Emerging Drug Trends

A study from researchers at the Creighton University School of Medicine found that lung cancer patients who smoked marijuana and tobacco were diagnosed with the condition 2.8 years earlier than those who smoked tobacco but not marijuana.

Female youth aged 12 to 24 and youth of both sexes aged 14 to 16 living in states with legalized medical marijuana or recreational marijuana between 2000 and 2019 had higher rates of death by suicide than youth in states with no such laws, according to a report in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

For the first time, the number of Americans who use marijuana just about every day has surpassed the number who drink that often, a shift some 40 years in the making as recreational pot use became more mainstream and legal in nearly half of U.S. states.

Observed hallucinogen-associated ED visits increased by 54% between 2016 and 2022, from 2,260 visits to 3,476 visits.

As students head back to school, advocates for drug awareness are urging parents to be aware of the ongoing fentanyl epidemic.

(Associated Press, November 18) For the first time ever, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. surpassed 100,000 during a 12-month period.

(Chicago Sun-Times, March 5) Among U.S. teens, vaping (the use of e-cigarettes) continues to be very popular.  Dabbing – using an e-cigarette to ingest marijuana concentrates – is also gaining in popularity.

​(Health Day News, February 21) U.S. poison control centers are seeing an increase in calls related to the herbal substance kratom.

(HealthDay News, October 31) Fentanyl-laced drugs are behind a growing number of overdoses in the United States.

(Huffington Post, July 25) While men have higher rates of substance use than women nationwide, opioid use among women appears to be on the rise.