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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...

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...