The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a mouthful. It is also a beast of a statute that would take hours to summarize. In essence, it is a law aimed at protecting our private healthcare information from disclosure to third parties.
A professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has published a new study on the effect of the legalization of marijuana in the Netherlands. The Dutch now have some of the least restrictive laws in the world, allowing marijuana to be sold freely in stores to anyone over 18 years old. Advertising marijuana and growing [...]
A new book by a professor at Johns Hopkins University explains why addiction is a brain disease, and not a moral issue of self-control. In The Compass of Pleasure, neuroscientist Dr. David Linden explains how neurons in the brain control the experience of pleasure, and how drugs and alcohol can actually rewire and change the [...]
Candy shaped like marijuana leaves has been distributed to over 1,000 stores around America. The candy’s packaging features the word "legalize" and a person smoking marijuana dressed in 1960s "peace-loving" clothing.
People with "addictive personalities" may have qualities that could also make them leaders, according to Dr. David Linden, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an expert on substance abuse.
The use of otherwise illegal hallucinogens in the laboratory, under strict supervision of experts, is revealing a promising application for psilocybin, the active ingredient in the plant known as the "magic mushroom." The findings about the drug’s usefulness may reignite testing of hallucinogens abandoned decades ago because of negative side effects.
Those who institute programs to provide education and intervention are aware of the importance of reaching young people at high risk for using alcohol or drugs. For those who begin using illegal substances during their teen years, there is a longer exposure to the substances. In addition, the risks associated with teen drug abuse increase [...]
A recent study highlighted in Science Daily talks about the relationship alcohol plays in sexual assaults. It shows that men who are prone to angry outbursts towards women are most likely to commit sexual assault while intoxicated, especially in an environment that accepts sexual aggression.
By Meghan Vivo After four years of research and consultations with 80 addiction experts, clinicians and scientists, the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s long-awaited definition of addiction has arrived. But is it a change in the right direction? The new definition has garnered the support of many experts in the field as well as its [...]
An interesting study was recently concluded by a research team out of the Boston area hospital system Cambridge Health Alliance. The researchers investigated health insurance provisions relating to mental health and substance abuse coverage available to medical students. The team looked at websites and surveys pertaining to 115 of the nation’s 129 medical schools.
