Drug and alcohol dependence
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Mar 2018
Sexual minority youth continue to smoke cigarettes earlier and more often than heterosexuals: Findings from population-based data.
An established body of research documents that sexual minority (i.e., lesbian, gay, and bisexual) populations are at higher risk for several adverse health behaviors and outcomes compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Smoking is one behavior where the gap is especially large, particularly among youth. Researchers have increasingly drawn attention to contextual determinants of health behaviors affecting sexual minority youth. ⋯ Findings may suggest that targeted tobacco control programs in Massachusetts are needed; perhaps shifts in social attitudes toward smoking have affected smoking behaviors in diverse segments of society.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Feb 2018
"You got to love rosin: Solventless dabs, pure, clean, natural medicine." Exploring Twitter data on emerging trends in Rosin Tech marijuana concentrates.
"Rosin tech" is an emerging solventless method consisting in applying moderate heat and constant pressure on marijuana flowers to prepare marijuana concentrates referred to as "rosin." This paper explores rosin concentrate-related Twitter data to describe tweet content and analyze differences in rosin-related tweeting across states with varying cannabis legal statuses. ⋯ Our results indicate that there are higher proportions of personal communication tweets and Twitter users tweeting about rosin in U.S. states where cannabis is legalized. Rosin concentrates are advertised as a safer, more natural form of concentrates, but more research on this emerging form of marijuana concentrate is needed.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Feb 2018
Multicenter StudyLong-acting intramuscular naltrexone for opioid use disorder: Utilization and association with multi-morbidity nationally in the Veterans Health Administration.
Long acting intramuscular (IM) naltrexone is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), but rates and correlates of its use have not been studied. ⋯ IM naltrexone is rarely used for OUD and is primarily used for patients with multiple co-morbidities, especially alcohol use disorder and serious mental illness. The use of this treatment illustrates many of the principles identified by the emerging focus on multi-morbidity as a critical feature of clinical practice.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Feb 2018
Performance of cigarette susceptibility index among e-cigarette and hookah users.
Susceptibility to cigarette smoking has been used since the mid-1990s as a measure to identify youth at risk of cigarette initiation. However, it is unclear how well this measure predicts future smoking among electronic (e-)cigarette or hookah users, or among those in tobacco-friendly social environments. ⋯ Our findings suggest that use of the susceptibility to smoking index in cross-sectional studies of older adolescents to identify those likely to begin smoking may be inappropriate for those using alternative tobacco products (e.g., e-cigarettes or hookah).
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Feb 2018
Randomized Controlled TrialOndansetron does not prevent physical dependence in patients taking opioid medications chronically for pain control.
In this study, we investigated the co-administration of ondansetron with morphine, and whether it could prevent the development of physical dependence in patients taking opioids for the treatment of chronic pain. ⋯ We hypothesized that ondansetron would prevent the development of physical dependence in human subjects when co-administered with opioids, but found no difference in naloxone-precipitated opioid withdrawal scores between ondansetron and placebo treatment groups. These results suggest that further studies are needed to determine if 5HT3 receptor antagonists are useful in preventing opioid physical dependence.