CBS News (8/30) reports, “The Drug Enforcement Administration issued an advisory Tuesday about an ‘emerging trend’ of ‘brightly-colored’ fentanyl pills being used to lure children and young people.” The so-called “‘rainbow fentanyl’ has been seized by law enforcement agencies in 18 states just this month, the DEA said.” These “drugs, made to look like candy, comes in several forms, including ‘pills, powder and blocks that resembles sidewalk chalk,’ the DEA said.”

Related Links:

— “DEA warns “emerging trend” of brightly-colored fentanyl being used to lure youth, CBS News, August 30, 2022

Psychiatric News (8/30) reports, “Medical teams may be more likely to seek an evaluation of a patient’s decision-making capacity if the patient is Black or Hispanic than if the patient is white or Asian,” investigators concluded “based on the review of 181 decisional capacity consultations for patients hospitalized at a tertiary care medical center from 2018 to 2019.” The study “involved a retrospective chart review of patient medical records, which contained demographic information, medical and surgical notes, and consultation-liaison psychiatry notes.” The findings were published online Aug. 25 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Black and Hispanic Patients Disproportionately Referred for Decisional Capacity Consultations, Psychiatric News, August 30, 2022

HealthDay (8/29, Reinberg) reports, “Labor shortages at Teva Pharmaceuticals have made Adderall [amphetamine/dextroamphetamine],” a treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), “hard to find in some drugstores,” even though the FDA has “noted that there’s no overall shortage of” medications to treat AD/HD. Just “Teva is reporting supply problems, FDA spokeswoman Cherie Duvall-Jones told NBC News.”

Related Links:

— “ADHD Drug Adderall in Short Supply “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 29, 2022

CNN (8/29, Marples) reports “people in US states that legalized recreational cannabis use it 20% more frequently than those in states that didn’t legalize it,” according to a survey study comprising 3,421 participants, including “111 pairs of identical twins…with one twin living in a state that legalized recreational cannabis and the other in a state that did not legalize it.” The findings were published in the journal Addiction.

Related Links:

— “Legalizing recreational cannabis increases its use, research shows “Megan Marples, CNN, August 29, 2022

Psychiatric News (8/29) reports research published online Aug. 27 in Schizophrenia Bulletin indicates that “people with schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder may remain at elevated risk of death from the” COVID-19 “virus compared with people without mental illness regardless of the availability of COVID-19 vaccines.” Included in the study were “48,912 people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, 13,932 with bipolar disorder, 152,489 with major depressive disorder, and 773,734 without a history of mental illness.”

Related Links:

— “Risk of Death From COVID-19 Remains Higher Among People With Serious Mental Illness, Psychiatric News, August 29, 2022