By Onnesha Roychoudhuri Author Charles Barber discusses Americans' unrealistic notions about happiness. We've medicalized a lot of life issues that aren't mental illnesses. While we've now become accustomed to the barrage of prescription drug commercials on prime-time TV, it's jarring to learn that this advertising is legal only in the United States and New Zealand. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't just target Americans directly, but also ...

Downing Street today signalled that Gordon Brown remains determined to tighten the law on cannabis, despite reports that the official advisory body is set to recommend against re-classification. The Prime Minister's spokesman sought to play down a BBC report that the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) had concluded that there was no need to re-classify cannabis again ...

As I am wont to babel about the economy: here it goes again. President’s Bush’s economic stimulus package, which pledges to give the average tax payer a $600 rebate check sometime later this year, isn’t going to offset the negative impact produced by the net decline of 85,000 jobs in the first two months of 2008. The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator of ...

Salvia divinorum is being targeted by U.S. lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana, media reported Wednesday. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including Florida, are considering a ban or have previously. Salvia divinorum is not one of the several varieties of common ornamental garden plants known as salvia. Called nicknames like Sally-D, Magic Mint and Diviner's Sage, salvia is a hallucinogen ...

By BETH HALE Briton jailed for four years in Dubai after customs find cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar under his shoe A father-of-three who was found with a microscopic speck of cannabis stuck to the bottom of one of his shoes has been sentenced to four years in a Dubai prison. Keith Brown, a council youth development officer, was travelling through the United Arab Emirates on his way back ...

Revisions to the state's Sunshine Law won't be considered until the state Legislature convenes this month, but Tennesseans can look forward to more immediate help regarding the state's open records. A new ombudsman office has been created.Under the Public Records Act, all state, county and municipal records are to be available for inspection by any Tennessee citizen unless specifically exempted. Last year, the Legislature approved Gov. Phil Bredesen's recommendation to ...

A senior British police chief has come under attack for claiming the illicit drug ecstasy is safer to take than aspirin. North Wales police chief constable Richard Brunstrom has sparked outrage by making the controversial claim and calling for the legalisation of all drugs, including heroin and cocaine, within a decade. Brunstrom says he believes ecstasy is a "remarkably safe substance" and that people who raise concerns about the dangers of taking ...

British police have granted a nine-year-old boy a shotgun licence in a decision that has horrified anti-gun campaigners. The boy can legally shoot live game after Norfolk Police deemed him "responsible enough" to own the deadly weapon. The licence was issued in 2006, but has only just been reported after a journalist sought the information under freedom of information laws. The child, who lives in Walsingham, has been legally using the powerful weapon ...

By Kevin Johnson WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are targeting a rising number of law enforcement officers for alleged brutality, Justice Department statistics show. The heightened prosecutions come as the nation's largest police union fears that agencies are dropping standards to fill thousands of vacancies and "scrimping" on training. Cases in which police, prison guards and other law enforcement authorities have used excessive force or other tactics ...

By Janet Daley What is the BBC for? You might think that there was a pretty straightforward answer to that question, or at least that the answer provided by Lord Reith ("to inform, educate and entertain") could scarcely be bettered for simplicity and felicitousness. But, oh dear, no - this is a more complex world than the one into which the BBC was born. So ...

Thomas Munro Proposed rules for medical marijuana providers could open the door to private nonprofit or for-profit producers in New Mexico. Since the state's medical marijuana registry was created July 1, patients have had three ways to obtain marijuana: by growing it themselves; by contracting with "designated caregivers," who grow or otherwise obtain the plant and are each allowed to provide doses of the herb to at most four patients; ...

After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure  Ben Wallace-Wells 1. AFTER PABLO On the day of his death, December 2nd, 1993, the Colombian billionaire drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was on the run and living in a small, tiled-roof house in a middle-class neighborhood of Medellín, close to the soccer stadium. He died, theatrically, ­ridiculously, gunned down by ...

Hemp helps with green movement Lucas Coppes As environmental consciousness increases, a plant with great potential to accommodate our generation’s awareness has re-emerged, but its negative associations leave some obstacles to overcome. Hemp, which is too often associated with marijuana, does come from the same family of plants, but yields a fraction of the active ingredient, THC. Hemp has the uncanny ability to help in solving many of the world’s major ...

It's time for my annual rant on the stupidity of marijuana eradication and although it goes on nationally, in no place is it better illustrated than California where they've just completed their yearly attack on harmless plants. [T]he annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting had uprooted some 3 million plants, wiping out an estimated $11.6 billion worth of weed. That is more than twice the value of the state's largest ...

Marijuana compound shows promise in fighting breast cancer Machines Like Us A compound found in cannabis may prove to be effective at helping stop the spread of breast cancer cells throughout the body. That’s the finding of a new study published in the latest issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. The study, by scientists at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, is raising hope that CBD, a compound found in ...