The Brief Addiction Science Information Source (BASIS)

The DRAM, Vol. 10(9) - Helping more than your lungs: Smoking cessation and reductions in risk for mood/anxiety disorders and alcohol use disorders

Since many people smoke to self-medicate mood and anxiety symptoms, it is unclear whether attempts to quit or reduce smoking will lead to worsening symptoms for these people. In this edition of the DRAM, we review a recent article investigating the association between quitting or reducing smoking and rates of mood/anxiety and alcohol use disorders. Cavazos-Rehg et al. (2014) compare smoking cessation between two groups: individuals with and without pre-existing disorders. Methods The researchers used data from the Longitudinal National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC: Grant, Stinson, Dawson, Chou, Ruan, & Pickering, 2004), a nationally representative sample... Read more →

Scientific Prematurity as a Basis for Bad Policy

Editor's Note: This editorial was written by Kahlil S. Philander, PhD and Terri-Lynn MacKay, PhD. Dr. Philander is Director of Research at the International Gaming Institute and Assistant Professor at the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dr. MacKay is Visiting Assistant Research Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Policy makers rely on the academic community to inform their decisions. In new policy areas – which, incidentally, are almost always emerging fields – researchers occasionally make recommendations without a body of well-developed theory and empirical results to support their judgment. Given that... Read more →

The WAGER, Vol. 19(9) – Changing the game: Rethinking the effects of Internet gambling

Some observational research (e.g., Wood and Williams, 2011) has shown that online gambling is a strong predictor of gambling-related problems. However, these research methods cannot determine whether online gambling causes gambling-related problems, or the other way around. These methods also cannot address the problem of omitted variables[1]. In this case, the relationship between online gambling and the experience of problems might be due to engaging in online gambling and/or other aspects of online behavior tendencies that are omitted from analysis. To compensate for the possibility of such biases in predictive models, researchers sometimes use "instrumental variables models." Instrumental variable models... Read more →

STASH, Vol. 10(9) - ‘When I Was Your Age’: The role of family in adolescent substance use

Previous studies have shown that parent-child relationships and family dimensions can have a great influence on an adolescent child’s substance use (Hair et al., 2009; Bumpus and Rodgers, 2009). A lack of parental supervision makes adolescents particularly susceptible to substance use (Jacobson & Crockett, 2000). However, the specific family dimensions involved remain unclear. This week’s STASH reviews a study that identified the family dimensions and family members who are most important to preventing adolescent substance use (Jiménez-Iglesias, Moreno, Rivera, & Garcia-Moya, 2013). Method The sample included 14,825 boys and girls from Spain between the ages of 13 and 18 who... Read more →

ASHES, Vol. 10(8) - Redefining “smoke break”: The effectiveness of a smoking cessation program at an inpatient psychiatric unit

Many inpatient psychiatry units permit their patients to smoke; partially in response to patient advocacy groups, and partially in the hope that regular smoke breaks will help patients calm down and manage their symptoms (Lane et al., 2009). This stands in stark contrast to policies on other substances of abuse, such as alcohol and hard drugs, which are banned. There are very few clinical trials that have initiated tobacco interventions in this setting, and none have examined the effects of treating tobacco dependence on the recovery and psychological wellbeing of psychiatric inpatients. The current study recruited smokers from an acute... Read more →