School officials and health care workers repeatedly cited the location of medical marijuana dispensaries near schools and the saturation of marijuana in surrounding communities.
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In our story Teen: Without marijuana, I’d probably be dead, a 17-year-old with a rare disease relies on medical marijuana but can’t get treatment at schoolAbout this project These stories result from a collaboration between Education News Colorado, Solutions and the I-News Network, three non-profit news websites based in Denver and staffed by professional journalists.
They say Colorado’s thriving cannabis industry and its advertising online and on storefronts at more than 700 dispensaries have emboldened young people to justify abuse and claim health benefits from marijuana.But contrary to perceptions among students, doctors say marijuana is especially harmful to kids for two key reasons:
First, new research shows adolescence is a crucial time for brain development and marijuana use can permanently change the teen brain. Second, young people who start using marijuana before age 18 are much more likely than adults to become addicted to the drug.It’s an ironic play of events that use is going up at the same time that the science is coming out about its possible brain toxicity,” said Dr. Chris Thurstone, an adolescent psychiatrist who runs a substance abuse treatment program at Denver Health.We need to tell people that youth are the most likely to become addicted to marijuana and that when they become addicted, they are at higher risk for every bad outcome a teenager can face.”
Doctors interviewed across the spectrum, from vocal marijuana opponents to those who recommend it for patients, agreed that marijuana can be addictive. And the diagnostic bible for health providers, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, lists cannabis abuse and cannabis dependence as possible diagnoses.There is no debate in the scientific community,” Thurstone said. “It’s physically and mentally addictive.”
The case of a two year-old baby girl in India who was unconscious and covered in human bites when admitted to a local hospital is bringing attention to the issue of sex-selective abortions in the country.Carlos Polo, director of the Office for Latin America of the Population Research Institute, told CNA on Feb. 17 that this kind of abuse shows the effects that abortions based on gender discrimination have on society.
He noted that sex-selective abortions “have been practiced for decades to eliminate unborn baby girls in India and in many countries where the culture exalts the birth of a son but disparages the birth of a daughter.India’s Ministry of the Interior has launched an investigation into the incident after two-year-old baby Falak (whose name means sky) was taken to a hospital in New Delhi on Jan. 18 with bruises on her head, broken limbs and human bite marks on her body.
A doctor caring for the baby at a New Delhi hospital told CNN on Feb. 11 that medical staff is unsure if she will survive and that she will most likely sustain permanent brain damage if she does.
“What was done to this girl is very similar to what is done to a woman who is expecting a baby girl,” Polo said.
The Population Research Institute's bulletin from Dec. 14, 2011, reported practices that take place when a family member is pregnant with a baby girl. “Her husband and relatives push her, kick her in the stomach, and deny her food, water and rest, all for the purposes of bringing about an abortion,” the institute said.
Death during sexual intercourse doesn’t happen very often.But when it does, most of the time the victim is having an extramarital affair.That’s one startling conclusion of a new study led by a professor at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Glenn Levine also runs the Cardiac Care Unit at Houston’s VA Hospital.Levine and his colleagues found that 75% of people who died in the arms of a sexual partner were actually cheating on their spouses.Most were older men having a fling with younger women, and alcohol usually played a role.
We certainly don't know why they died more frequently,” explains Levine. “But certainly I think one can speculate in such a relationship your adrenaline may be flowing a little bit more. And those things might predispose patients to heart attack or abnormal heart rhythms that could cause death.The “sudden death” statistic may be shocking. But it’s merely a sub-plot in the research, whose main thrust is to establish that sexual activity is generally safe for people with cardiovascular disease.We think sexual activity is an important component of quality of life,” says Levine. “And I think we should be addressing that as we do other things in our patients with heart disease.”
The study appears in the current edition of the American Heart Association’s journal “Circulation.”
Most studies looking at whether erectile dysfunction drugs can help men overcome premature ejaculation problems agree that the pills make a difference, but much of the research is flawed, according to a new review of the evidence.
Of the 14 studies included in the review, 11 found that the medications helped extend the length of time men could have intercourse before orgasm, but Dr. Anastasios Asimakopoulos, lead author of the report, urged caution in interpreting the findings.here is still inadequate evidence to propose the use of (these types of drugs) in treating (premature ejaculation)," he wrote in an email to Reuters Health.The drugs, which go by the brand names Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis, are intended to treat men who have problems getting and keeping an erection.
There's been an interest in also using them to address the problem of premature ejaculation, because one of the side effects of the drugs is a delay in ejaculation, the authors write in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.Asimakopoulos, from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, Italy, said that anywhere from 4 to 39 percent of men suffer from premature ejaculation.His group collected data from 14 studies that measured the effect of medications on extending the time during intercourse before orgasm, technically referred to as the "intravaginal ejaculatory latency time."
Nine of the studies used an erectile dysfunction drug by itself, while four combined the drug with an antidepressant medication, and one combined the drug with behavioral therapy.
After 30 weeks gestation, says Kale, it would be difficult for anyone to get an abortion. No Canadian physician would perform un-questioned abortion without a genuine medical reason for doing so.Medical experts and social activists have various views on the issue. Dr Nahid Azad, President of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada, says that the issue must be studied in depth on regional basis to decide the course of action and policy making. If the problem iswidespread, she says, the blanket policy is an effective way to resist feticide.
Gwendolyn Landolt, national vice-president of the pro-life group REAL Women Canada, said, she is "fully in favor of the proposal. Statistics Canada has shown that a preference for males is showing up in demographics and that's degrading and discriminatory to women.Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, was quoted in a Canadian Press story saying that the policy would unnecessarily keep information from parents who might have a valid need for it.Imposing on a doctor what you can and cannot tell a patient really interferes with medical discretion," Arthur told CP. "Every situation is different, and the doctor needs to be able to judge or talk to the patient honestly and openly."
Dr. Charles Bernard, head of the College des médecins du Québec, said, "It is not acceptable to hide information from patients and the doctor who wrote the editorial doesn't represent the opinion of the majority of doctors in Canada."
Most Canadians are followers of Abrahamic religions and descendents of Sarah and Hager. These religions teach that life is precious and needs to be loved, protected and respected, irrespective of gender. Arab tribes used to bury their newborn daughters alive before the advent of Islam; the prophet of Islam immediately stopped the barbaric practice in the seventh century of our Common Era.
