Greetings everyone. This weekly ATOD & Advocacy
Update will go on hiatus for two weeks. We will be back on Friday, May 30th.
Thank you!
Raising a glass to the
booming alcohol industry
Marc Sorini got his first taste of life as an alcohol lawyer
two decades ago as a young attorney working for the California winery that
makes the wine known as “Two-Buck Chuck.” Sorini, now head of McDermott Will
& Emery’s alcohol regulatory and distribution group in Washington, was part
of the legal team for Bronco Wine Co., which produces Trader Joe’s Charles Shaw
label — commonly known as Two-Buck Chuck. The winery was facing off against
regulators who claimed the brand name of a wine, Rutherford Vineyards, was
misleading because it did not reflect the region where the grapes were grown. Click
here to continue reading.
Heroin’s New Hometown - On
Staten Island, Rising Tide of Heroin Takes Hold
The obituaries have a certain sameness to them: full of
praise and regret for lives cut short, marked by telltale details and
omissions. The deaths occurred at home, or at a friend’s house elsewhere on
Staten Island. The mourned were often young and white, and although how they
died was never mentioned, nearly everyone knew or suspected the cause. Click
here to continue reading.
We Need Al Capone Drug
Laws
AFTER a ruinous 30-year experiment in harsh sentences for
narcotics trafficking resulting in mass incarceration, policy makers are having
second thoughts. Many states, including Texas, have reformed their laws to
shorten sentences. Congress is giving serious consideration to the Smarter
Sentencing Act, which would do the same. The United States Sentencing
Commission has just adopted a proposal to revise federal guidelines. Click
here to continue reading.
Hallucinating Away a
Heroin Addiction
This junkie is about to begin a three-day, neo-African,
sometimes-terrifying, ritualistic trip. Can it help her get clean?
It’s been 56 hours since Grace Bergere’s last shot of heroin—too
long.
Curled into a fetal position on an outdoor, candle-lit matt
in Costa Rica, the 18-year-old trembles in fear. A petrified grimace wrinkles
the white clay adorning her face. Her rail thin body, wrapped in a ceremonial
red sheet, looks paralyzed at points—then, without warning, her limbs thrash in
revolt, as she tries to keep the demons haunting her at bay. But it’s too late.
The demons are just getting started. Click
here to continue reading.
Enlisting dentists to
fight meth
Methamphetamine addiction is the new crack epidemic—a
scourge that rips up communities, especially rural ones, and has frustrated
many attempts to slow it down. Now a new project from the Tufts School of
Dental Medicine suggests that an important weapon in the fight could be
dentists. The idea, as explained in a recent issue of the Tufts Dental Medicine
Magazine, was developed by Jennifer Towers after a vacation trip to the small
Idaho town of Coeur d’Alene. Towers, the dental school’s director of research
affairs, saw lots of young Idahoans with really bad teeth, a side effect of
rampant addiction to methamphetamine. The drug can cause teeth gnashing so
intense it leads to cracked enamel and, eventually, a grotesque state of tooth
decay known as “meth mouth.” Click
here to continue reading.
9 Myths about Alcohol,
Busted
It's the world's most used drug, and the drug that most
frequently sends users to the emergency room, and yet less than 60 percent of
heavy drinkers recognize that their habits put them at high risk, according to
the 2014 Global Drug Survey.
Whether it's because of alcohol's celebratory feel or -- in
moderation -- its health benefits or simply its ubiquity in social gatherings,
many drinkers just don't take their drinking seriously. We asked Kenneth R.
Warren, Ph.D., deputy director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism (NIAAA), to help set the record straight. Click
here to continue reading.
Taking Aim at 12-Step
Programs - ‘The Sober Truth’: Seeing Bad Science in Rehab
Did you know that the most widely accepted treatments for
alcohol and drug addiction — Alcoholics Anonymous and similar 12-step programs
— rest on the flimsiest of scientific evidence? I didn’t. That and more are
what the psychiatrist Dr. Lance Dodes and Zachary Dodes (father and son) claim
in this polemical and deeply flawed book about the nature and treatment of
addiction. Click
here to continue reading.
Police Access to
Prescription-Drug Records Gets Tougher
Courts, Legislators Begin to Restrict Warrantless Access to
Users' Records.
For years, police across the country have had little trouble
gaining records of prescription drugs used by individuals they suspect of
committing a crime. But some courts and legislators are starting to restrict
the data, citing privacy concerns. Click
here to continue reading.
10 Percent of Older Teens
Had Major Depressive Episode in Past Year
A new government report finds 10 percent of 16- and
17-year-olds had a major depressive episode in the past year. Almost 20 percent
of young adults, ages 18 to 25, had any mental illness in the past year. Click
here to continue reading.
DEA to boost marijuana
supply for research
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is approving a
massive increase in the amount of marijuana that government researchers can use
for studies due to a growing interest in medical marijuana. The National Institute
on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will now have access to 650 kilograms of pot, after the
DEA announced Friday in the Federal Register it is raising the production quota
from 21 kilograms. Click
here to continue reading.
Less Than Half of College
Students Say Misuse of Prescription Stimulants is “Cheating”
Only 41 percent of college students say misusing
prescription stimulants for academic purposes should be considered cheating,
according to a survey at an unnamed Ivy League institution. The survey found 18
percent of students said they misused stimulant drugs in an attempt to gain an
academic advantage at least once in college. Of students who used stimulant
drugs, 24 percent said they had done so eight or more times, Inside Higher Ed
reports. While 33 percent of students did not think using drugs such as
Adderall or Ritalin was cheating, 25 percent were unsure, and 41 percent
considered it cheating. The study included 616 college students without
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who completed an anonymous online
questionnaire. More students who played a varsity sport and were affiliated
with a Greek house said they misused stimulants, compared with students
affiliated with only one or neither. The findings were presented at the
Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting.
The Surprising History of
Making Alcohol a Powdered Substance
A startup is seeking approval to sell alcohol in tiny
inconspicuous packets. But the science is decades old. Click
here to continue reading.
The Missing Factor
Last week, the Obama administration released an important
report, “Not Alone,” addressing the daunting problem of sexual assault on
college campuses. The report was accompanied by an extensive set of helpful
questions and answers to guide colleges and universities in compliance with
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that provides the legal
framework for oversight of how colleges and universities assure that all
students are free from sexual harassment and assault. It was also accompanied
by an advance summary of a systematic review of the literature on primary
prevention strategies for reducing sexual violence conducted by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Click
here to continue reading.
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