"Health & Medical News"

With a Congressional funding ban finally lifted, the District of Columbia government announced that it will spend $650,000 of local taxpayers’ money to establish needle-exchange programs aimed at cutting HIV/AIDS transmission among drug users, the Washington Post reported Jan. 3.

In its FY2008 budget plan, Congress ended a ban on D.C. using public funds to fund needle exchanges, although a ban on federal funding for the harm-reduction programs remains in place. D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said the clean-needle programs are needed to help reduce the HIV/AIDS rate in the city, which is among the highest in the nation.

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Black and white Americans use illicit drugs at about the same rate, but blacks are 10 times more likely to be imprisoned on drug charges, according to research from the Justice Policy Institute.

Reuters reported Dec. 4 that the report found that the disparity persisted in most large counties in the U.S. Blacks, who represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, comprise about half of the 175,000 people jailed for drug offenses in 2002.

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Substance abuse treatment clients are increasingly less likely to be treated solely for alcohol abuse, according to recently released data from an annual survey of all public and private substance abuse treatment facilities in the United States.

The percentage of clients in treatment solely for the abuse of alcohol decreased from 30.5% in 1995 (the first year data was collected) to 18.5% in 2006 (the most recent year for which data are available). At the same time, the percentage of clients in treatment for other drug abuse increased from 23.4% to 35.1%.

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Young adults who have recently battled depression are at increased risk of starting to smoke cigarettes or initiating alcohol and other drug use, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

SAMHSA, drawing on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, said that youths ages 18 to 25 who reported a major depressive episode in the past year were 60 percent more likely than their peers to have started smoking, 35 percent more likely to have started drinking, twice as likely to have begun misusing prescription pain medication, and twice as likely to have started using illicit drugs.

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Students who earn good grades in school are less apt to use alcohol, tobacco or other drugs, according to researchers from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

Science Daily reported Oct. 6 that researchers studied a group of 3,000 students from about age 14 to age 22 and found that those who set an early pattern of educational achievement were less likely to smoke, drink, or take drugs.

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A new study concludes that blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to have severe cases of a rare form of liver cirrhosis, but experts don’t know why, Reuters reported Sept. 20.

Among patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), which involves destruction of the liver’s small bile ducts, minorities tend to have more severe symptoms. PBC is more likely to strike young and middle-aged Caucasian women, however.

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A new report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) finds that Hispanic youth are more likely to use illicit drugs than white or black teens and says trying to adapt to American culture may be the cause, the Associated Press reported Sept. 24.

The “Hispanic Teens & Drugs” report said that more than 10 percent of Hispanic 8th-graders used illicit drugs during the past month, compared to 8.6 percent of blacks and 7.5 percent of whites. ONDCP unveiled the report as it launched a new anti-drug campaign targeting Hispanic youths.

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