ShannonS

The U.S. workforce is dying younger. Why? Drugs play a role in this disturbing trend. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association paints a sobering picture---especially in a market where labor is at a premium. Life expectancies in a prime age group for American workers has gone down. Read the ... Read more

Overcome a key challenge with our new test for nicotine use. This new test, like all Psychemedics tests, detects substance usage over a 90-day window enabling you to identify and help students who are at risk of forming a lifelong nicotine habit. Our test finds nicotine ingested by any means including vaping. The Sad Truth ... Read more

Spravato: Smells Like the End of Depression FDA Approves Ketamine-like nasal spray to combat depression Can a hallucinogenic street drug be the answer to help millions of Americans treat their severe depression? The FDA believes so. On March 6th, the FDA approved Johnson & Johnson’s branded nasal spray Spravato, which will be the first major ... Read more

Caution: Dangerous Road Ahead Steering addiction toward a safer path. “This epidemic is costing lives.” That is the sad truth we face as drug abuse continues as an epidemic. It almost cost 12 students their bright futures when a New Jersey bus driver crashed while under the influence of heroin. Naturally your first thought is, ... Read more

Red Pill? BluePill? The Hidden Danger Once you take it, you can't go back. As the old saying goes, “what you don’t know can hurt you,” and when it comes to Fentanyl exposure that is the truth. In the past, we discussed the issue of other drugs being laced with Fentanyl. This week we’ll learn ... Read more

A stoned classroom, dangerous games and a pissed-off union. Just Another Week In Our Dopey World This week we are pulling stories from a mixed bag because combined they are all good stories and reminders that the people who use or put addictive substances out there really have no idea just how or when they ... Read more

Drilling Down on Drug Policies in Oil and Gas In 2018, the oil industry enjoyed a good year. However as the second American shale revolution boomed in the Permian Basin (West Texas), drug and alcohol abuse among oil field workers also flourished. The temptation to experiment with illegal drugs for workers isn’t hard to imagine. ... Read more

Now Opioids' Victims Span Gender and Generation The numbers are daunting.  What began more than two decades ago as a public health problem primarily associated with young and white middle-aged males has grown into an epidemic of prescription and illicit opioid abuse across generational and gender boundaries. According to new data from 1999-2017 in the ... Read more

The Silent Crisis in Construction While we’ve seen the negative impact of the opioid epidemic has had on various industries, the crisis in construction has moved in silence. Typically workers are injured on-site and are prescribed pain-relieving narcotics to numb the pain. Forcing themselves to return to work early results in exacerbated injuries, loss of ... Read more