SAMHSA recently released results from the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). While further analysis of the data is expected to follow, many of our featured publications this week provide important context for the numbers.

If you're a little apprehensive this year about having awkward or even anxiety-provoking Thanksgiving conversations, then we’ve got you covered.

How we frame the problem significantly impacts individuals with addiction. A global review of legislative approaches toward gambling demonstrates how some countries are still warming to a systemic, public health approach while many are mostly focused on vulnerable individuals and promoting responsible gambling (Lancet Public Health).

As we presented last week, ASAM provides expert guidance for the field of addiction medicine. Today, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) published the Clinical Practice Guideline on the Management of Stimulant Use Disorder.

If you haven’t recently explored the ASAM website, this week’s publications may be a good motivation to do so.

Stuff happens as we move substance use along the spectrum between criminalization and commercialization.

There’s something remarkable about identifying a common brain network underlying substance use disorders (Nature Mental Health). This commonality was not a given -- the results could have gone the other way -- but its existence is reassuring for how it unifies the disorders of addiction.

A study from New York has found that increasing temperatures are associated with increased hospital visits related to alcohol and substance use (Communications Medicine)...

Tucked within social determinants of health are commercial determinants which have a particular interest in “addictiveness.” This is clearly evident in the lead article demonstrating how tobacco companies shifted the US food industry towards hyperpalatability beginning in the 1980s (Addiction).

Both the RAND Corporation and SAMHSA recently released reports providing broad perspectives on addiction in America. At over 600 pages, “America’s Opioid Ecosystem” (RAND) is a comprehensive review of the dynamic systems and issues underlying not only America’s opioid crisis but the entire addiction ecosystem.