HealthDay (3/2, Norton) reports, “Of the medications that have been studied to treat problem marijuana use, none have proved effective,” researchers concluded. In their 26-trial review, investigators “found that no tested” medications, “including antidepressants, anxiety medication and synthetic cannabinoids, showed clear benefits for people with cannabis use disorder.” The findings were published online March 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Do Any Medications Help Ease Marijuana Dependence?, “Amy Norton, HealthDay, March 2, 2020

Psychiatric News (2/28) reported, “Fear of missing out – the fear that others may be having fun or rewarding experiences from which one is absent – may make adolescents more sensitive to feeling stress or negative emotions when their friends don’t react to their social media posts,” researchers concluded after studying “the relationships between fear of missing out…emotional symptoms, and social media addiction in 472 adolescents aged 11 to 19 years.” The findings were published online Feb. 27 in Addictive Behaviors.

Related Links:

— “Fear of Missing Out Linked to Adolescents’ Addiction to Social Media, Psychiatric News, February 28, 2020

Psychiatric News (2/27) reports, “Patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) who receive treatment with methadone or buprenorphine” appear to have an 80 percent “lower risk of dying from an opioid overdose compared with patients receiving nonmedication treatment,” researchers concluded after examining “outpatient substance use specialty treatment records from 48,274 patients in Maryland from 2015 to 2016 and” then cross-referencing “the data with opioid overdose death records.” The findings were published online Feb. 24 in the journal Addiction.

Related Links:

— “Medication Treatment for OUD Linked With 80% Lower Risk of Fatal Overdose, Psychiatric New, February 27, 2020

In a nearly 3,000-word special piece for USA Today (2/27), Alia E. Dastagir, a “recipient of a Rosalynn Carter fellowship for mental health journalism,” writes that according to “suicide prevention experts…outside of psychiatrists, the majority of mental health professionals have minimal to no formal training in how to effectively treat suicidal people.” In fact, “suicide-specific training is not commonly offered as part of college curriculums, optional post-graduate training opportunities are limited, costly and time-consuming, and experts say some therapists may not be aware they even need the education.”

Related Links:

— “We tell suicidal people to go to therapy. So why are therapists rarely trained in suicide?, “Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY, February 27, 2020

Newsweek (2/27, Gander) reports researchers at the University of Rochester examined “data on people who died of drug overdoses between 1999 to 2016 from a database kept by the National Center for Health Statistics in the U.S., which included a total of 632,331 cases,” and concluded that “the number of deaths linked to opioids in the U.S. over the past two decades could be almost 30 percent higher than previously thought.” The researchers published their findings in the journal Addiction.

Related Links:

— “Opioid-related deaths in the u.s. could be far higher than previously thought, study suggests, “Kashmira Gander, Newsweek, February 27, 2020