Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts

Innovation Vs Intervention In Health Care

by Veronique de Rugy. How can we produce better health for more people at a lower cost, year after year? By lifting all the rules and barriers that prevent health care innovators from bringing new lifesaving products to consumers and force doctors to beg bureaucrats and insurance administrators for permission to save lives. For years, free market ... MORE

Damon Root: 5 Supreme Court Cases To Watch In June

High Court to rule on Obamacare, gay marriage and more. The Supreme Court's 2014-2015 term will soon reach its finale. By the end of June, when the justices depart for their summer break, the Court is expected to issue a series of blockbuster decisions, including rulings on gay marriage, death penalty drugs, and Obamacare. Here are five   ... MORE

New Narcotic Painkiller Rules Put The Hurt To Veterans

by Emily Wax-Thibodeaux.    Frequent appointment requirements overwhelm the VA. New federal rules that make it harder to get narcotic painkillers are taking an unexpected toll on thousands of veterans who depend on these prescription drugs to treat a wide variety of ailments, such as missing limbs and post-traumatic stress. The restrictions, ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 'Drugged' Drivers Who Aren't

What if the risk ratio is statistically insignificant?   Last year, during a congressional hearing on the threat posed by stoned drivers, a representative of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was asked how many crash fatalities are caused by marijuana each year. "That's difficult to say," replied Jeff Michael, NHTSA's  ... MORE

Bill Bennett's Confusing Defense of Pot Prohibition

by Jacob Sullum.   An old statist looks to defend the status quo. “With marijuana,” declare William J. Bennett and Robert A. White in Going to Pot, their new prohibitionist screed, “we have inexplicably suspended all the normal rules of reasoning and knowledge.” You can’t say they didn’t warn us. The challenge for Bennett, a former drug czar and    ... MORE

Decriminalizing Possession of All Illicit Drugs

by Joao Castel-Branco Goulao.       Portugal did it 15 years ago. The overthrow of Portugal’s military dictatorship 40 years ago brought liberation after decades of repression. But along with political freedom and self expression, came another import from the free world that our citizens had long been denied, drugs. With little experience of   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: The 5 Best Drug Scares of 2014

Drunks, e-cigs, pot and more.        The history of drug control in America is a series of panic-propelled policies, most of which have not turned out very well. Those of us who support a calmer, more tolerant approach to psychoactive substances therefore spend much of our time defusing scares aimed at justifying or expanding the         ... MORE

Feds Decide Better To Live In Pain Than Risk Drug Abuse

The rescheduling of hydrocodone.  Imagine being wheeled into an operating room for an eye lift. As the anesthesia begins to flow into your vein, you see that instead of small precision scalpels on the instrument tray next to you,  your surgeon will be using a hatchet and an ax. Panic swells as you slide defenselessly out of consciousness…      ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead

How prohibition drives users to more dangerous drugs. Last week CNN ran a report called "Deadly High: How Synthetic Drugs Are Killing Kids." The story highlights the threat posed by "deadly new drugs on America's streets designed to evade the law." In case you are not sure how you should react to this menace, correspondent Drew Griffin   ... MORE

Mitchell Feinberg: On The Moral Use Of "Smart Drugs"

Smart is good.  Cognitive enhancement drugs (CEDs), such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Provigil, are most commonly known for their use in treating patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). But these drugs, often called “smart drugs,” can profoundly enhance a perfectly healthy person’s ability to sustain concentration and thus     ... MORE

Drugs And Prostitutes Help Bring Italy Out Of Recession

by Shane Ferro.   Italy is no longer in a recession, thanks to its black market. Because the European Union changed the way it calculates GDP to include illegal revenue from things like underground alcohol sales, drugs, and prostitution, Italy found out Wednesday that its 0.1% GDP decline in the first quarter of 2014 was actually flat— or 0.0%    ... MORE

Scientology Scheme: Foundation For A Drug-Free America

Propaganda machine is religious front group.     Pamphlets passed out with Halloween candy. The Foundation for a Drug-Free World -- at drugfreeworld.org -- is an anti-drug organization with links to and funded by the Church of ScientologyAs such it is considered one of the cult's front groupsThe Church of Scientology has a history of  ... MORE

Carl Sagan Wanted An Honest Drugs Debate 24 Years Ago

by Matt Ferner.     His questions remain spot on. Carl Sagan, a titan of scientific thought and communication, assumed many different roles in his life -- from science's "gatekeeper," to television star on the original "Cosmos," to marijuana user and advocate. Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, recently posted a handful of Sagan's letters  ... MORE

Son Of Draconian Drug Warrior Fails Drug Test

by Jesse Walker.    Vice President Joe Biden has been one of the most strident drug warriors of my lifetime. Mandatory minimum sentences, the crack/powder disparity, federal asset forfeiture, the RAVE Act—they all have Biden's fingerprints on them. The man may be responsible for the very phrase "drug czar." If the Drug War had its own Mount      ... MORE

Do People Really Hand Out Pot-Laced Halloween Candy?

by Jacob Sullum.     The urban legend continues. Last week the DPD posted a video in which Patrick Johnson, proprietor of Denver's Urban Dispensary, warns that "there's really no way to tell the difference between candy that's infused and candy that's not infused" once the products have been removed from their original packages.      ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Officially Killing Americans

Incentives of the drug bureaucrats.         The Food and Drug Administration can make two types of errors. It can approve a drug that has dangerous unanticipated side effects, or it can reject or delay approval of a drug that is safe and effective. Let's look at these errors, because to err on the side of under- or over-caution is costly.   ... MORE