A federal appeals court has sidestepped making a ruling on whether U.S. prison officials can hold people who were convicted of marijuana offenses that were legal under state medical marijuana laws.


In a decision Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals focused instead on a narrower issue.
The court was considering a legal challenge by prisoner Matthew Davies, who was convicted of federal marijuana charges.

An ambitious study led by San Diego State University researchers has investigated various factors that contribute to air pollution inside the house. Not surprisingly, cigarette smoke emerged as a major source of airborne particles in homes with smokers, but cleaning products, candles, frying food and marijuana smoking also jumped out as in-home air polluters.

One in three high school students reports riding with a driver who has been drinking, while nearly one in five was in a car where the driver had consumed marijuana, according to a new study from the University of Waterloo.

Researchers at the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact at Waterloo found that 35 per cent of students in Grades 9 to 12 reported riding in cars with drivers who consumed at least one drink within the previous hour.

In one of the first studies of its kind, nearly one-third of 10,000 older adults were prescribed opiate pain medications such as morphine, Percocet and OxyContin while hospitalized for non-surgical conditions, a course of care significantly linked to poor outcomes such as being restrained and requiring bladder catheterization, according to startling new research by Northwell Health physicians.

The study, "Opiate Prescribing in Hospitalized Older Adults: Patterns and Outcomes," is one of a pair focusing on pain management in older adults scheduled for presentation at the American Geriatrics Society Meeting being held in San Antonio, TX from May

The criminalization of drug use has a negative effect on efforts to prevent and treat people with HIV, suggests a review of published research conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of British Columbia.

The findings, appearing May 14 in The Lancet HIV, suggest that the so-called War on Drugs, which called for stiff penalties for possession of illegal drugs, has been unsuccessful in reducing drug use and has put thousands of people in jail who might be better served through drug treatment.

Urine samples can pick up some types of illicit drugs but can’t say whether that drug use affects someone’s ability to look for work. Credit: www.shutterstock.com
Drug testing people on welfare, as proposed in this year's federal budget, is a blunt way of tackling problems drug users face when looking for work.

The underlying concept of increasing employability for people with substance use disorders has some merit.

The Australian government's proposed random drug test trial for welfare recipients is not so random.

Announced as part of the 2017 federal budget, Treasurer Scott Morrison wants 5,000 people on Newstart or Youth Allowance in three locations to undergo random drug testing from January next year.
Traces of drugs including ecstasy, marijuana and ice will be sought using saliva, hair follicles and urine samples.

Credit: CC0 Public Domain
When high school students started smoking marijuana regularly they were less likely to get good grades and want to pursue university, according to a new study from the University of Waterloo.

The study, published in the Journal of School Health, found that when students started using marijuana at least once a month they were about four times more likely to skip class, two-to-four times less likely to complete their homework and value getting good grades, and about half as likely to achieve high grades, than when they had never used the drug.
The study also

Credit: Association for Psychological Science
Childhood bullying may lead to long-lasting health consequences, impacting psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular health well into adulthood, according to a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The unique study tracked a diverse group of over 300 American men from first grade through their early thirties and the findings indicate that being a victim of bullying and being a bully were both linked to negative outcomes in adulthood.

The study, led by psychology researcher Karen A.

(HealthDay)—A child bullied in fifth grade is more likely to show signs of depression in seventh grade, and abuse substances like alcohol, marijuana or tobacco in 10th grade, researchers say.

Their study of more than 4,000 kids in Los Angeles, Houston and Birmingham, Ala., suggests a dangerous trajectory between not-uncommon childhood abuse and worrisome behavior in high school.
"Our study suggests that it's important to take peer victimization seriously," said study co-author Valerie Earnshaw. She's an assistant professor in human development and family studies at the University of Delaware.