This week the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) announced that Dr. Marilyn Huestis, Chief of Chemistry and Drug Metabolism at NIDA’s Intramural Research Program (IRP) in Baltimore, Maryland, has retired from government service. Dr. Huestis is internationally known and respected for her work...

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has released its Strategic Plan for 2016-2020: Advancing Addiction Science, focusing on its mission to advance science on the causes and consequences of drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health. Drug...

©iStock/MachineHeadz The concept of addiction as a brain disease is still being questioned. Yet, an article published today in The New England Journal of Medicine by NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow, NIAAA Director Dr. George Koob, and Dr. A. Thomas McLellan, co-founder and Chair of the Board of the...

©Shutterstock/Ralf Kleemann Driving under the influence of drugs is a major public safety issue, and marijuana is the illicit drug most commonly found in the blood of drivers. There is an ongoing challenge to develop valid tests of driver intoxication with appropriate legal limits for blood...

A new scientific review suggests that federal and state policies aimed at curbing inappropriate prescribing of opioids have not directly led to the recent increases in heroin use across the nation. Researchers conducting an analysis of the relationship between prescription opioid and heroin abuse...

Photo by morgueFile.com Recent research sheds light on the risks of prescribing opioids to pregnant women and their exposed infants – underscoring the importance of following good opioid prescription practices, according to an editorial published today in the British Medical Journal by Dr. Nora D...

Schools can now register for Drugs & Alcohol Chat Day, the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) annual Web chat that connects NIH and FDA scientists with teens around the country, at http://teens.drugabuse.gov/national-drug-facts-week/chat-with-scientists. Teens, who are bombarded daily...

The 2015 Monitoring the Future survey (MTF) shows decreasing use of a number of substances, including cigarettes, alcohol, prescription opioid pain relievers, and synthetic cannabinoids (“synthetic marijuana”). Other drug use remains stable, including marijuana, with continued high rates of daily...

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will hold a teleconference and Twitter chat on Wednesday, December 16, to discuss the results of the 2015 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey. The survey, conducted earlier this year by scientists at the University of Michigan, tracks annual drug use and...

Archived 02/02/2017 For the counselors who work in suicide crisis centers affiliated with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, it can be hard not to be affected by serving callers so distressed they want to kill [...]