Tag: drug testing
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Alcohol Testing for the Masses Or Bias Against Teetotalers?
In 2021, as part of the Biden administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure package, automakers were mandated to install new technology in vehicles to prevent motorists from driving intoxicated. And in December 2022 the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) began officially recommending that all new vehicles for personal use be equipped with alcohol detection devices – which makes sense…
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Worst Outcomes for Babies
Two noteworthy articles bleeped onto my radar on the same day recently. The first was a post about “Alcohol Use, Screening, and Brief Intervention Among Pregnant Persons — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, 2017 and 2019” and the other was “2023’s Best & Worst States to Have a Baby” from WalletHub. I fully realize that WalletHub is…
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Bias Against Babies
Bias is defined as “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” This topic comes up often regarding testing pregnant patients for misuse of drugs. For example, in April 2023, JAMA reported that “Black patients, regardless of history of substance use,…
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Whose Safety Is Being Secured?
Recent headlines have shown wide-ranging ideas about what should happen when those with substance use disorders (SUD) have babies born with unprescribed drugs, including alcohol, in their systems. The American Medical Association cautions “Don’t criminalize pregnant patients with substance use disorders,” and it seems that Ohio has taken that advice to heart, given this inflammatory…
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Legal ≠ Harmless
Somehow along the way, we’ve made a distinction between “hard” drugs and, well, other drugs, as though only “hard” drugs cause problems. We’ve forgotten that those other, less “hard” drugs are also dangerous. We’ve also stopped thinking of alcohol as a drug at all, despite it being one of the most abused and dangerous drugs…
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Testing for Truth
A recent edition of the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse reports that of the 1,300+ children, aged 9 to 13, surveyed, 9% more tested positive using hair testing for substance use than the 10% who self-reported use. Wait, now… The report indicates that 5% of 8th graders — children aged 13-14 — are reporting cannabis use…
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Where’s the Rx?
Over the last few days I’ve been confronted – again – with the realization that far too many people don’t believe addiction is a disease, no matter what they actually say about it. First, the municipality where I live, one where no cannabis use is legal, decided to drop the first possession ticket to a…
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Our Next New Drug Crisis
Ketamine has a long and storied history. Developed in the early 1960s as an anesthesia, it was deemed too dangerous for people due to its “intense, prolonged emergence delirium that ultimately made it undesirable for human use.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126726/ More studies; more testing; and the end result — well, maybe not the END result, but the…
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We Can’t Treat It If We Don’t Test For It
The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), is designed to “address the needs of infants born with and identified as being affected by substance abuse or withdrawal symptoms resulting from prenatal drug exposure, or a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.” The Act is an effort to, in part, address the health and substance use…
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Weed in the NBA
Big news before 4/20 was that the new NBA collective-bargaining contract will not require testing for THC. This new contract comes on the heels of the NBA having temporarily suspended testing of THC over the last three seasons, in part as a response to the COVID pandemic. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has gone on record…
Guided by Guida 