BACKGROUND This study is an empirical assessment of the impact of the drug decriminalization policy followed by Portugal in July 2001, on the price of illicit drugs. METHODS The analysis is performed using a difference-in-differences approach and the Synthetic Control Method in order to construct a synthetic control unit from a convex combination of countries. RESULTS The results suggest th...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the relationships between illicit drug use and three types of health services utilization: emergency room utilization, hospitalization, and medical attention required due to injury(s). DATA Waves 1 and 2 (11,253 males and 13,059 females) from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). STUDY DESIGN We derive benchmark estimates by emplo...

OBJECTIVE Among Finnish adolescent twins, we compared (a) a model that describes a direct impact of liability to tobacco use on cannabis and other illicit drug use with (b) a model that included a shared underlying liability for these substances. Furthermore, the extent to which genetic and environmental influences contribute to the covariation between liabilities to use these substances was ex...

BACKGROUND Ecstasy use is prevalent among young people and often co-occurs with other drug use, but little is known about the past 12-month and lifetime psychiatric comorbidity and specific additional drug abuse among young adult ecstasy users in the general population. To provide this information, we compared current ecstasy users to former users, other illicit drug users, and non-illicit drug...

BACKGROUND This study examined the relationships between self-reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and drug-related outcomes in an Australian twin panel. METHOD A semi-structured psychiatric interview was conducted in 1996-2000 by telephone with young adult Australian twins (mean age 29.9 years). Data reported here are from 6050 twins who responded to both CSA and drug-related items. RESUL...

Substance abuse and dependence are among the most common psychiatric disorders among pregnant and parenting women. These disorders among welfare recipients have attracted special concern. Chemical testing has been proposed to identify illicit drug use in this population. This analysis scrutinizes the potential value of drug testing, using recent data from the Women's Employment Study and the Na...

BACKGROUND Anti-illicit-drug public-service announcements (PSAs) have become a cornerstone of drug policy in the USA. However, studies of the effectiveness of these interventions have not been subjected to a systematic evaluation. METHODS The authors searched 10 electronic databases along with major conference abstract databases (from inception until 15 February 2010) for all articles and abs...

BACKGROUND Illicit drug abuse causes much morbidity and mortality, yet little is known about physicians' screening and intervention practices regarding illicit drug abuse. METHODS We mailed a survey to a national sample of 2000 practicing general internists, family physicians, obstetricians and gynecologists, and psychiatrists to assess their screening and intervention practices for illicit d...

BACKGROUND This study investigates the relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and cigarette smoking, alcohol use and illicit drug use. METHOD The participants were 10,987 pupils in the final three years of their compulsory education in Iceland (ages 14-16 years). The participants completed questionnaires in class relating to anxiety, depression and antie...

background: chronic infection with hepatitis c virus (hcv) is increasingly recognized as a major global health problem. illicit injection drug use is an important risk factor for the rising hepatitis c virus (hcv) prevalence in ir iran. objectives: the objective of this study was to determine the long-term effectiveness (total quality adjusted life years (qalys) gained) of methadone maintenance...