Incidence of cannabinoids in medical examiner urine specimens

Cannabinoid use was studied in a nonspecific population of postmortem urine specimens in the State of Maryland. Of 500 sequential specimens screened for cannabinoids by enzyme multiplied immunoassay EMIT, 63 (13%) were initially positive and 58 (12%) were confirmed positive (92%). It was observed that geographic location and race did not correlate with cannabinoid prevalence. Cannabinoid use was observed to be strongly age related, with peak use by the 21- to 25-year-old age group where 22% of the cases were positive. Use of cannabinoids was also closely linked to homicides, which represented nearly half of the positive cases but only 13% of the total cases. When comparing manner of death, the greatest percent of confirmed positives was seen in homicide (26%) and drug-related (17%) deaths. The incidence of cannabinoid use was found to be more than 3 times as great in drug-related (17%) as compared to natural deaths (5%). The percent of cannabinoid-positive cases from vehicle-related accidents was low (6%) and that from nonvehicle-related accidents somewhat higher (10%). Other drugs appeared in cannabinoid-positive cases. Most prevalent was ethanol N = 18, followed by morphine (from heroin, N = 11), quinine N = 11, and cocaine N = 11. Phencyclidine (PCP) occurred twice and several other drugs were reported only once. Of the 25 homicide cases screened for drugs, 64% were positive for some drug including ethyl alcohol. Thus it appears that a high percentage of homicide cases are drug related. Males greatly outnumbered females (56:2) in positive cases, but the number of female specimens received was small.     

On universal relevance in legal reasoning

The purpose of this essay is to defend a claim that a certain consideration, which I call unworkability, is universally and necessarily relevant to legal reasoning. By that I mean that it is a consideration that must carry legal weight in the justification of some judicial decisions in every legal system in which (1) all disputed matters of law can be adjudicated, and (2) all judicial decisions are to be legally justified. Unworkability's necessary relevance has important implications for a theory of relevance presented by Rolf Sartorius. On this theory, nearly all considerations that are relevant to a judicial decision are supplied by legal principles embedded in the legal rules and decisions, or by extralegal principles dependent, in some way, on the legal principles. (The exceptions to the embedding thesis that Sartorius would, no doubt, recognize are elaborated in the text but can be set aside here.) But there are possible legal systems which do not contain an embedded legal principle concerning unworkability; and nonetheless, unworkability is relevant to judicial reasoning in those systems. Hence, a theory of relevance that relies on principles embedded in the content of rules is too simplistic. Some substantive considerations are relevant for other reasons.     

Injuries due to deliberate violence in areas of Denmark. III. Lesions. The Copenhagen Study Group

As part of a transcultural investigation of violent behavior in Denmark and South America, the lesions from accidents involving deliberate violence registered in three Danish emergency wards during a 1-year period were studied. A quantity of 2211 lesions were diagnosed in 1316 patients (953 male and 363 female patients). Sixty-five percent of the lesions were in the head/neck region, 13% in truncus, 18% in the upper extremities and 5% in the lower extremities. The most frequent diagnosis was an open wound in the head/neck region. Adding contusions and fractures in the same region this amounted to more than half of the total number of lesions. In the upper extremities 62% of the lesions were contusions or open wounds. Serious lesions of internal arteries were few, however always caused by sharp instruments (knives). Serious lesions due to firearms were not recorded/reported. Strangulation had been used against 1.1% of the victims, the male/female ratio being 1:6. The main part of the lesions were of minor severity when assessed on the basis of the scores in the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). The lesions were, however, more serious compared to other recent studies, and it appeared that the female victims had fewer but more serious lesions than the male victims. The need for treatment and hospitalization was in the range of other recent studies.