Civil Citations for Cannabis Possession: Alternatives to Arrest for Adolescent Substance Use

Results from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) have indicated that approximately 8% of responding adolescents ages 12–17 engaged in illicit substance use during the past year; the most commonly reported substance used was marijuana (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), NSDUH series H-44, HHS publication no. (SMA) 12-4713, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, MD, 2012). Importantly, marijuana use places adolescents at risk of arrest when found in possession of cannabis. Drug abuse violations are associated with multiple consequences for the youth, their families, and communities. Policy makers, therefore, have encouraged the use of civil citations to reduce drug abuse related arrests for youth. Purpose: The current study sought to identify and describe civil citations use for youth marijuana possession. Methods: Using a secondary dataset, we examined aggregate arrests in a Central Florida county. Results: During a 3-year period, 1635 arrests were made for cannabis possession. The vast majority of such arrests were for multiple charges (n?=?1272; 78%). For those arrested due to cannabis possession alone (n?=?363; 22%), over 75% were adults (n?=?281). Therefore, only 82 youth were arrested under the charge, accounting for less than one quarter of all arrests for F.S. §893.13.6b (2013). However, the majority of these youth were detained in juvenile assessment centers (65%, n?=?59); a rate markedly higher than their adult counterparts (37%, n?=?105). Discussion: Due to the concerns associated with arrest and detainment, the authors contend efforts should be made to increase use of civil citations for youth with cannabis possession when possible. Implications for policy are presented.     

INTERGENERATIONAL EFFECTS OF WELFARE REFORM: ADOLESCENT DELINQUENT AND RISKY BEHAVIORS

This study investigates effects of welfare reform in the United States on the next generation. Most previous studies of effects of welfare reform on adolescents focused on high‐school dropout of girls or fertility; little is known about how welfare reform has affected other teenage behaviors or boys. We use a difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences framework to identify gender‐specific effects of welfare reform on skipping school, fighting, damaging property, stealing, hurting others, smoking, alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs. Welfare reform led to increases in delinquent behaviors of boys as well as increases in substance use of boys and girls, with substantially larger effects for boys. (JEL K42, I12, I31, I38)     

Price and Enforcement Effects on Cocaine and Marijuana Demand

This article estimates equations for past year cocaine and marijuana use among adult and juvenile respondents of the 1990–97 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse. Unlike most previous studies, we control for the monetary price of marijuana, probabilities of arrest for marijuana and cocaine possession, and state fixed effects. Results indicate that cocaine prices are inversely related to adult cocaine and marijuana demand but are unrelated to juvenile drug demand, marijuana price effects are always statistically insignificant, estimated price effects are inflated when state effects are omitted, and increases in each arrest probability diminish both types of drug use.     

Comparing drug use between welfare-receiving arrestees and non-welfare-receiving arrestees

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) symbolized a comprehensive change to the nation's welfare system. Despite several provisions within PRWORA that focus on the use of illegal drugs, few studies have attempted to identify the prevalence of illegal drug use among welfare recipients. Moreover, no scholarly works have compared rates of drug use in welfare-receiving populations to those of non-welfare-receiving populations with an objective measure of drug use. In the current study, urine specimens were collected from 1,572 arrestees interviewed through Houston's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program in 1999. Drug positive rates are compared between welfare-receiving arrestees (n = 116), non-welfare receiving arrestees living below the poverty level (n = 539), and non-welfare receiving arrestees living above the poverty level (n = 917). Welfare-receiving arrestees were more likely to be female, older, less educated, and to test positive for opiates and benzodiazepines than the other subgroups. Implications for welfare reform policy are discussed in light of the current findings.     

NASADAD to NIDA: Connect research to practice

When the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) sought input on its five‐year plan, the people responsible for publicly funded prevention, treatment and recovery — state directors — called for returning to the days of communication between federal agencies like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and between NIDA researchers and the service delivery system. In an Aug. 7 letter to NIDA's strategic planning team, Robert I.L. Morrison, executive director of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD), noted that each state alcohol and drug agency has a critical role to play in NIDA initiatives. This role includes.     

