March 16th, 2009 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
As California State Assembly member Tom Ammiano put it: “What if California could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to preserve vital state services without any tax increase?” [...]
March 1st, 2009 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
“The fight against drugs is actually the fight for Afghanistan,” said Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he took office in 2002. Judging by the current situation, Afghanistan is losing. [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
Among the things everybody knows is that Democrats, being the party of the little people, raise money in small contributions, whereas Republicans, being the party of fat cats, raise funds in huge basketfuls from wealthy corporate types. At least, that’s the way the world is usually portrayed by the “Today Show,” The New York Times and the Democratic Party. So it’s of more than passing interest to see [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
A full page ad appeared Sunday, April 25, l999 in the Denver Rocky Mountain News. It had a picture of Steve Allen and an appeal to Parents. A partial quote from the ad read: Are you as disgusted as I am at the filfth, vulgarity, sex and violence TV is sending into our homes? are you fed up with steamy unmarried sex situations, filthy jokes, perversion, vulgarity, foul language, violence, killings, etc.? [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
A study from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University looked at driving under the influence of various types of music using a virtual Volkswagen New Beetle. The music used was Kenny G, “Stranger on the Shore” at 56 bpm, Spyro Gyra’s “Cashaca,” at 112 bpm, and DJ Jurgen, pop trance mix at 132 bpm. The study’s findings are just [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
By Richard Morin
Pollster John Zogby had a problem: Too many political conservatives and not enough lefties were signing up to participate in his online surveys of public opinion.
Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project also had a problem: He didn’t know what Americans really thought about legalizing the five-leafed devil weed.
But both problems went up [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
“Sitting in a drug counseling center’s waiting room (in Manchester, England), Elizabeth Forrest giggles as she scans a comic book explaining ‘how to roll a perfect joint’ in nine easy steps. … ‘This is hilarious,’ the 25-year-old heroin addict says, pointing to a cartoon warning that smoking too much marijuana can be fattening. The sketch [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
Working in drug prevention can be likened to working in a field hospital in a war zone. There are many, many serious injuries and casualties and they just keep coming. It is not, however, the War Against Drugs that is taking the lives of 16,000 individuals a year, most of them youngsters, it is the [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
Americans are exquisitely sensitive–just not to each other. There’s a small but telling scene in Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” that contains some dialogue that reverberates, at least for me. In the spirit of Samuel Johnson, who said man needs more often to be reminded than instructed, I offer it to all, including myself, who [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Cultural Environment
The Petroleum Equipment Institute is working on a campaign to try and make people aware of fires as a result of “static” (that is, static electricity) at gas pumps. They have researched 150 cases of these fires. The results were very surprising:
1) Out of 150 cases, almost all of them were women.
2) Almost all cases [...]
The world’s best business model has always been addiction. Tobacco and alcohol have been around for ages, but new temptations and spinoffs are being marketed all the time: meth, painkillers, energy drinks, you name it.
Importantly, the study also finds that the risk of violence from patients with psychoses who also have substance use disorder is no greater than those who have a substance use disorder but who do not have a psychotic illness – in other words, schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses do not appear to be responsible for any additional risk of violence above the increased risk associated with substance abuse.
Smoking marijuana over an extended period of time appears to greatly boost a young man’s risk for developing a particularly aggressive form of testicular cancer, a new study reveals. [...]
Relief from pain. In some people, prescription pain relievers also cause euphoria or feelings of well being by affecting the brain regions that mediate pleasure. This is why they are abused. Other effects include drowsiness, constipation and slowed breathing. [...]
On Sunday researchers at the University of Buffalo reported that Ritalin, used on children diagnosed with ADHD, may cause long-term changes in the brain. Many clinicians regard Ritalin as short-acting but the research with gene expression in an animal model suggests that it has the potential for causing long-lasting changes [...]
The body produces many chemicals and hormones, i.e., histamines, steroids, thyroid hormone, digitalis-like substances, adrenalin, etc, all of which work by attaching to corresponding brain receptors. The key is that these natural substances produced by the body are present in nanogram amounts [...]
As California State Assembly member Tom Ammiano put it: “What if California could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to preserve vital state services without any tax increase?” [...]
“The fight against drugs is actually the fight for Afghanistan,” said Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he took office in 2002. Judging by the current situation, Afghanistan is losing. [...]
Among the things everybody knows is that Democrats, being the party of the little people, raise money in small contributions, whereas Republicans, being the party of fat cats, raise funds in huge basketfuls from wealthy corporate types. At least, that’s the way the world is usually portrayed by the “Today Show,” The New York Times and the Democratic Party. So it’s of more than passing interest to see [...]