CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 22, 2008 | From the Associated Press
A medical malpractice lawsuit filed by the family of an Orange County girl who was revived after doctors allegedly declared her dead went to trial Monday. Mackayla Jespersen was 20 months old when she fell into a swimming pool at her Fullerton home on Nov. 7, 2003. The lawsuit alleges that the girl, now 6, suffered permanent brain damage after doctors at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center wrongly pronounced her dead and disconnected her breathing tube. More than an hour later, a police detective conducting a routine investigation noticed that her chest was moving and summoned doctors, who were able to revive the child.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 25, 2010 | By John Hoeffel
An initiative to legalize marijuana and allow it to be sold and taxed will appear on the November ballot, state election officials announced Wednesday, triggering what will probably be a much-watched campaign that once again puts California on the forefront of the nation's debate over whether to soften drug laws. The number of valid signatures reported by Los Angeles County, submitted minutes before Wednesday's 5 p.m. deadline, put the measure well beyond the 433,971 it needed to be certified.
HEALTH
August 18, 2008 | Jill U. Adams, Special to The Times
Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the country -- an estimated 25 million Americans smoked it within the last year and close to 100 million have smoked it at least once in their life, according to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Rates and severity of marijuana addiction pale in comparison to that of legal addictive drugs, alcohol and nicotine, according to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, a panel of independent experts advising the British government, in a rare head-to-head, scientific comparison.
SCIENCE
October 9, 2010 | By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times
In 1969, Carol McDonald was 28, married and the mother of two young children, out for an evening of fun with a couple who smoked marijuana. By the end of the evening she was on her way to a 19-year addiction. "Within a few months, I was smoking every day," said McDonald, a retired bookkeeper, now 69. "I had to smoke before going to work. If something was upsetting, I smoked over it. If there was a celebration, I smoked over it. " People like McDonald may be largely overlooked in the statewide debate over legalizing marijuana.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 8, 2010 | By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times
California's cash crop could become dirt cheap if the state legalizes marijuana. Researchers associated with the Rand Corp.'s Drug Policy Research Center said Wednesday that not much is certain about the potential impact of Proposition 19 except that the price of California's choicest weed could plunge more than 80%, down from $300 to $450 per ounce to about $38. "That's a significant drop," said Beau Kilmer, co-director of the center....
NATIONAL
November 11, 2009 | John Hoeffel
The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research. The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD. In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.