Study: Elevated risk of substance use if parents use marijuana

Last month, JAMA Network Open published a study indicating that recent and past parental marijuana use confers a heightened risk for use of marijuana — and other substances — by their adolescent and young adult offspring who live in the same household. The article from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the National Institute on Drug Abuse and McLean Hospital is in line with federal anti‐marijuana policy (marijuana is still illegal under federal law, although states have legalized it, both recreationally, in some cases, and medically, in more).     

EFFECTS OF WELFARE REFORM ON WOMEN'S VOTING PARTICIPATION

This study investigates the effects of welfare reform in the United States in the 1990s on voting among low‐income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of welfare reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period in which welfare reform unfolded. During this time period, voter turnout was decreasing in the United States. We find robust evidence that welfare reform led to smaller declines in voting (about 3 to 4 percentage points, which translates to about 10% relative to the baseline mean) for women who were exposed to welfare reform compared to several different comparison groups of similar women who were much less exposed. The robust findings suggest that welfare reform had prosocial effects on civic participation, as characterized by voting. The effects were largely confined to presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income. (JEL D72, H53, I38, J21)     

President's proposed budget would slash treatment and prevention funding

We had a feeling of déjà vu when the White House sent its proposed budget to Congress last week. Similar to past years, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) would be decimated, moving the $100 million Drug‐Free Communities program to the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). There's no additional money in the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant and cuts to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, CSAP and SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.     

NIDA: Plethora of treatments for SUDs,regardless of substance

When people refer to “evidence‐based” treatment, they mean treatment that has been proven to be effective and has been incorporated into strict protocols via manuals, so they can be replicated. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has been tracking the many treatment models for general substance use disorders, as well as for specific substances. Motivational interviewing (MI), medication‐assisted treatment (MAT), contingency management (CM) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are all evidence‐based modalities, explained Ruben Baler, Ph.D., NIDA health scientist, in an email to ADAW.     

Utility of Hospital Emergency Department Data for Studying Intimate Partner Violence

The authors examine 12 months of emergency department visit data (N= 2,521) from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System All Injury Program and explore its utility for measuring and studying intimate partner violence. Given the dearth of national data on intimate partner violence–related injury and its potential value for public health surveillance and prevention, the data set appears promising for estimating national rates of emergency department visits. Missing perpetrator‐patient relationship data limit estimation of intimate partner–related hospital visits for injury and pain, which precludes national rate estimation at this time, but the data are still useful for describing documented intimate partner violence cases and may be helpful in designing prevention strategies.     

Briefly Noted

Drug‐Free Communities (DFC), a significant prevention grant program totaling more than $101 million and administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), will be moving to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the change is mainly one that affects interagency machinations in Washington and not the end recipients of the funding — drug‐free coalitions. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will retain the program and policy oversight. The funding will go to the ONDCP, and then be distributed to the CDC instead of to SAMHSA, as it has been in the past. The DFC grant program funds anti‐drug coalitions ‐‐ there are more than 700 across the country. Most are members of Community Anti‐Drug Coalitions of American (CADCA), which has 5,000 members. The CDC will be the new agency that subcontracts with the ONDCP to do the day‐to‐day administration of the DFC program. The change was announced Feb. 4 at CADCA's National Leadership Forum by ONDCP Director James Carroll. For a 2019 fact sheet on DFC, see https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp‐content/uploads/2019/12/FY‐2019‐DFC‐Fact‐Sheet‐20191220‐converted.pdf .     

NASADAD pushes block‐grant increase for stimulus 4 bill

The National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) last week wrote to Sen. Patty Murray (D‐ Washington) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R‐Missouri), the Senate co‐chairs of the Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, asking specifically for the $1.5 billion in supplemental funding as provided by the House in the HEROES Act for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant (see “Proposed bill for HEROES Act would give $1.5 billion to SAPT block grant,” ADAW, May 18, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.32722 ).     

Correlates of Race and Substance Abuse with Religious Support Systems: A Study of Pregnant Substance Abusers

Women who misuse substances may have decreased connections with community structures, including religious support systems. This study examined the correlates of race, age, socioeconomic status, and drug use status on 1,116 pregnant women's connections with religious support structures. Data were derived from the 2002 National Survey of Drug Abuse and the 2003 National Survey of Drug Use and Health and were used to perform a secondary analysis of the variables. Results of the analyses revealed that race is not an indicator of social connectivity; while drug use, age, and socioeconomic status are indicators.     

