and size. A number of countries ha...

Usually, P-glycoprotein prevents most medicines from coming into the mind by pumping them again into the blood stream (left). The addition of amitriptyline quickly turns off P-glycoprotein pumps, permitting drug molecules to cross the blood-brain barrier (proper). Credit score: NIEHS NIH rat research suggests amitriptyline quickly inhibits the blood-brain barrier, permitting medication to enter the mind. New analysis from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being discovered that pairing the antidepressant amitriptyline with medication designed to deal with central nervous system ailments, enhances drug supply to the mind by inhibiting the blood-brain barrier in rats. The blood-brain barrier serves as a pure, protecting boundary, stopping most medication from coming into the mind. The analysis, carried out in rats, appeared on-line April 27 within the  Journal of Cerebral Blood Circulate and Metabolism . Though rese...

Those are just some of the findings of a new national survey on issues surrounding mental-health literacy by Michigan State University scholars. "Our work is designed to help communities think about how to address behavioral health challenges as they emerge , whether that's drug abuse, anxiety or other issues, and the challenges such as suicide that can accompany them," said Mark Skidmore, an MSU professor and co-investigator on the project. The national survey examines mental health literacy on four major issues: anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse and prescription drug abuse. The work is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and administered by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, within Agriculture Department. Skidmore said the web-based survey -- which involved nearly 4,600 total participants -- aims to give hea...

This large, nationally representative study is the first to look at blood pressure and cholesterol in social smokers. More than 10 percent of 39,555 people surveyed said they were social smokers, meaning they didn't smoke every day. That's on top of the 17 percent who called themselves current smokers. Among current and social smokers (after researchers adjusted for differences in factors including demographics and obesity), about 75 percent had high blood pressure and roughly 54 percent had high cholesterol . "Not smoking at all is the best way to go. Even smoking in a social situation is detrimental to your cardiovascular health," said lead author Kate Gawlik , assistant professor of clinical nursing at The Ohio State University. "One in 10 people in this study said they sometimes smoke, and many of them are young and already on the path to heart disease," she said. Smoking is a risk factor for unhealthy blood pressure and cholesterol and both a...

"Craving is considered one of the strongest predictors of relapse," said Dr. Xiaosi Gu, who runs the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Center for BrainHealth. "Even after an individual has broken the cycle of compulsive drug taking, craving can still persist. Although current treatment can handle a lot of the behavioral aspects of addiction, especially physical symptoms, craving is difficult to treat because it is a subject state. For example, when you are hungry, you have the urge to eat, but it is difficult to measure how compelling your urge to eat is in a quantitative way. However, if we could visualize craving activation in the brain, we would be better able to quantify and target it. We aim, with this new framework, to begin to separate craving from reward- or drug-seeking behavior." Research on drug craving has traditionally centered on studying cue response. For example, a marijuana study participant typically undergoes a brain scan while being shown ...

The study abstract, "Impact of Marijuana Legalization in Colorado on Adolescent Emergency Visits" on Monday, May 8 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. Colorado legalized the commercialization of medical marijuana in 2010 and recreational marijuana use in 2014. For the study, researchers reviewed the hospital system's emergency department and urgent care records for 13- to 21-year-olds seen between January 2005 and June 2015. They found that the annual number of visits with a cannabis related diagnostic code or positive for marijuana from a urine drug screen more than quadrupled during the decade, from 146 in 2005 to 639 in 2014. Adolescents with symptoms of mental illness accounted for a large proportion (66 percent) of the 3,443 marijuana-related visits during the study period, said lead author George Sam Wang, MD, FAAP, with psychiatry consultations increasing from 65 to 442. More than half also had positive urine drug screen tests for other dr...

"Children and young people look to movie stars as role models." said James D. Sargent, MD, FAAP, a professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Community & Family Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and an author of the study. "For alcohol companies, when a favorite star uses a certain brand of alcohol, that brand gets linked to all the characteristics young admirers see in their movie idol. That's why it's no surprise that the brands commonly shown in movies are the most highly advertised brands, and the same brands underage drinkers tend to drink," he said. The abstract, "Trends in alcohol brand placements in top U.S. Movies, 1996-2015," will be presented on Tuesday, May 9, at the Moscone Center West convention center. Looking at the top 100 movies with the highest U.S. box-office gross revenues each year during the two-decade study period, the researchers determined that alcohol brand placement increased annually b...

An abstract of the study, "A Novel Approach to Evaluating and Treating Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS)," will be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2017 Meeting in San Francisco on Sunday, May 7. An estimated 95 percent of U.S. hospitals use the Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Scoring System (FNASS) to guide treatment, based on 21 symptoms of opioid withdrawal. These include tremors, seizures, excessive crying, diarrhea, vomiting, congestion, sneezing and other symptoms that can make it difficult for the baby to eat and sleep. Babies with severe symptoms are started on pharmacologic therapy, typically using the narcotics morphine or methadone . Researchers at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital examined whether more non-pharmacologic interventions for NAS in a modified approach called the Eat, Sleep, Console (ESC) model, such as providing a low-stimulation environment, having mothers room-in with their infants and feeding them frequently, cou...