House of Commons committee releases report on Canada's drug strategy

On 17 May 2001, the House of Commons created a Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs based on a motion introduced by Randy White, Canadian Alliance MP (Langley-Abbottsford) and gave it a very broad mandate to study "the factors underlying or relating to the non-medical use of drugs in Canada" and to propose recommendations aimed at reducing "the dimensions of the problem involved in such use." In December 2002, the Committee released its report, entitled Policy for the New Millennium: Working Together to Redefine Canada's Drug Strategy. The report contains many good recommendations, but fails to deal adequately with the fundamental harms caused by Canada's drug laws and federal government inaction. Far better is the supplementary report written by NDP MP Libby Davies (Vancouver East), which contains an excellent, informed critique of the report. The supplementary report from the official opposition, written by MPs Randy White and Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, Alberta) also makes for interesting, if troubling, reading--it is based nearly exclusively on fiction rather than facts and science.     

Warsaw Declaration on HIV/AIDS and injection drug use adopted

Explosive epidemics of HIV among injection drug users are occurring in both developing and developed countries. Globally, it is estimated that 10 percent of HIV infections are attributable to injection drug use, but this proportion is increasing, and is much higher in many countries. Effective interventions exist to prevent the spread of HIV among injection drug users, but in most countries they are being adopted too slowly, or not at all. On 14 November 2003, the Warsaw Declaration: A Framework for Effective Action on HIV/ADS and Injection Drug Use, was adopted at the 2nd International Policy Dialogue on HIV/AIDS. Its purpose is to provide a framework for--finally--"mounting an effective response that will slow and eventually stop the HIV/AIDS epidemic among injecting drug users worldwide."     

South African prisoner wins payout after prison HIV infection

An ex-prisoner who sued South Africa's prison authorities after contracting HIV has obtained a landmark payout--the first time the South African government has been held accountable for the spread of HIV in overpopulated prisons, Reuters reported on 12 February 2003.     

Psychosocial differences between occasional and regular adolescent users of Marijuana and Heroin

Data on marijuana and heroin use were obtained from 969 adolescents in Hong Kong, part of them being offenders. Very high drug use prevalence rates were found, which is due to the unique population studied. All but two of the heroin users were incarcerated youth. Drug use frequencies were highly associated with psychosocial variables such as sensation seeking, peer drug use, family drug use, susceptibility to peer pressure, perceived control to gain access to drugs, intention to try other substances, and perceived adverse consequences of drug use. Interactions were found indicating, for example, that regularly marijuana using girls and occasionally heroin using girls were characterized by higher levels of sensation seeking and susceptibility to peer pressure than their male counterparts. Polysubstance use was generally related to high levels of psychosocial vulnerability factors. The exclusive use of marijuana was associated with high susceptibility to peer pressure and with perceived control to gain access to drugs. The findings reflect a complex interplay of psychosocial variables with substance use in adolescents that, however, cannot be generalized beyond this particular sample in Hong Kong.Received Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas. Research interests include drug-taking behaviors, health psychology and women studies. To whom correspondence should be addressed.Received M. Phil in Clinical Psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Research interests include drug-taking behaviors and adolescent problems.Research interests include stress and anxiety.     

Digital forensic osteology--possibilities in cooperation with the Virtopsy project

In forensic pathology, the reactions that occur in the body from somatic death to cell death are commonly termed "supravital reactions". There are many reports of grossly visible and microscopic supravital reactions; however, few papers are available on the supravital reaction concerning gene expression. The aim of this study was to examine the gene expression of immediate early genes (IEGs) including c-fos, fos-B and c-jun in mechanically asphyxiated mouse brain and lung after somatic death and to identify the IEGs expressed at the point of supravital reaction in the brain and lung. Our results confirm that the expression of IEGs changed after death during supravital reaction and that the alterations differed according to the cause of death and the types of organ examined. In addition, IEG expression significantly increased following mechanical asphyxia. These results suggest that there is a specific pattern of gene expression following asphyxia. It is therefore important to identify the specific genes involved, as this may give significant information to aid in the post-mortem diagnosis of strangulation and hanging.     

Bank regulation and supervision in bank-dominated financial systems: a comparison between Japan and Germany

This paper compares bank regulation and supervision in Japan and Germany. We consider these countries because they both have bank-dominated financial systems and their banking systems are often lumped together as one model, yet, bank stability differs significantly. We show that Japan and Germany have chosen different approaches to bank regulation and supervision and ask why they made their choices. We argue that bank regulation and supervision were less efficient in Japan than in Germany and that these differences were decisive for bank behavior.