They Were Getting High on What? Evaluating Novel Psychoactive Drug Knowledge Among Practitioners

Novel psychoactive drugs (NPDs) such as synthetic marijuana, bath salts, and salvia have increasingly entered into the American drug landscape. As law enforcement, researchers, and policy makers attempt to better understand, regulate, and detect these novel substances, other practitioners invested in drug abuse prevention and treatment may lack the knowledge to adequately handle patients and adolescents abusing NPDs. The current study employs interviews with 64 practitioners employed in positions that interact with potential recreational substance users in southeast Georgia in order to assess NPD knowledge, placing particular emphasis on those 22 respondents employed in public health, healthcare, or educational roles. Findings indicate that knowledge about NPDs among medical and educational practitioners is lacking, much of the information they ‘know’ is inaccurate, and that practitioners clearly recognize a need for NPD training. We discuss these findings relative to their broader impact on treatment and prevention programs.     

An Analysis of China Health Charity Credibility Before and After the 2016 Charity Law of the People’s Republic of China

Due to corruption and limited oversight, philanthropy in China has come under increasing scrutiny by both the Chinese government and public. In particular, corruption has impacted charities, resulting in operational funding declines that have also impacted legitimate charities serving the vulnerable. Hence, an increase in the number of Chinese charities without adequate transparency and needed good governance threatens the health of these organizations and their service groups. In response, the Chinese government enacted the 2016 Charity Law, implemented on September 1, 2016. Yet the impact of this law, if any, is unknown. We therefore conducted a literature review of the academic and gray literature to assess characteristics of the law, its strengths and limitations, and to explore anti-corruption case studies. In addition, we reviewed publicly available secondary data on the transparency status—complete financial information and responsible staff—of Chinese charity organizations and a group of health-related specific charities before and after the Law’s enactment. This included the transparency scores of the top 100 charities and top 30 health-related charities in China. The academic literature we reviewed focused on general governmental corruption and little on charity-related corruption. However, the gray literature reflected a poor view of charities in China due to publicized claims of fund and abuse. Based on our secondary data analysis, we found charity organizations’ transparency shows some variation but as a total continues to score low overall across the top net asset holding charities. Importantly, based on a regression analysis, the transparency scores of Chinese charities did not experience a significant change despite the Charity Law’s enactment. In response, strengthening the Charity Law by enhancing enforcement of financial regulations and implementing systemic good governance measures is needed. Further, efficiency initiatives such as philanthropy de-administration, e-government, and outsourcing monitoring of Chinese charities to external agencies would promote trustworthiness and credibility of Chinese charity organizations now and in the future.

     

Public Perceptions of Traumatic Events and Policy Preferences during the George W. Bush Administration: A Portrait of America in Turbulent Times

The American policy landscape during the George W. Bush administration was shaped by a series of traumatic events that confronted the nation and people of the United States. These included the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001, the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001, military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the threat of a flu pandemic in 2005 and 2006, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, and the financial collapse of 2008. The results of the 2008 presidential election appear to be a rejection of the Bush administration's major policy responses to these events, but the variation in type and level of public support among different groups suggests a much more varied and dynamic portrait of America in turbulent times. Using a multiyear panel survey, an interdisciplinary team of political scientists and psychologists analyzed the behavior and political responses to the events by the American public. The findings suggest that even seven years after the events of 11 September 2001, people with higher levels of post-traumatic stress symptomatology related to 9/11 have significantly different interpretations of the threat of terrorism and the appropriate policy responses to it than do others. Perceptions of threat, the political salience of terrorism and other traumatic events, the level of support for political leaders and assessments of the government's actions vary over time and across different groups within society based on the psychological, political and social, and personal characteristics of the respondent. These results help to open the black box of aggregate public opinion by providing a detailed portrait of how psychological, social, political, and personal factors affected perceptions and political behavior during the George W. Bush administration.     

Punctuated Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective

We explore the impact of institutional design on the distribution of changes in outputs of governmental processes in the United States, Belgium, and Denmark. Using comprehensive indicators of governmental actions over several decades, we show that in each country the level of institutional friction increases as we look at processes further along the policy cycle. Assessing multiple policymaking institutions in each country allows us to control for the nature of the policy inputs, as all the institutions we consider cover the full range of social and political issues in the country. We find that all distributions exhibit high kurtosis values, significantly higher than the Normal distribution which would be expected if changes in government attention and activities were proportionate to changes in social inputs. Further, in each country, those institutions that impose higher decision-making costs show progressively higher kurtosis values. The results suggest general patterns that we hypothesize to be related to boundedly rational behavior in a complex social environment.     

Longevity Ancient and Modern

The article examines illustrations from ancient and modern societies to consider the connections between power, social elites and knowledge of techniques to promote longevity. In pre-modern societies, knowledge of practices and substances to promote longevity were cultivated by elites such as the Chinese imperial court. In modern societies, new technologies—cryonics, cloning, stem-cell applications and nanotechnology—will offer exclusive and expensive methods for prolonging life for the rich. However one important difference between the ancient and modern world is that with secularization longevity is no longer connected with a moral life; longevity is not a reward for sanctity. We have democratized the ambition for long life but not necessarily its realization. The modern quest for longevity appears to be connected with the desire of Baby Boomer generations to hold on to their assets, but while modern medicine may help us to survive forever, it cannot tell us how to live forever.