The Network Addressing Collegiate Alcohol and Other Drug Issues

The call for programs deadline (Oct. 26) is rapidly approaching for this year’s NASPA AOD conference. This year’s conference is in Fort Worth, Texas, on January 17-19. Registration is now open as well.

With the demise of the U.S. Department of Education's conference, the NASPA AOD conference may well turn out to be the one national college-focused alcohol and other drug abuse prevention conference. Check it out and help make the program as strong as possible by submitting something great.

On July 9, 2012, President Obama signed the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. At the end of this bill was the Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012. As of the signing, many of the synthetic cannabinoids became Schedule I banned substances. Also banned is Mephedrone, and MDPV.

According to a summary of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey presented by CESAR, over the past 20 years there has been a substantial decline in the number of high school students who first tried alcohol before age 13. In 1991, 33% reported pre-teen use, while that number has now declined to 21%.  That's very encouraging news since early use has been linked to later dependence development (Spear, 2002). Early cigarette use also dropped dramatically from 24% to 10% over that period.  The good news ends with that however, as marijuana early use remained relatively stable at about 8%.

Reaction to the current Federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries has now spawned a second bill in Congress.  H.R. 6335, dubbed "States' Medical Marijuana Property Rights Act", was introduced by Rep.  Barbara Lee of California on August 2nd.  While neither this bill nor the earlier introduced "Truth in Trials Act" have a high chance of passing, both can be seen as push-back by States with medical marijuana laws. This new bill would absolve landowners of the risk of forfeiture if medical marijuana dispensaries are on their property.  News reports are telling us that threat of such forfeiture is a major part of the Federal strategy to close down dispensaries.  It would not prevent any other action by Federal enforcement efforts.  So far, only Democrats of signed on as sponsors, while the earlier and more broad bill contained two Republican sponsors.