In a remarkable study published today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it was found that among 12th graders more report past-month marijuana use than they do cigarette use. This is the first time this has happened since 1981. The new statistics are found in this year's Monitoring the Future survey. The study comes out every year. The exact finding was that 21.4% of 12th graders used marijuana in the past 30 days, compared to 19.2% who smoked cigarettes. Other interesting findings...

For anyone interested in drugs, no matter the aspect (substance rehabilitation, public policy, cultural studies, etc.), it seems wise to learn at least a little bit about pharmacology. Pharmacology is the study of how drugs work in the body and the brain. It’s a rapidly developing field that could be the key to solving all sorts of problems – Alzheimer’s Disease, schizophrenia, depression, and so on. It tells us how drugs work in terms of their effects in our brains and on our behavior. For a...

The Institute of Medicine's 14 member panel has released the findings of their two year study of vitamin D and increased the recommended dietary allowance of vitamin D to 600 international units per day from the previous level of 400 international units per day. This is the second increase since the 1997 levels which were 200 international units per day. The panel was formed at the request of the governments of the United States and Canada. The panel examined thousands of publications and...

It's been exactly a week since my last article on Four Loko ("Wilmington Takes A Harder Look At Four Loko") and in that time a lot has changed. In fact, Four Loko went from being a potential menace (especially if you drink more than one) and college party favorite to a banned drink. How exactly did this happen so fast? Well, actually, it didn't happen that fast. According to Discover Magazine (in 2009) the FDA requested proof that the caffeinated alcohol drinks were safe back in 2009. The list...

Four Loko, the high alcohol high energy drink, has received a lot of attention lately (including from us - see "Alcoholic Energy Drinks More Than Most Can Handle" for more). There has been some new discussion locally as North Carolina contemplates doing what New York state recently did by banning the drink. At the moment Governor Perdue has asked manufacturers to voluntarily stop selling alcoholic energy drinks in the state. The University of North Carolina Wilmington's Substance Abuse and...

Prescription drug abuse is a major point of focus for our blog, as it is a problem the scope of which is still not fully understood. Florida has received a lot of attention for its pain clinics, but it seems the areas in which prescription drugs are mostly abused are rural (which should come as no surprise to the viewer of the OxyContin Express). According to a new study that will appear in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (see Science Daily for the full article), rural...