Teen “Self-Medication” for Depression Leads to More Serious Mental Illness

Source: Anti-Drug Update 5/9/2008
Customizable Open Letter Highlighting Risks Now Available for Distribution in your Community

At a press conference today, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, along with the Director of NIDA, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and Dr. Drew Pinsky, announced the release of a new Campaign report showing that marijuana use can worsen depression and lead to more serious mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, anxiety, and even suicide. In an effort to urge parents to pay closer attention to their teen’s behavior and recognize that marijuana and other drugs could be playing a dangerous role in their child’s life, the Media Campaign is offering you a free customizable “Teens, Marijuana, and Depression” Open Letter for distribution in your community. The current letter is part of an ongoing effort to educate parents on the risks of marijuana and is based on a 2006 Open Letter originally signed by 12 healthcare organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and is designed specifically to be used by local groups and coalitions.

The report, released to coincide with May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, shows that two million teens felt depressed at some point during the past year, and depressed teens are more than twice as likely as non-depressed teens to have used marijuana during that same period. Research shows that some teens are using drugs to alleviate feelings of depression (”self-medicating”), when in fact, using marijuana can compound the problem. Depressed teens are almost twice as likely to have used illicit drugs as non-depressed teens.

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** The full report, “Teen Marijuana Use Worsens Depression: An Analysis of Recent Data Shows ‘Self-Medicating’ Could Actually Make Things Worse” can be accessed and downloaded at: http://www.theantidrug.com/pdfs/teen-marijuana-depression-report.pdf.

** The customizable “Teens, Marijuana, and Depression” Open Letter that you can use in your schools and communities to reach parents and encourage them to monitor their teens’ behavior and mood is easily downloadable from TheAntiDrug.com at: http://www.theantidrug.com/pdfs/resources/marijuana-depression-open-letter.pdf.

** Free anti-drug and parenting resources, including brochures, CD-ROMs, posters, and postcards are available at the Media Campaign’s online section for community groups, coalitions and non-profits: http://www.theantidrug.com/resources/.

** Sign up for the Parenting Tips Newsletter: Encourage parents in your community to sign up for TheAntiDrug.com’s Parenting Tips Newsletter, a periodic e-mail notification with advice and strategies to help keep teenagers healthy and drug-free. Sign up at: http://www.theantidrug.com/newsletter.asp.

Mental Disorders Cost Society Billions in Unearned Income

Source: NIH News 5/7/09
Major mental disorders cost the nation at least $193 billion annually in lost earnings alone, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study was published in the May 2008 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

“Lost earning potential, costs associated with treating coexisting conditions, Social Security payments, homelessness and incarceration are just some of the indirect costs associated with mental illnesses that have been difficult to quantify,” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. “This study shows us that just one source of these indirect costs is staggeringly high.”

Direct costs associated with mental disorders like medication, clinic visits, and hospitalization, are relatively easy to quantify, but they reveal only a small portion of the economic burden these illnesses place on society. Indirect costs like lost earnings likely account for enormous expenses, but they are very difficult to define and estimate.

In the new study, Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D., of Harvard University, and colleagues analyzed data from the 2002 National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) [http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/ncsr-study/questions-and-answers-about-the-national-comorbidity-survey-replication-ncsr-study.shtml], a nationally representative study of Americans age 18 to 64.

Click here to read the rest of the NIH News Release

SAMHSA Announces Availability of New Drug-Free Workplace Kit

Source: SAMHSA News Release 4/28/08
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has developed a Drug-Free Workplace Kit, suitable for all sizes of workplaces. The free kit provides public and private workplaces with practical evidence-based information, resources, and tools for producing and maintaining drug-free workplace policies and programs.

Read the entire Press release.

To access and download the online version of the kit, go to http://www.workplace.samhsa.gov/WPWorkit/index.html

The NSDUH Report: State Estimates of Persons Aged 18 or Older Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or Illicit Drugs

SAMHSA’s Office of Applied Studies (OAS) has just released a 3 page short report based on data from the SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use & Health (NSDUH) that provides the relative percentages among the States of adults who reported that in the past year they drove under the influence of alcohol or an illicit drug

Available at : http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k8/stateDUI/stateDUI.cfm

2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data available online

The 2007 BRFSS Annual Survey Data and 2007 BRFSS Prevalence Data are now available on CDC’s BRFSS website.

