After 25 years, Sandee Burbank's controversial views on drugs haven't changed, but she's become more comfortable -- and better at -- backing them up. Having just come from an interview on Al Wynn's "coffee break," she remembers being "scared to death" on the same show 21/2 decades before and unable to respond when Rod Runyon asked, "Where did you get your information?" "I had a briefcase full of things," recalls the executive director and co-founder of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse (MAMA), "and of course I couldn't find it. Now, I've learned to say 'I'll get back to you.'" [continues 536 words]
Eventual Policy May Or May Not Look Like Initial Proposal There was disagreement about what a drug testing policy might look like and even on the need for it or wisdom of doing it, but that didn't stop a majority of North Wasco County School District board members from voting to start one at the beginning of the next school year. After considering member PK Swartz's draft for a possible policy, the board resolved -- in a 5-2 vote with Wayne Haythorn and Brian Stahl dissenting -- to develop and implement some kind of policy by September. [continues 727 words]
A prominent Oxford Professor of Physiology has criticized the government's classification of illegal drugs. The Head of the Medical Research Council, Dr Colin Blakemore, told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that he saw the inclusion of LSD, magic mushrooms and ecstasy in the Class A category as illogical. Blakemore, who was called in to advise the committee's ongoing investigation into drug classification, said, "Not all the evidence was taken into account in the original classifications and subsequent evidence has not been well incorporated." A spokesperson from the independent drug advisory group Drugscope said, "I don't think anyone would argue that there are not serious anomalies in the classification system. [continues 275 words]