School dropout and injecting drug use in a national sample of white non-Hispanic American adults

In this study we sought to extend our previous finding of an association between school dropout and injecting drug use (IDU) among African Americans by testing the association in a sample of White non-Hispanic Americans. A nationally representative sample of White non-Hispanic Americans age eighteen years and older was drawn from public use data files of the 1995-1996 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). Adults with a self-report history of IDU were identified, and were matched to non-IDU adults in the same neighborhoods of residence. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the association between dropping out of high school and the occurrence of IDU. White non-Hispanic American high school dropouts were more likely than high school graduates to have injected a drug at least once. The findings of this research on non-Hispanic Whites are generally consistent with our earlier evidence on the association between educational status and a history of IDU among African-American adults. School dropout prevention programs may merit attention in an overall strategy of preventing injecting drug use and HIV/AIDS.     

Abstracts of the Scientific Programs of the American College Health Association Fifty-Ninth Annual Meeting April 21–24, 1981, Boston,Massachusetts

Abstract

The authors examined changes in college students' illicit drug use, patterns of polydrug use, and the relationship between students' ages of initiation of substance use and later use of marijuana and other illicit drugs between 1993 and 2001. Data from 119 US colleges and universities in the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study were used in the study. They found significant increases in percentages of students' use of marijuana in the past 30 days (from 13% to 17%), past year (from 23% to 30%), and lifetime (from 41% to 47%) between 1993 and 2001, with most of the increase occurring between 1993 and 1997. Past 30-day use of other illicit drugs increased from 4% to 7% and past year use increased from 11% to 14%. More than 98% of marijuana and other illicit drug users used another substance. They also either smoked, were binge drinkers, and/or were users of another illicit drug. Drug prevention programs should emphasize heavy alcohol use and smoking and should start when students are in high school or earlier.     

Pharmacy model for methadone,NAS link to demographics

In “Methadone Matters: What the United States Can Learn from the Global Effort to Treat Opioid Addiction,” senior author Jeffrey H. Sabet, M.D., and colleagues write about the lack of access to methadone treatment, in particular, for opioid use disorder (OUD) in the United States. They look at three pharmacy‐based models that exist in other countries. In their article, published online Feb. 6 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, they promote the model of patients picking up methadone from pharmacies, as is done in, for example, Canada. The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (from the United States) and cited by many as a call to reform the current opioid treatment program (OTP) system in the United States, where patients often prefer buprenorphine simply because they don't have to abide by methadone regulations.     

Briefly Noted

Internalizing and externalizing problems predicted onset of any tobacco use in youth; however, findings differed for internalizing and externalizing problems across tobacco products, researchers found in analyzing the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study of 12‐ to 24‐year‐old never‐users. Self‐reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms were assessed at wave 1 (45,971 subjects), and past‐12‐month use of tobacco products was assessed at wave 2 (38,443 subjects). The researchers found that high‐severity internalizing symptoms at wave 1 increased the risk by 1.5 times of using tobacco by wave 2, and that high‐severity externalizing problems increased the risk of tobacco use by 1.3 times at wave 2. Low‐ and moderate‐severity problems did not predict tobacco onset. The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Food and Drug Administration. Several authors declared conflicts of interest — one as an expert witness in a lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The article, “Mental Health Problems and Onset of Tobacco Use Among 12‐ to 24‐Year‐Olds in the PATH Study,” was published in the December 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.     

Coming Up…

The annual meeting of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors will be held June 3–6 in Bethesda, Maryland. For more information, go to http://nasadad.org/annual‐meeting/ .     

Coming Up…

The annual meeting of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors will be held June 3–6 in Bethesda, Maryland . For more information, go to http://nasadad.org/annual‐meeting/ .     

Briefly Noted

The annual meeting of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors will be held June 3–6 in Bethesda, Maryland . For more information, go to http://nasadad.org/annual‐meeting/ .