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According to a brand new study, published online this week in the journal, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety , Florida's recent legislative actions to 1.) strengthen the state's prescription drug monitoring program, and 2.) toughen the regulation of the state's pain clinics, seem to be having the desired effect: drug diversion has been dropping steadily since 2011. In addition, according to the state's commission of medical examiners, prescription opioid overdose deaths are dropping too . Here's the abstract from the article and a figure of the models of longitudinal change, according to each drug:  Reductions in prescription opioid diversion following recent legislative interventions in Florida Surratt, et al., 2013 Purpose Florida has been at the center of the nation's ongoing prescription opioid epidemic, with largely unregulated pain clinics and lax prescribing oversight cited as significant contributors to the opioid problem in the state. Methods In an ...

Race and Socioeconomic Status Affect Emergency Department Opioid Prescribing for Pain Prior research suggests that factors besides pain—such as patient race and ethnicity—affect opioid prescribing for pain, but those studies have often not adjusted for socioeconomic status (SES). In this study, investigators examined the association between race, ethnicity, and neighborhood SES on prescription of an opioid during an emergency department (ED) visit for moderate or severe pain in the National Hospital Ambulatory Care Survey. During 4 years there were over 183 million visits and opioids were prescribed during 50,264 of them. Compared with patients living in areas with the highest SES, patients living in areas with the lowest SES were less likely to receive opioids (39% versus 49% when neighborhood poverty was >20%; 41% versus 47% when median income was <$33,000; and 43% versus 46% when Black (39% versus 46% for white) and Hispanic (40% versus 45% for non-Hispanic) patients were less...

If there were lingering doubts about the effect of alcohol availability on alcohol consumption, a host of new studies seem to lead the reader to the same conclusion: that increases in availability are correlated to increases in consumption. In other words: if you build it (bar, liquor store, etc), we will drink. What's more, in many cases, it's not just drinking that will happen. So-called alcohol outlet density has been linked to interpersonal and intimate partner violence, adolescent consumption and beliefs about alcohol, and even alcohol-attributable deaths. On the other hand, raising the minimum prices or implementing taxes on alcohol sales seems to go a long way in reducing these potential harms. The journal, Addiction ,   has published several of these studies online in the past few weeks.  Gruenewald and colleagues  analyzed survey data from 50 California cities with populations between 50,000 - 500,000. They found "g reater on-premise outlet densities were re...

In his latest contribution to the academic literature , William L. White and colleagues turn their focus on 12-Step participation among patients in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). Rates of self-reported Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) attendance were very high; however, participants frequently reported that their MMT status prevented them from taking part in many of the "key ingredients" of the groups that most members take for granted. When asked about the experience, nearly half of all respondents who had attended NA or AA reported that they had "received negative comments about methadone use" and nearly "a quarter (24.4%) reported having had a serious problem within NA or AA related to their status as a methadone patient." The following table from the report details the "frequency with which respondents faced particular challenges": Table 4: NA and AA Responses to MMT Patient Status                     ...