Sunday, July 31, 2005

2003 Survey Found Teens Hear Prevention Messages SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today released data showing that youth who reported seeing or hearing media messages on preventing drug and alcohol use are significantly less likely to report substance use. While 10.3 percent of youths who reported seeing or hearing media prevention messages in the past year reported binge alcohol use in the past month, 12.5 percent of youth who were not exposed to media prevention messages engaged in binge drinking. Similarly, 10.8 percent of youth who saw or heard media prevention messages reported past month illicit drug use compared to 13.7 percent who received no messages. In 2003, 83.6 percent of youth (20.8 million) reported seeing or hearing an alcohol or drug prevention message. SAMHSA extracted the data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2003, which asked youth ages 12-17 if they had seen or heard any alcohol or drug prevention messages from posters, pamphlets, radio, TV or other sources. The survey also asked about alcohol and drug use." See also the full report (in HTML and PDF formats) and related resources at the OAS site.  
  

Clinical Support System Available to Assist Physicians who Treat Patients Dependent on Opiates  SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today announced the availability of the Physician Clinical Support System (PCSS) to assist physicians who prescribe or dispense buprenorphine to their patients dependent on heroin or prescription drugs containing opiates. SAMHSA, in collaboration with the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and other specialty addiction medicine, psychiatric, pain and general medicine societies, created the support system to assist physicians in the appropriate use of buprenorphine, and to promote improved patient care, research and education."