Wood County Prevention Coalition
Uniting For A Drug-Free Community Since 2004
UConn Study: Teenage Pot, Alcohol Use Can Reduce Success Later In Life
Hartford Courant
Nov 10 2017
Teens who use a lot of marijuana and alcohol are less likely to have a full-time job when they grow up, or to get a college education or get married, according to a new study by University of Connecticut researchers.
The study of 1,165 young adults from across the U.S. also found that dependence on pot and booze may also have a “more severe effect on young men” than on young women.
Young women who were dependent on marijuana and alcohol were also less likely to go to college and had a lower standard of living than nondependent women, but were equally likely to be employed full time and to get married as nondependent women.
“This study found that chronic marijuana use in adolescence was negatively associated with achieving important developmental milestones in young adulthood,” Elizabeth Harari, a UConn Health psychiatry resident and author of the study, told UConn Today.
The research comes from tracked information collected by the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism on young people beginning at age 12.
Feds move to crack down on opioid trafficking
11/09/17 02:54 PM EST
THE HILL
The Trump administration is taking steps to make it easier to prosecute traffickers of potent synthetic opioids that have lead to an uptick in overdose deaths.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intends to temporarily schedule all fentanyl-related substances on an emergency basis, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
That classification will let prosecutors charge people trafficking substances similar to fentanyl with the same charges as fentanyl, which is up to 50 times more potent than heroin.
“Fentanyl — and its analogues — are a growing part of a growing problem in the United States,” a DEA official said in a call with reporters, adding that the department is seeing “new fentanyl-related substances crop up at alarming rates.”
At issue are overseas chemical manufacturers who try to alter the chemical structure of fentanyl sent to the United States to evade the Controlled Substances Act. This also makes it harder for prosecutors to convict drug traffickers.
The temporary scheduling can last up to two years, with the possibility of a one-year extension. It goes into effect no sooner than 30 days after the DEA publishes a notice of intent in the Federal Register.
The opioid crisis is at its worst in rural areas. Can telemedicine help?
Some of the communities hit hardest by the opioid epidemic are in rural America. However, many of those same communities lack access to comprehensive treatment.
To address the epidemic’s increasing reach, the White House declared a public health emergency on Oct. 26. The administration outlined a need to expand treatment in rural communities, most notably by making telemedicine more readily available. Telemedicine, also referred to as telehealth, aims to improve treatment access by allowing people to consult their provider remotely – for example, by using videoconferencing.
As a researcher of opioid treatment in Michigan, I’m excited to see the call for greater availability of telemedicine as a way to help rural communities. However, telemedicine has important limitations that need to be considered.
Drug overdose deaths are rising in rural areas across the U.S. In 2015, the overdose death rate for rural areas surpassed the death rate for urban or suburban areas. People living in rural areas were four times more likely to die from overdoses in 2015 than they were in 1999. The opioid epidemic hit states east of the Mississippi River hardest, with the highest death rates in relatively rural states: West Virginia, New Hampshire and Kentucky.
RSVP to the next WCPC Community Meeting!
Wood County Prevention Coalition Meeting
Friday, Feb 9, 2018, 08:30 AM
Wood County Educational Service Center, 1867 N Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
About Us
Our Vision: Helping youth be drug-free, productive and responsible citizens.
Our Mission: We are a coalition of compassionate community members working together to coordinate high quality programs for the prevention of youth substance abuse in Wood County.
Email: mkarna@wcesc.org
Website: wcprevention.org
Location: 1867 Research Drive, Bowling Green, OH, United States
Phone: (419)-354-9010
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WCPCoalition
Twitter: @woodpccoalition