News & Updates

Winter is the peak season for full-time college students to start non-medical use of prescription drugs, such as pain relievers and stimulants, indicates a new study by SAMHSA. The study, which tracks initiation by month, reveals that in the past year, approximately 251,000 full-time college students started the non-medical use of pain relievers, with an average of 700 initiates a day. However, this rate rises to 850 initiates a day during December, according the study. Further, more students start non-medical use of stimulant medications in November, December, and April. Specifically, about 500 students per day start abusing stimulants during those months, compared with 400 students on an average day. SAMHSA notes that because the rise in the initiation of non-medical use of prescription stimulants coincides with the times of the year that many college final exams and midterm exams occur, this may suggest that students believe non-medical use of stimulants can benefit academic performance.

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 14, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. "epidemic" of prescription-painkiller abuse may be starting to reverse course, a new study suggests.

Experts said the findings, published Jan. 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, are welcome news. The decline suggests that recent laws and prescribing guidelines aimed at preventing painkiller abuse are working to some degree.

To help visitors to WWW.AWARERX.ORG more easily find disposal locations in their area, the AWARXE® Prescription Drug Safety Program has launched a location-based search tool. Visitors who type an address, city, state, or zip code into the website’s new search tool will receive a list and map of the closest medication disposal sites. Law enforcement organizations, civic centers, and pharmacies are the most common sites where prescription drugs can be disposed of in a manner that is safe for family, friends, and the environment.

In the July 2014 issue of Diabetes Care, written by Chiang, Kirkman, Laffel, and Peters, (Diabetes Care 2014; 37:2034–2054 | DOI: 10.2337/dc14-1140), new guidelines were provided for hemoglobin (hb) A1c. No longer are A1cs stratified by different age groups. Rather, new guidelines have been developed according to recent evidenced-based literature. They are as follows:

Patient satisfaction is higher when a pharmacist works with a patient to increase adherence and to thoroughly explain the risks and side effects of medications using multiple communication channels, a report from JD Power indicates.