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Photograph of electronic cigarettes

Knowns and Unknowns about e-Cigarettes and Teens

February 03, 2015
When asked in early 2014, 17.1 percent of high school seniors and 16.2 percent of 10th graders reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month. We are still wrestling with whether or not e-cigarettes pose a danger, but their popularity among youth combined with society’s past experiences with tobacco and other addictive substances demands that we urge caution around these products. Read More.

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Dr. Nora Volkow presenting at TEDMED

Brain in Progress: Why Teens Can’t Always Resist Temptation

January 2015
The changes in the brain common to obesity and drug addiction are especially pertinent to the struggles teens face to resist drugs, because adolescence is a crucial period both of susceptibility to the rewards of drugs and of vulnerability to the long-term effects of drug exposure Read More.

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Logo for Monitoring the Future

Good News from Monitoring the Future 2014

December 2014
At the end of a year that has seen further tragic deaths from addiction and new designer drugs that put young people at risk, today's results from the 2014 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey of drug use among adolescents provide a dose of welcome optimism. Read More.

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Image of brain scans of control and Obese subjects showing reduced DA D2 receptor activity from control

Reproducibility Issues May Be Science’s Growing Pains

November 2014
I have written before about the reproducibility crisis in the health sciences. High percentages of published findings are failing to be reproduced, and this has prompted NIH Institutes and other funding agencies, as well as scientific journals and universities, to take measures to improve how science is taught, funded, conducted, and published. Read More.

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Illustration of a billboard with a question mark in it

Marijuana Advertising and the Power of Conditioning

October 2014
As social acceptance and public policy around marijuana shift, and especially if legalized recreational use becomes more widespread, we will need to consider the influence and potential regulation of its marketing. Read More.

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Opioids and Chronic Pain—A Gap in Our Knowledge

September 2014
Opioid prescriptions have increased three-fold over the past two decades, and we have seen how this skyrocketing availability of medications has helped create a new drug abusing population, some of whom suffer severe health consequences Read More.

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Graph showing increased use of drugs in most categories by American Indian/Alaskan Native students - see text

Substance Use in American Indian Youth is Worse than We Thought

September 2014
We have long known that American Indian communities are particularly vulnerable to problems with substance use, which are tied in part to limited socioeconomic opportunity. But because national surveys fail to fully capture drug use patterns on or near reservations, the true scope of the problem has been elusive. Read More.

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Marijuana leaf

Science Should Guide Marijuana Policy

August 2014
In a series of recent articles, The New York Times’ editors presented a case for repealing the federal ban on marijuana, including the disproportionate impact of current marijuana laws on minorities. While there is no question that we should rectify any injustices associated with such policies, we also need to consider and prepare for the escalation in social and health costs that could result from creating a third legal drug in this country. We should be thoughtfully examining all policy and regulatory options available to minimize harms to society and promote Americans’ safety, well-being, and competitiveness Read More.

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Photo of a group of teens

Seeking Input from the Research Community on the Upcoming Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Substance Use

July 2014
As we wrote in early May, the time is ripe for a large prospective cohort study that will comprehensively assess the effects of adolescent substance use on the developing brain. Read More.

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National AIDS Testing day logo

National HIV Testing Day, June 27, 2014

June 2014
Almost 1.1 million Americans are currently living with the HIV virus, and nearly a sixth of those don’t even know they are infected. That means they aren’t getting needed treatment, and it means they could be passing the infection on to others without knowing. Read More.

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Trends in overdose deaths 1999-2011, of significance from 2006 to 2011, opiod deaths up 28%, cocaine deaths down 35%, heroin deaths up 119%

What Can We Do About the Heroin Overdose Epidemic?

June 2014
A striking new dimension of our nation’s ongoing opioid epidemic is the escalating number of deaths from heroin overdose. Read More.

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About This Blog

Dr. Nora Volkow

Here I highlight important work being done at NIDA and other news related to the science of drug abuse and addiction.
—Dr. Nora Volkow, Director

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