New antidepressants can lift depression and suicidal thoughts fast, but don’t expect magic cures

Drugs like ketamine can relieve depression symptoms, including suicidal thoughts, within hours, but they also carry risks that patients need to understand.

Nicholas Mischel, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences; Director, Interventional Psychiatry and Neuromodulation Research Program, Wayne State University • conversation
Dec. 21, 2020 • ~8 min
drugs health mental-health psychiatry depression pandemic suicide stress mental-illness medication ketamine suicidal-thoughts anti-depressants esketamine

Cannabis: the problem with defining products around THC content

Out of the 400 plus chemical compounds in the cannabis plant, CBD and THC are only the most well-known, and researched, cannabinoids.

Jessica Steinberg, DPhil Candidate in Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford • conversation
Dec. 21, 2020 • ~8 min
drugs cannabis marijuana cbd interdisciplinarity thc drug-legalisation psychoactive

Oregon just decriminalized all drugs – here's why voters passed this groundbreaking reform

Possessing heroin, cocaine, meth and other drugs for personal use is no longer a criminal offense in Oregon. The idea is to get people with problem drug use help, not punishment.

Clayton Mosher, Professor, Sociology Department, Washington State University • conversation
Dec. 10, 2020 • ~10 min
drugs criminal-justice opioid-use-disorder heroin portugal switzerland illegal-drugs harm-reduction people-of-color war-on-drugs drug-policy drug-crimes drugs-and-addiction criminal-justice-reform mass-incarceration drug-war

College-age kids and teens are drinking less alcohol – marijuana is a different story

Gen Z is breaking stereotypes, but there are still some worrying trends when it comes to substance abuse.

Ty Schepis, Professor of Psychology, Texas State University • conversation
Nov. 19, 2020 • ~6 min
drugs health teenagers alcohol young-adults marijuana adolescents gen-z universities trends college alcohol-abuse substance-abuse-issues

College-age kids and teens are drinking less alcohol – but something else is rising

Gen Z is breaking stereotypes, but there are still some worrying trends when it comes to substance abuse.

Ty Schepis, Professor of Psychology, Texas State University • conversation
Nov. 19, 2020 • ~6 min
drugs health teenagers alcohol young-adults marijuana adolescents gen-z universities trends college alcohol-abuse substance-abuse-issues

College-age kids are drinking less alcohol – but smoking more marijuana

Gen Z is breaking stereotypes in some areas, but the number of young adults using both alcohol and marijuana is also rising, raising concerns about a future surge in substance abuse problems.

Ty Schepis, Professor of Psychology, Texas State University • conversation
Nov. 19, 2020 • ~6 min
drugs health teenagers alcohol young-adults marijuana adolescents gen-z universities trends college alcohol-abuse

What’s in your medicine may surprise you – a call for greater transparency about inactive ingredients

There are ingredients in your pills other than the one designed to treat your ailments. Those unnamed ingredients can alter how you respond to a medicine or even make you sick.

Yelena Ionova, Postdoctoral Fellow in Quality of Medical Products, University of California, San Francisco • conversation
Sept. 11, 2020 • ~7 min
drugs medicine generic-medicines generic-drugs patient-safety cares-act adverse-drug-reactions

When Trump pushed hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, hundreds of thousands of prescriptions followed despite little evidence that it worked

When news reports tout a drug, people get interested, even if the benefits are unproven. Patient hopes, requests and demands can easily turn into real prescriptions in their doctor's office.

Richard L. Kravitz, Professor of Health Policy and Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis • conversation
July 9, 2020 • ~10 min
drugs covid-19 coronavirus donald-trump hydroxychloroquine prescribing chloroquine medication prescription-drugs medications fox-news new-york-times doctor-prescribing off-label-prescribing

Coronavirus and cancer hijack the same parts in human cells to spread – and our team identified existing cancer drugs that could fight COVID-19

Kinases are cellular control switches. When they malfunction, they can cause cancer. The coronavirus hijacks these kinases to replicate, and cancer drugs that target them could fight COVID-19.

Nevan Krogan, Professor and Director of Quantitative Biosciences Institute & Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco • conversation
June 28, 2020 • ~10 min
drugs covid-19 coronavirus sars-cov-2 treatment antiviral-drugs drug-research sars-cov mass-spectrometry cancer-drugs antiviral

We found and tested 47 old drugs that might treat the coronavirus: Results show promising leads and a whole new way to fight COVID-19

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, identified nine existing drugs that show promise to treat COVID-19. The proteins they target haven't been tried before.

Nevan Krogan, Professor and Director of Quantitative Biosciences Institute & Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco • conversation
April 30, 2020 • ~10 min
drugs health drug-discovery covid-19 coronavirus rna fda sars-cov-2 viruses hydroxychloroquine cells progesterone treatments anti-virals

/

2