The Chicago Tribune (2/26) provides an overview of the status of smoking and efforts to control the habit in the US, noting that more than 50 years after the first US surgeon general’s report highlighting its dangers, “smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death” in the US. The article notes that those “who continue to smoke may subject themselves to at least 11 kinds of cancer, numerous other diseases and a lower quality of life.” The paper notes that even with smoking rates “half of the population percentage of what they were in 1964, the American Lung Association says that more than 43 million Americans, or one in five people in the U.S., still smoke.”

Related Links:

— “The 50-year war on smoking is far from won,” Barbara Sadick, Chicago Tribune, February 26, 2015. (Registration Required — free for five articles)

The Washington Post (2/26) reports in its “Wonkblog” that two-thirds of smokers “will die early from” cigarette-related diseases, “unless they choose to kick the habit,” citing new research from Australia published in BMC medicine. The study of more than 200,000 people, unveiled this week, “found about 67 percent of smokers perished from smoking-related illness.” The rate, according to the Post, “is higher than doctors previously estimated.”

Related Links:

— “The terrifying rate at which smokers die from smoking,” Danielle Paquette, Washington Post, February 26, 2015.

The Hill (2/27, Sullivan) reports that that earlier this week, “Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)…outlined plans to introduce a pair of mental health reform bills next month, amid a push that began in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.” According to the Hill, “Rep. Murphy, a longtime champion of mental health reform, plans to reintroduce a version of a bill he pushed in the last Congress, he said at a mental health event hosted by The Hill.” Meanwhile, “Sen. Murphy said he would introduce a bill that has ‘some differences’ but is ‘substantially similar’ in the Senate around the same time.”

Related Links:

— “Lawmakers to ramp up mental health push,” Peter Sullivan, The Hill, February 26, 2015.

The AP (2/25) reports the case of Eddie Ray Routh, the former Marine convicted of killing “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle and another man, “illustrates the difficulty of succeeding with” mental illness defenses. One factor is that jurors don’t know that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity means the defendant will be sent to a mental hospital for life, unless “the state could no longer establish that he had a severe mental illness and was likely to harm another person if he didn’t receive inpatient treatment.”

Related Links:

— “Experts: Insanity case as in ‘American Sniper’ hard to win,” Associated Press, Washington Post, February 25, 2015.

HealthDay (2/25, Preidt) reports that research published in BMC Public Health suggests that homeless individuals who have a mental illness may face a high risk of heart disease. Investigators “found that they have a 24.5 percent risk of heart attack, fatal or nonfatal stroke, or sudden cardiac death over 30 years.” The study indicated that “the risk of cardiovascular disease in homeless people with mental illness was highest among men and those with substance abuse disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Mental Illness, Homelessness Linked to Heart Disease in Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, February 25, 2015.

The Washington Post (2/25, Paquette) “Wonkblog” reports that the “mental health impacts of unemployment can be devastating.” For example, “a CDC study found suicide rates rise and fall with the economy.” What’s more, depression appears to be “higher among long-unemployed Americans, according to a recent Gallup poll: About one in five reported having depression.”

Related Links:

— “How unemployment warps your personality over time,” Danielle Paquette, Washington Post, February 24, 2015.

USA Today (2/25, Leger) reports that a study from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicates that “deaths from prescription narcotic painkillers have soared as the opioid drugs became more popular and powerful.” The data indicated that “four out of five people who used a prescription narcotic painkiller in 2011 to 2012 took pills equal to or stronger than morphine.” The investigators also found that “the percentage of people who took painkillers stronger than morphine, which include such drugs as fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone and oxycodone, grew from 17% in 1999 to 37% in 2012.”

Related Links:

— “CDC: Deaths soared as narcotic painkillers grew popular,” Donna Leinwand Leger, USA Today, February 25, 2015.

Reuters (2/25, Kelland) reports that a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggests that people who have received the diagnosis of major depression may have up to triple the likelihood of committing certain violent crimes, such as assault, sexual offenses and robbery, or of committing an act of self-harm, compared to people who have not been diagnosed with major depression. Researchers arrived at that conclusion after studying data on some 47,158 people in Sweden and then examining data on some 898,454 matched, mentally healthy controls. The study also found, however, that the vast majority of people with depression committed no violent crimes or criminal acts at all.

Related Links:

— “Clinically depressed three times more likely to commit violent crime,” Kate Kelland, Reuters, February 24, 2015.

The Los Angeles Times (2/24, Healy) “Science Now” blog reports that in an editorial published Feb. 23 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the American Bar Association, the American Public Health Association and “seven medical specialty societies…joined forces to declare gun-related injuries, which annually kill an average of 32,000 Americans and harm nearly twice that number, ‘a public health crisis’ that should be studied and solved ‘free of political influence or restriction.’”

Together, the societies “issued a ‘call to action,’ and declared their collective backing for universal background checks, a ban on military-style assault weapons and large capacity magazines, more federal support for gun-injury research, and an end to laws that would punish physicians who discuss the safety of gun ownership with their patients.”

Related Links:

— “Gun injuries are a public health emergency, nine organizations say,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2015.

ABC World News (2/23, story 7, 0:18, Muir) reported, “Ten students and two visitors at Wesleyan University” in Middletown, CT, were “treated for an overdose of the drug called ‘molly.’” Eight people remain in the hospital, with “two in critical condition.”

The New York Times (2/24, A20, Hussey, Schlossberg, Subscription Publication) reports that molly is “a club drug also known, sometimes in different forms, as MDMA or Ecstasy, and which has been linked to a number of overdoses and deaths in recent years.” And, “according to the National Institutes of Health, 12.8 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds have used MDMA, Ecstasy or Molly at some point in their lives.”

Related Links:

— “12 at Wesleyan University Are Hospitalized for Drug Overdoses,” Kristen Hussey and Tatiana Schlossberg, New York Times, February 23, 2015.