With the untimely death of a University of Louisville cheerleader due to an accidental drug overdose in the summer of 2014, the athletic department representatives took steps to prevent future incidents by adding cheerleaders to the randomized drug testing protocols conducted at the university for the student-athletes involved in National…

School truancy among teenagers remains a serious national problem, as evidenced by its significant association with school performance, psychological, and behavioral problems. Truancy is also positively associated with substance abuse. This study presents 18-month outcome data from a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded controlled trial…

Objective: Contingency management (CM) is an evidence-based treatment, but few clinicians deliver this intervention in community-based settings. Method: Twenty-three clinicians from 3 methadone maintenance clinics received training in CM. Following a didactics seminar and a training and supervision period in which clinicians delivered CM to pilot…

Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to test a relatively efficient strategy for enhancing the capacity of juvenile drug courts (JDC) to reduce youth substance use and criminal behavior by incorporating components of evidence-based treatments into their existing services. Method: Six JDCs were randomized to a condition in which…

We investigated the extent to which a contingency management (CM) procedure that deducted money from a grand total available at the end of the study compared to a procedure in which money accumulated with continued abstinence from cigarette smoking. Results suggested that the procedure in which money increased contingent on abstinence resulted in…

To examine the effect of reinforcer density in prize-based abstinence reinforcement, heroin/cocaine users (N = 116) in methadone maintenance (100 mg/day) were randomly assigned to a noncontingent control group (NonC) or to 1 of 3 groups that earned prize draws for abstinence: manual drawing with standard prize density (MS) or computerized drawing…

There is a drug crisis in the United States that is growing at an alarming rate. Its participants work in our businesses, government agencies, and schools. California leads the nation in drug use and until recently, Fresno County was the leader in methamphetamine production. This drug crisis is having a paralyzing effect causing loss of income,…

This study determined whether long-term abstinence reinforcement could maintain cocaine abstinence throughout a yearlong period. Patients who injected drugs and used cocaine during methadone treatment (n = 78) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 abstinence-reinforcement groups or to a usual care control group. Participants in the 2…

Interdisciplinary groups of students learned screening tools for substance use and practiced skills of brief intervention while serving needs of a local free clinic.

Spurred by large increases in prison populations and other recent sentencing and correctional trends, the federal government has supported the development and implementation of Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiatives (SVORI) nationwide. While existing research demonstrates the effectiveness of the separate components of these programs…

A study of records for 1 large U.S. company revealed that employees with positive drug screens were fired, whereas workers who self-disclosed drug/alcohol problems remained employed. Both groups were offered substance abuse intervention, and some previously fired workers were rehired after they received treatment. Accident results showed that…

Reports the results of five years of analysis examining the impact of the service of the Youth Support Project, a systems-based approach to improving the functioning of youths entering the juvenile justice system and their families (N=95). Results indicate that relationships exist between the various blocks of predictor variables and the different…

Discusses legislation aimed at prevention, identification, and treatment of prenatal exposure to controlled substances and the consequences of such exposure. Coercive state intervention can include involuntary civil commitment, child protection; and criminal prosecution. Such intervention raises constitutional issues of privacy and…