The Health News USA April 18 2018

• The board of trustees for the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange has voted to move forward with a federal application for a reinsurance program. The board voted Monday to proceed with the program that Gov. Larry Hogan and state lawmakers approved to hold down consumer costs to Maryland’s individual market for health insurance for 2019 and 2020.
• An estimated 5 million Americans are illegally using prescription stimulants, with the majority seeking to boost their concentration and mental stamina over extended periods of time, according to new research shedding light on amphetamine use among adults. Sixteen million Americans over the age of 18 are using prescription stimulants. About 400,000 people are thought to abuse stimulants.
• A new survey shows restaurant and hotel workers smoke the most pot in Colorado. State health officials have reported that the first breakdown of marijuana use in Colorado shows that 30% of people employed in the restaurant and hotel industry admit to using cannabis. People working in the arts, recreation and entertainment come in next, with 28% saying they currently use pot.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 18th of April 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Maryland-health-exchange-board-votes-for-12838934.php

The board of trustees for the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange has voted to move forward with a federal application for a reinsurance program. The board voted Monday to proceed with the program that Governor Larry Hogan and state lawmakers approved to hold down consumer costs to Maryland’s individual market for health insurance for two thousand nineteen and two thousand twenty. The vote creates the parameters for a reinsurance program. It also authorizes the exchange to apply to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to request federal approval for a waiver to create the program.

Reinsurance sets aside money to help insurance companies cover the most expensive medical claims. Maryland officials feared the state’s individual health insurance market could collapse under rate increases of up to fifty percent without action.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/16/16-million-us-adults-prescription-stimulants-study/

An estimated five million Americans are illegally using prescription stimulants, with the majority seeking to boost their concentration and mental stamina over extended periods of time, according to new research shedding light on amphetamine use among adults. Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the study is the first nationally representative survey to combine statistics on the prevalence of prescription stimulant use with misuse, use disorders and motivations for misuse. Overall, it found that sixteen million Americans over the age of eighteen are using prescription stimulants. About four hundred thousand people are thought to abuse stimulants.

Total prescription stimulant sales for adults have surpassed those for youth, the researchers wrote, and fifty five percent of total prescriptions in two thousand fifteen were to adults age twenty and older.

Data were taken from the two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen national Survey on Drug Use and Health, which included responses from one hundred two thousand adults eighteen years of age and older.

More than half of respondents (fifty six point three percent) said they use prescription stimulants for cognitive enhancement — to be alert or concentrate — followed by use as a study aid (twenty one point nine percent). About fifteen point five percent of respondents said they take the medications to “get high or being hooked,” and four point one percent said they use it for weight loss. Many respondents who misused the prescription stimulants reported getting the medications from a family member or friend with a prescription (fifty six point nine percent), and twenty one point eight percent said they buy or steal pills from friends or relatives.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/legal-pot/restaurant-hotel-workers-lead-pack-marijuana-use-n865391

A new survey shows restaurant and hotel workers smoke the most pot in Colorado. State health officials have reported that the first breakdown of marijuana use in Colorado shows that thirty percent of people employed in the restaurant and hotel industry admit to using cannabis.
People working in the arts, recreation and entertainment come in next, with twenty eight percent saying they currently use pot.

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People working in education, public administration and mining, oil and gas are the least likely to use marijuana, with fewer than six percent of workers in those industries smoking or eating weed, the survey shows. Colorado legalized medical marijuana use in two thousand ten and made the recreational use of marijuana legal in two thousand fourteen. Medical cannabis is legal in twenty nine states and Washington, D.C., and eight states plus D.C. have legalized the recreational use of marijuana and marijuana-derived products.

So Roberta Smith of the Colorado department of health and colleagues took a look at who is taking advantage of these new laws. They wrote in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report: “Employers and safety professionals in states where marijuana use is legal have expressed concerns about potential increases in occupational injuries, such as on-the-job motor vehicle crashes, related to employee impair­ment.” They found about fifteen percent of the workers who answered a regular health survey were current users of marijuana.

They also wrote that among the ten thousand one hundred sixty nine workers, the industry with the high­est prevalence of current marijuana use was Accommodation and Food Services at thirty percent.