Drug News

Michigan, like the nation, is experiencing a troubling increase in prescription drug abuse — medicines for pain, hyperactivity and anxiety are triggering a rise in emergency hospital visits, overdose deaths and treatment for addiction. In Michigan, more residents now die from prescription drug abuse than from heroin and cocaine combined, a federal registry shows. In…

The number of college athletes testing positive for marijuana at postseason events nearly tripled in the NCAA’s most recent analysis. Though the association says it’s too early to draw conclusions from the finding, one anti-doping official says it raises concern. The number of positive marijuana tests across all three divisions increased from 28 in 2008-09…

Drivers high on marijuana represent an unrecognized crisis, experts tell the Los Angeles Times. A 2009 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), based on blood, breath and saliva tests collected on weekends from drivers in 300 locations nationally, found that 16.3 percent of drivers at night were impaired from legal or illegal…

Those who start using before 18 are six times more likely to become addicts, report says Nearly half of all U.S. high school students currently smoke, drink or use other drugs, and a third of users meets the medical criteria for addiction, according to a report out Wednesday. Adolescent substance use is “the number one…

The U.S. Justice Department has announced that medical marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers located in states with medical marijuana laws are not immune from prosecution for violation of federal drug and money-laundering laws. Currently the medical use of marijuana is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia, USA Today reports. According to the…

Everyone knows the dangers of drunk driving, but alcohol isn’t the only drug that poses a threat on the road. Among U.S. drivers who died in a car crash, about one in four tested positive for drugs such as marijuana, cocaine or amphetamines, a new study shows. Researchers looked at a government reporting system that…

Most men arrested in Atlanta test positive for illegal drugs at the time of their arrests, according to a new federal study. About 62 percent of men arrested in the city in 2010 tested positive for at least one drug, according to the National Drug Control Policy’s Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Annual Report. “Drug addiction…

Nine out of 10 Americans who meet the medical criteria for addiction (1) started smoking, drinking, or using other drugs before age 18, according to a national study released today by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA*) at Columbia University. Adolescent Substance Use: America’s #1 Public Health Problem reveals that adolescence is…

Eighty-two percent of seized cocaine contains levamisole, according to an April 2011 report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Why dealers would stretch their stash with levamisole instead of the more traditional fillers, like baking soda, is unclear, although studies in rats suggest the drug acts on the same brain receptors as cocaine. So it…

The 2010 report reveals that in the 10 participating cities/counties, more than half of adult males arrested for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies tested positive for at least one drug. Positive test results ranged from 52 percent in Washington, DC, to 83 percent in Chicago, Illinois, illustrating the link between drug use and crime…