Why it will be difficult for Jeff Sessions to put the genie back into the bottle on marijuana policy

Last week, the US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced that he would be revoking Obama-era Department of Justice guidance which left the enforcement of marijuana policy to the states by giving prosecutors more discretion to pursue marijuana cases. A. Lee Hannah and Daniel J. Mallinson write that Sessions' policy about-face draws opposition from many of those in his own party, state US attorneys, interest groups, and state legislatures. Given that the federal government is dependent on state and local law enforcement for implementing drug prohibition, this opposition could well push Congress to change federal marijuana law

Uncooperative federal government has led to innovation on marijuana policy in more liberal, less religious states.

In the past two decades, 29 states and Washington DC have liberalized their laws on the use of medical marijuana - in defiance of federal regulations. A. Lee Hannah and Daniel J. Mallinson look at why some states have become 'defiant innovators' in this area. They find that if a state is more liberal and less religious, if the state ..

How the US states have learned from each other to create more comprehensive medical cannabis policies.

Medical cannabis was first legalized in California in 1996 – since then, 32 more states have done the same, and 11 have made the drug legal for recreational use. A. Lee Hannah and Daniel J. Mallinson take a close look at how the US states have learned from each other on how to regulate cannabis in the face of a continuing [...

Heat transfer measurement of turbulent spots in a hypersonic blunt-body boundary layer

This paper presents data on turbulent-spot propagation in the hypersonic boundary-layer flow over a blunted cylindrical body. Data are based on the measurement of time-dependent surface heat transfer rates using gauges positioned as arrays in either th

Frequency and risk factors for incident and redetected Chlamydia trachomatis infection in sexually active, young, multi-ethnic women: a community based cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the frequency and risk factors for incident and redetected Chlamydia trachomatis infection in sexually active, young, multi-ethnic women in the community. DESIGN: Cohort study. SETTING: 20 London universities and Further Education colleges. PARTICIPANTS: 954 sexually experienced women, mean age 21.5 years (range 16-27), 26% from ethnic minorities, who were recruited to the Prevention of Pelvic Infection (POPI) chlamydia screening trial between 2004 and 2006, and returned repeat postal self-taken vaginal swabs 11-32 (median 16) months after recruitment. RESULTS: The estimated annual incidence of chlamydia infection among 907 women who tested negative at baseline was 3.4 per 100 person-years (95% CI 2.5 to 4.6 per 100 person-years), but 6.6 per 100 person-years (95% CI 4.5 to 9.3 per 100 person-years) in the 326 teenagers (<20 years). Predictors of incident chlamydia infection were age <20 years (relative risk (RR) 4.0, 95% CI 2.1 to 7.5), and (after adjusting for age) a new sexual partner during 12 months follow-up (RR 4.4, 95% CI 2.0 to 9.9), smoking (RR 2.2 95% CI 1.2 to 3.9), concurrent bacterial vaginosis (RR 2.0 95% CI 1.1 to 3.9) and high risk carcinogenic human papillomavirus (RR 2.2, 95% CI 1.1 to 4.3). Of 47 women positive for chlamydia at baseline, 12 (25.5%, 95% CI 13.9% to 40.3%) had redetected infection at a median of 16 months follow-up. Taking into account follow-up time (65 person-years), the annual redetection rate was 18.5 per 100 person-years (95% CI 9.9 to 30.0 per 100 person-years). CONCLUSIONS: One in four women with chlamydia infection at baseline retested positive, supporting recent recommendations to routinely retest chlamydia positives

Maximizing Social Equity as a Pillar of Public Administration: An Examination of Cannabis Dispensary Licensing in Pennsylvania

Public administration upholds four pillars of an administrative practice: economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and social equity. The question arises, however, how do administrators balance effectiveness and social equity when implementing policy? Can the values contributing to administrative decisions be measured? This study leverages the expansion of medical cannabis programs in the states to interrogate these questions. The awarding of dispensary licenses in Pennsylvania affords the ability to determine the effect of social equity scoring on license award decisions, relative to criteria that represent the other pillars. The results show that safety and business acumen were the most important determining factors in the awarding of licenses, both effectiveness concerns. Social equity does not emerge as a significant determinant until the second round of licensing. This study then discusses the future of social equity provisions for cannabis policy, as well as what the findings mean for social equity in public administration

Risk analysis assessment of the influence of geological factors on exploration and mining investment alternatives : development of a microcomputer simulation model

A microcomputer risk analysis model is developed and used in an exploration - delineation simulation to analyse in particular the effects of geological factors on exploration mining investment alternatives. Analysis of results indicate that geological parameters can have profound effects on such investment alternatives and that the role of the geologist in determining and evaluating the significance of the various geological factors is critical. Simulation examples highlight some of the key geological parameters and show how changes in these parameters influence both the expected mean results and the standard deviations of such means. The risk analysis model provides an ideal means of conveying the importance of the different geoiogical factors on exploration - delineation - mining investment alternatives and may be used as a geological education ai

The practical feasibility of using RFID in a metal environment

Passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has revolutionized the way in which products are identified. This paper considers the effect of metals on the performance of RFID at ultra high frequency (UHF). The paper establishes read patterns in space, highlighting the interference of RF waves due to three different metals, one ferrous and the other two non ferrous, when placed behind a transponder. The effect of thickness of the metal plate is also examined. Different metals have been found to have different interference effects although there are some similarities in their read patterns related to their material properties. Also experiments have been carried out to identify and establish various methods of improving this performance. Finally, differences between performance-measuring parameters, namely attenuating transmitted power and calculating read rate at a fixed attenuation are established and possible reasons of these observations are presented