New Findings on Quantity and Frequency of Alcohol Use Among Underage Drinkers

Source: SAMHSA eNetwork, 4/11/2008
In 2006, a majority (53.9 percent) of American adolescents and young adults aged 12 to 20 had used an alcoholic beverage at least once in their lifetime. Young people aged 12 to 20 consumed approximately 11.2 percent of the alcoholic drinks consumed in the United States in the past month by persons aged 12 or older. Research shows that underage drinkers tend to consume more alcohol per occasion than those over the legal minimum drinking age of 21.
The following are brief findings from the report:

Combined 2005 and 2006 data indicate that an annual average of 28.3 percent of persons aged 12 to 20 in the United States (an estimated 10.8 million persons annually) drank alcohol in the past month.

Past-month alcohol users aged 12 to 20 drank on an average of 5.9 days in the past month and consumed an average of 4.9 drinks per day on the days they drank in the past month.
Underage drinkers aged 12 to 20 consumed, on average, more drinks per day on the days they drank in the past month than persons aged 21 or older (4.9 vs. 2.8 drinks).

Download NSDUH Report:
Quantity and Frequency of Alcohol Use among Underage Drinkers (256 KB)
http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k8/underage/underage.pdf

Smoking Early In Pregnancy Raises Risks Of Heart Defects In Newborns

Source: CDC Press Release, April 7, 2008:
Mothers who smoke early in pregnancy are more likely to give birth to infants with heart defects, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Click here for the entire Press Release.
Click here for the Press Release in Spanish.

Featured Web Site : Anabolic Steroid Abuse

Source: NIH News in Health, April 2008
Anabolic Steroid Abuse Anabolic steroid abuse by professional athletes has been all over the news. Concerns about body image and athletic performance may lead teens, as well as adult men and women, to use steroids. This site was designed by NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse to alert the public to the fact that these are dangerous drugs.

Visit Anabolic Steroid abuse at http://www.steroidabuse.gov/

New Toolkit on Cultural and Linguistic Competence and Upcoming Teleconference

Might this be useful for ATOD prevention programs as well as other youth development programs not funded by SS/HS initiative?

Source: Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention e-newsletter, March 2008
The National Center has published a toolkit on cultural and linguistic competence that is based on a model of three interconnected arches. These arches represent organizational structure, engagement, and services/activities/interventions. Together, the three arches provide the support to create a solid foundation for the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) initiative. The toolkit includes benchmarks that grantees can use to gauge their level of implementation in each of the three areas. It also includes corresponding resources that grantees can use to move their initiatives to the next level of implementation. The toolkit is now available at http://www.promoteprevent.org/Resources/clc.

On April 10, 2008, the National Center will host a teleconference to introduce grantees to the three arches framework and the various components of the toolkit. Invitations to this event have been e-mailed to SS/HS grantees. Registration is limited to 10 sites on a first come, first serve basis. Please contact Min Lin at mlin@edc.org with any questions regarding this event.

New Report : State Mandates for Treatment for Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders

Source: SAMHSA eNetwork email,  4/2/08

A new report is available from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). The report focuses on state-mandated benefits, state laws regulating mental health and addiction treatment workers, and state-recognized mental health clinicians with authority to prescribe psychotropic medications.

The report is divided into three main sections. The first section describes the current status of state-mandated insurance coverage and identifies those states that require insurance companies to provide coverage for those they insure who have mental or substance use disorders. The second section outlines the type of coverage and diagnostic conditions to which the insurance applies. Finally, the third section provides an in-depth analysis of the authority granted by states to nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe psychotropic medications.

Download/View the Report:
State Mandates for Treatment for Mental Health Illness and Substance Abuse Disorders  (536 KB)
Order Your Free Copy Now! (SMA07-422