Dextromethorphan abuse leading to assault, suicide, or homicide

Abstract: Dextromethorphan is a commonly encountered antitussive medication which has found additional therapeutic use in the treatment of pseudobulbar disorder and as an adjunct to opiate use in pain management. Dextromethorphan at high doses has phencyclidine‐like effects on the NMDA receptor system; recreational use of high doses has been found to cause mania and hallucinations. The toxicology and pharmacology of the drug in abuse are reviewed, and the historical literature of adverse psychiatric outcomes is assessed. Five new cases of dextromethorphan intoxication that resulted in assault, suicide, and homicide are reported, together with the corresponding toxicology results. Blood concentrations ranged from 300 to 19,000 μg/L. These results are compared with typical concentrations reported in therapeutic use and impaired driving cases. Based on these findings, dextromethorphan should be considered as a potential causative agent in subjects presenting with mania, psychosis, or hallucinations, and abusers are at risk for violent and self‐destructive acts.     

The Complexity of Hate Crime and Bias Activity: Variation across Contexts and Types of Bias

Are racially-motivated hate crimes, non-criminal bias incidents, and general forms of crime associated with the same structural factors? If so, then social disorganization, a powerful structural correlate of general crime, should predict rates of hate incidents. However, tests of social disorganization’s effects on racially-motivated hate crime yield inconsistent results. This study uses data from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) to explore such inconsistencies. Specifically, we assess the effects of social disorganization across contexts and types of bias motivation using bias incidents over 12 years. The results suggest that (a) social disorganization, particularly residential instability, is robustly correlated with rates of both hate crime and other prejudicial conduct, and that (b) the interactive effects of social disorganization help explain variations in incident rates by motivation type. Specifically, anti-black incidents are most frequent in unstable, homogeneous (i.e. white) and advantaged communities, while anti-white incidents are most frequent in unstable, disadvantaged communities.     

Who Controls the Content of Supreme Court Opinions?

Conventional arguments identify either the median justice or the opinion author as the most influential justices in shaping the content of Supreme Court opinions. We develop a model of judicial decision making that suggests that opinions are likely to reflect the views of the median justice in the majority coalition. This result derives from two features of judicial decision making that have received little attention in previous models. The first is that in deciding a case, justices must resolve a concrete dispute, and that they may have preferences over which party wins the specific case confronting them. The second is that justices who are dissatisfied with an opinion are free to write concurrences (and dissents). We demonstrate that both features undermine the bargaining power of the Court's median and shift influence towards the coalition median. An empirical analysis of concurrence behavior provides significant support for the model.     

Public Attitudes toward Climate Science and Climate Policy in Federal Systems: Canada and the United States Compared1

Multilevel governance poses several challenges for the politics of climate change. On the one hand, the unequal distribution of power and interests can serve as a barrier to implementing coherent policy at a federal level. On the other, these features also enable policy leadership among sub‐federal units. In the context of wide variation in climate policy at both national and sub‐federal levels in Canada and in the United States, this paper utilizes an original data set to examine public attitudes and perceptions toward climate science and climate change policy in two federal systems. Drawing on national and provincial/state level data from telephone surveys administered in the United States and in Canada, the paper provides insight into where the public stands on the climate change issue in two of the most carbon‐intensive federal systems in the world. The paper includes the first directly comparable public opinion data on how Canadians and Americans form their opinions regarding climate matters and provides insight into the preferences of these two populations regarding climate policies at both the national and sub‐federal levels. Key findings are examined in the context of growing policy experiments at the sub‐federal level in both countries and limited national level progress in the adoption of climate change legislation.     

Effects of genetic and environmental explanations of psychopathy and gender on perceptions of criminal behaviors

Genetic/biological evidence is increasingly introduced into courtrooms but findings regarding its impact are mixed. This study integrates research on psychopathy and the use of genetic evidence in legal contexts by considering how information on genetic causal accounts of psychopathy affect perceptions of culpability, recidivism, amenability to treatment, and sentencing severity. Perpetrator gender was examined as a moderator. Two-hundred thirty-eight undergraduates read a hypothetical violent crime vignette and mock expert testimony regarding psychopathy. The testimony included a diagnosis only, or a diagnosis plus genetic or environmental explanations of the etiology of psychopathy. Results indicated that a genetic account of psychopathy was not clearly perceived as aggravating or mitigating such that participants were more lenient in their perceptions of culpability yet more punitive in their sentencing recommendations when perpetrators were described to have genetically-caused psychopathy. An environmental account of psychopathy was mitigating but only for sentencing severity. In addition, although participants were more lenient in sentencing male and female perpetrators when provided with an environmental cause of psychopathy, participants judged male perpetrators most harshly when provided with a genetic cause of psychopathy. Implications of the relations between etiology and gender in legal decision-making are discussed.     

Targeting islamist terrorism in asia pacific: an unending war

Three years into the US-led “War on Terror,” the international coalition against terrorism remains fragmented. Despite the killings of many key al Qaeda leaders as well as worldwide disruption of its bases, financial infrastructures and networks, al Qaeda has demonstrated remarkable regenerative and adoptive capabilities. Al Qaeda remains resilient enough—mutating into new forms and adapting to the changing operational environment—to continue with its campaign of terror, targeting not only the interests of the United States, but its allies and supporters worldwide. At the strategic level, the spirit of cooperation has been undermined by some of the policies of the United States. At a tactical level, the failure can be attributed to two major factors. One is the failure to understand the nature of the threat, especially the “al Qaeda phenomenon” in its entirety, including the vision, sense of mission, capabilities, acumen and the organizational skills of Osama bin Laden. Second, and most important, is the failure to address the core issues and the ideology that underlie the militant Islamist threat.

With Iraq emerging as the new epicenter of global terrorism, the center of gravity of terrorism seems to have shifted back to the Middle East. However, this does not make the threat less salient in the Asia Pacific region. In the region, the threat lies in the ideological challenge posed by an alternative vision of the state represented by a pan-Islamic caliphate or by the ideal of an Islamic state governed by Shar'ia law. It is therefore incumbent upon Asia Pacific countries to manage the threat of radical Islamic terrorism by preventing transnational groups such as al Qaeda from utilizing separatist and ethnic or religious conflicts in the region for their broader global revolutionary agenda.