The Brief Addiction Science Information Source (BASIS)

Addiction & the Humanities, Vol. 6(11) – 'Tis the season for winter sports and spirits

Earlier this month, there were an unusual number of arrests during the National Football League’s New England Patriots versus New York Jets game in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Foxboro and State Police arrested 117 people, compared to 75 arrests during last year’s matchup; approximately 83-87% of the arrests reportedly involved public intoxication (Kent 2010; Naughton 2010). This week’s Addiction & the Humanities discusses the apparent association between cold weather sports and alcohol-related arrests. Disorderly intoxication is not limited to professional football events. This problem extends to collegiate football and other sports. For instance, a study at the University of Florida reported an... Read more →

ASHES, Vol. 6(11) – TV on trial: How smoking scenes affect viewers’ smoking behavior

Previous issues of The BASIS (e.g., The DRAM, Vol. 6(9); Addiction & the Humanities, Vol. 1(11), Vol. 6(3), and Vol. 3(2)) have discussed how exposure to smoking- and alcohol-related cues in movies and TV programs affect viewers’ smoking-related attitudes and long-term behaviors. These reviews suggest that media-related smoking cues can affect smoking behavior in a variety of ways. This week, ASHES continues this topic by presenting a randomized control study that investigated how smoking scenes in films affect immediate and short term smoking behavior (Shmueli, Prochaska, & Glantz, 2010). Method The researchers randomly assigned 55 males and 45 female smokers... Read more →

Links for ASHES 6(11)

DRAM 6(9) , Addiction and the Humanities, Volume 1(11) Addiction and the Humanities, Volume 6(3) Addiction and the Humanities, Volume 3 (2) Read more →

The DRAM, Vol. 6(10) - Loko for Four Loko? The Effects of Alcoholic Energy Drinks

Recently, alcoholic energy drinks (AEDs) have been mentioned frequently in the news, often in connection with the controversy and inquiry into Four Loko. The concern over AEDs arises primarily from the purported reduction of the subjective symptoms of intoxication, potentially leading to unsafe levels of alcohol consumption. However, there have been few studies objectively exploring the effects of AEDs. This week’s DRAM reviews three such studies (Curry & Stasio, 2009; Ferreira, de Mello, Pompéia, & de Souza-Formigoni, 2006; Marczinski & Fillmore, 2006). Methods Table 1 provides a summary of the study designs for all three papers. Ferreira et al. (2006)... Read more →

The WAGER, Vol. 15(10) - Do birds of a feather really flock together? A look at Pathological Gambling subgroups

Research indicates that pathological gambling (PG) is an expression of a common underlying addiction syndrome (Shaffer et al., 2004). Syndromes, by their definition, suggest people with the same expression of addiction are likely to exhibit predictable signs and symptoms, but those signs and symptoms vary and need not be present all the time. Such variability allows for the possibility of different PG subgroups that are more or less likely to share signs and symptoms. This week The WAGER discusses one possible set of subgroups and some associated clinical idiosyncrasies (Alvarez-Moya et al., 2010). Methods Participants (n=1171; 74% response rate) were... Read more →

STASH, Vol. 6(10) - Abuse by association: The relationship between implicit associations and at-risk adolescents’ marijuana use

A growing body of research suggests that simple computer tests can reliably measure some of the cognitive and motivational factors that contribute to substance misuse. For example, a measure of the strength of the association between the concepts “alcohol” and “arousal” predicts college students’ heavy drinking behavior (Wiers, van de Luitgaarden, van de Wildenberg, & Smulders, 2005). The Implicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald & Banaji, 1998) can measure associations such as these. This test is an implicit measure because it does not require introspective access and reduces the role of mental control in responding (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2006). In... Read more →