This Week in Addiction Medicine from ASAM
This Week in Addiction Medicine is an audio summary of the recent top stories and research articles from the field of addiction medicine. Intended to serve as an accompaniment to the ASAM Weekly newsletter or as a stand-alone resource, This Week covers recent publications in addiction medicine research.
Episodes
Journal of Attention Disorders
ADHD and SUDs have shared genetic vulnerability and 20% of people with a SUD have co-occurring ADHD. This systemic review and meta-analysis assessed the r...
Open Forum Infectious Diseases
This modeling study developed a microsimulation model, the Multimorbidity model to Reduce Infections Associated with Drug use (MYRIAD). Key clinical outcomes and costs were projected from 2025-2034 in the US, including new HIV and ...
Psychological Medicine
Psilocybin has shown benefit for treating depression in clinical trials, and in recent years its use has increased among the general population. In this study, researchers utilized the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to evalu...
Cannabis use and cannabis use disorder among older adults in the USA
Addiction
Cannabis use has increased among older adults (≥65 years) and to better describe cannabis use and cannabis use disorder (CUD) in this population researchers used the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from 2021 to 2024. Overall, 8.9% of older adults reported past 12-month use and...
Addiction
Adolescent past-year cannabis use trends have remained relatively flat nationally as legalization has spread, but less is known about clinical outcomes such as incident cannabis use disorder (CUD). Researchers evaluated i...
Abandonment of prescribed buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, 2020-2024
JAMA Network Open
This retrospective cohort study examined characteristics associated with abandonment of newly prescribed buprenorphine, defined as a prescription that was written but not dispensed or filled, and trends in abandonment among adults from 2020 to 2024 to inform efforts to improve bupreno...
US drug overdose deaths involving stimulants without opioids continued to rise in 2024
Addictive Behaviors Reports
Drug overdose deaths (DOD) peaked in 2022 before a decline in rates driven by decrease in opioid-related deaths. We are now in the ‘fourth wave’ of the overdose epidemic, described by DOD involving polysubstance use. As the decline in DOD has been dri...
US drug overdose deaths that occurred in isolation, 2022–2024
NEJM Evidence
Data were obtained from SUDORS (State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System) for 2022-2024. Of 191,577 overdose deaths, 76% occurred in isolation with no opportunity for rescue. Of the deaths in isolation, 73% were in a house or apartment and 23% elsewhere (car, sidewalk, bar). ...
Nicotine e-cigarettes for cigarette smoking cessation: Recommendations to US-based clinicians
Journal of the American Medical Association
This Special Communication summarizes the evidence on the use of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation and provides recommendations for clinicians on how to engage in conversations with adult patients who currently smoke cigarettes. Specifical...
Oral Semaglutide for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial
The American Journal of Psychiatry
Accumulating preclinical and observational evidence suggests that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, including semaglutide, reduce alcohol consumption. This phase 2 double-blind, randomized, parallel-arm trial evaluated the effects of oral semaglutide on alcohol c...
Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment
This is an exploratory case study to identify barriers, facilitators, and implementation needs during the phases of implementation of a virtual SUD clinic offering low-barrier MOUD across the state of Texas. From January 2022 to September 2023, r...
Addiction
Cocaine use disorder (CUD) is an increasingly widespread concern worldwide. Various pharmacological treatments have been investigated for CUD, but their efficacy remains unclear, and none have been licensed for treatment. This systematic review and network meta-analysis assessed the...
2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
SAMHSA
The 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows encouraging trends among adolescents and young adults with broad declines across past-month nicotine, alcohol, and marijuana use, and binge drinking, as well as reduced rates of substance use disorders, major depressive episodes, and suicidality.
Conversely, troubling overall increases occurred in past-mont...
BMJ Open
This retrospective cohort study using target trial emulation evaluated the association between use of newer glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs; semaglutide, tirzepatide) and alcohol-related hospitalizations among adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD) ...
Trends in alcohol-related deaths in the United States over 55 years: 1968-2023
Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research
This study of alcohol-related mortality trends since 1968 used primarily death certificate data from the CDC WONDER database. Between 1998 and 2023 there were 1.3 million alcohol-related deaths. Overall age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMR) per 100,000 increased from 13 to 19. Rates increased from 1968 to 1...
Comparison of buprenorphine treatment by virtual-only vs. traditional clinicians
Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment
Few patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) receive medications for OUD (MOUD), such as buprenorphine. Given that many patients, particularly those in rural communities, do not live near a clinician who prescribes MOUD, telemedicine could increase MOUD access. However, clinicians and policyma...
JAMA Network Open
This randomized clinical trial of 340 adults with opioid use disorder (OUD) taking buprenorphine examined the comparative effectiveness of 2 psychosocial treatments—cognitive- behavioral therapy (CBT) and peer recovery support (PRS)—on opioid abstinence when used as adjunctive...
Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
This study used a cause-specific modeling approach to estimate the lifetime risk of alcohol-attributable mortality and morbidity in the United States based on a person’s average lifetime weekly alcohol consumption to assess the impact of per-occasion alcohol co...
Social media use trajectories and substance use experimentation: A prospective cohort study
The American Journal of Psychiatry
An analysis of data from more than 7,000 adolescents over 5 years found significant associations between rising social media use trajectories and substance use. Four distinct social media use trajectories were identified, with greater social media use over time throughout early adolescence being proportiona...
Benzodiazepine tapering: Evidence limitations and research recommendations Journal of Addiction Medicine
This systematic review of publications (2000-2023) concerning tapering benzodiazepines (BZDs) was used to inform the Joint Clinical Practice Guideline on Benzodiazepine Tapering, published in 2025. Rates of taper were often faster than recommended, such as 25%-50% reduction in the initial 1-2 weeks. There was little infor...
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