Drug Views

Abstract

Substance abuse is a significant social problem and political issue. Students at a Midwestern university were surveyed on their drug views. The findings suggest that race is a statistically significant factor on students' views toward drugs. White students were more likely than non-Whites to view drugs as a pressing social issue, to consider drug use as a character weakness, and to support a punitive response to drug use. In contrast, non-Whites were more likely than Whites to view drug abuse as an illness, to support treatment as a response, to be tolerant of marijuana use, and to support legalization of marijuana. Both groups of students considered alcohol a dangerous drug. Differences associated with race remained statistically significant in multivariate analysis after controlling for age, academic standing, political affiliation, and religiosity.     

Drug automatism

The historic development and validity of drug automatism are discussed. Original articles and other publications supporting the concept do not present authenticated cases to validate the concept; therefore, it remains unproved.     

美国药品责任诉讼中药品缺陷的证明

在美国产品严格责任制度中,药品具有缺陷是药品侵权责任成立的前提条件。在涉及药品责任的诉讼中,对药品缺陷的证明是决定诉讼胜败的关键。美国第三次侵权法重述把药品缺陷分为设计缺陷、制造缺陷、使用说明或警示缺陷。其各自不同的判断标准,既能帮助原告理解抽象的缺陷概念,也为原告通过具体的证据去证明缺陷指明了方向。探讨美国药品缺陷判断与证明的法律理论以及判例经验,以期能对我国相关法律的建设与司法实践提供一些有益的参考。     

美国药品责任诉讼中药品缺陷的证明

在美国产品严格责任制度中,药品具有缺陷是药品侵权责任成立的前提条件。在涉及药品责任的诉讼中,对药品缺陷的证明是决定诉讼胜败的关键。“美国第三次侵权法重述”把药品缺陷分为设计缺陷、制造缺陷、使用说明或警示缺陷。其各自不同的判断标准,既能帮助原告理解抽象的缺陷概念,也为原告通过具体的证据去证明缺陷指明了方向。探讨美国药品缺陷判断与证明的法律理论以及判例经验,以期能对我国相关法律的建设与司法实践提供一些有益的参考。     

毒品检验分析中禁毒情报的作用与挖掘利用

目前,毒品犯罪不断发展变化,禁毒工作面临着非常严重的挑战。与此同时,禁毒工作也面临着前所未有的挑战和困难,如何突破困境、迎难而上创新性的开展禁毒工作成为当务之急。禁毒工作、情报先行,遏制毒品犯罪的进一步发展的关键就得情报先行,而毒品检验分析能为侦破、审理涉毒案件提供科学依据和重要情报线索。通过转变传统的毒品检验分析观念、突出毒检技术服务实战作用、加强毒检技术队伍建设、切实的保障运行经费,有效挖掘与利用毒品检验分析中的禁毒情报,为禁毒工作注入新的活力,以有效的开展禁毒工作。     

Drug Policies and Drug Prevalence: The Role of Demand and Supply

Changes in drug policy within countries and variations in drug policy across countries do not show clear cut relationships with drug prevalence levels. Neither liberal nor repressive policies promote or reduce drug use. Though policy might affect supply, factors associated with demand seem to exert a greater impact. Socio-economic conditions and attitudes of the populations towards drugs and related areas might be more important than policy in determining the prevalence level of cannabis and the turnover rate to hard drug use.     

Drug Addiction in Russia

[From the editors of Pravozashchitnik:] The Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (www.svop.ru) is a nongovernmental organization. It was founded on 25 February 1992 in Moscow by a group of well-known and influential politicians, heads of business associations, eminent entrepreneurs, political and social activists, and representatives of the power ministries, the military-industrial complex, academe, and the mass media. The independent status and the considerable scientific and political authority that the council has attained enables it to play an important role in Russia's emerging civil society, a niche that state structures cannot fill.     

Narcotics and Drug Abuse

Fifty years ago, the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice saw drugs as a modest but growing problem for the criminal justice system. The reemergence of heroin occupied the Commission's attention. Many recommendations are admirable, such as a focus on public health interventions and a concern about the appropriateness of criminal prohibitions on marijuana use. Throughout the past 50 years, the problem has both massively expanded and changed in many ways; the principal drug of abuse has shifted multiple times, as has the populations most affected by them. Policy, largely stuck on tough enforcement for 30 years, is now moving in a direction more consistent with the Commission's views. Researchers have made only modest advances in understanding what enforcement can do to reduce drug use and related problems, but society has made some progress in developing interventions that have both a sound theoretical base and the promise of avoiding the unintended negative consequences of the highly punitive system of the 1980s and 1990s. A Commission in 2018 would face a much different and larger problem that has transformed many aspects of criminal justice. Investing in more data collection and evaluation research would be among its major recommendations, as would an admission of considerable uncertainty about what to do with the latest twist in the U.S. drug problem, the addition of the much more dangerous fentanyls.     

Fixing Transnational Drug Policy: Drug Prohibition in the Eyes of Comparative Law

Drug prohibition allows us to study over a significant period of time how penal provisions framed at a supranational level flow, settle, and unsettle across different countries. At a time of growing doubt about the benefit of criminalization of drug use, it also provides a case‐study as to how epistemic communities may rely on comparative research to identify best practices and promote them as normative alternatives in the face of a long‐entrenched legal dogma. In order to explore these issues, this article looks at the UN drug control system from the perspective of comparative law. It shows how the concept of legal transplant provides a useful tool to understand the limits of transnational criminal law designed on a global scale to tackle the ‘drug problem', and it clarifies the various types of legal comparison that might contribute to addressing this failed transplant.