Rand Corp

Many California doctors are making large profits by prescribing and directly dispensing custom-made "compounded" drugs to people with work-related injuries, according to a new Rand Corp. research report. Use of these pricey drugs ? mostly painkilling creams for patients who might need an alternative to pills ? has soared in recent years, driving up costs in California's workers' compensation system and alarming some legislators, who are now looking to rein in their use. Rand was hired to do the study after lawmakers asked the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation to look into the compounded-drug trend.

Lauren Mills' counselor in college pushed her to consider nursing. She heeded the advice, graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 2007 and now works with cardiac patients at an Orange County hospital. It's proved a challenging and gratifying choice, said Mills, now 27. "You are using your brain and in a way you are using your heart too," she said. "You feel good when you go home. You feel you made a difference. " Increasing numbers of women like Mills are helping swell the ranks of registered nurses, easing chronic shortages in both California and the nation, according to a study released Monday by the Rand Corp.

Are medical marijuana dispensaries magnets for crime? That question matters, because the assumption that such facilities are neighborhood nuisances is propelling a drive by Los Angeles and other California cities to craft regulations that limit the number of dispensaries and where they can operate. So when Rand Corp. came out with a study last month that seemed to arrive at the opposite conclusion, marijuana advocates stood up and cheered. The cheering stopped Monday, when Rand retracted the study.

Are medical marijuana dispensaries magnets for crime? That question matters, because the assumption that such facilities are neighborhood nuisances is propelling a drive by Los Angeles and other California cities to craft regulations that limit the number of dispensaries and where they can operate. So when Rand Corp. came out with a study last month that seemed to arrive at the opposite conclusion, marijuana advocates stood up and cheered. The cheering stopped Monday, when Rand retracted the study.

USC and the Rand Corp. have formed a partnership to enable scholars to hold positions at both institutions and to foster joint research projects on challenges facing the Los Angeles area. Although researchers from USC and Rand, the Santa Monica-based think tank, have teamed in the past, the new agreement marks their first formal partnership. Officials said it might lead to joint recruiting of professors and researchers as well as to joint education programs.

The RAND Corp., a private, nonprofit think tank, has announced that it is launching a European-American Center of Policy Analysis at its headquarters at Santa Monica and at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The center, which is to open April 1, will bring together U.S. and European researchers to conduct studies in areas such as education and training, energy, civil justice, the environment, drug policy, health policy, immigration, telecommunications and transportation.

About 50 anti-nuclear activists marched to the Rand Corp. headquarters on Monday, protesting the organization's involvement in military issues and nuclear weapons. The eight-mile march started at UCLA. Protesters included City Atty. Robert M. Myers, who was arrested during a recent demonstration at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. The "March for Survival" was coordinated by the Westside SANE/Freeze.

A fire at the Rand Corp. office building in Santa Monica early Wednesday left one office gutted and four others damaged, officials said. The blaze, which was contained on the third floor of the five-story building at 1700 Main St., was put out in less than half an hour, Santa Monica Fire Capt. Tom Riegner said. One office in the graphic arts area was gutted, another sustained minor fire damage, and three others were damaged by smoke, Riegner said. He said the fire broke out about 1:45 a.m.

Franklin R. Collbohm, aerospace pioneer and founder of the prototype Santa Monica-based think tank called the RAND Corp., has died at his Palm Desert home. He was 83. Collbohm died in his sleep Monday evening following a stroke three weeks ago, his daughter-in-law, Vera Collbohm, said Tuesday. "For two decades as he worked to found and build the RAND Corp.

When discussing the issues with the opponents of Santa Monica's new Civic Center plan, it becomes immediately apparent that traffic is not the real issue. Even more curious is that the actual urban design is rarely discussed. What comes out of the traffic complaint is some number of trips per day that, like many statistics, sounds high when taken alone, but is not alarming when compared to the whole city. In fact, the new Olympic Boulevard extension should actually reduce impacts along 4th, especially at Colorado and Pico.

Bobbie Lee Holmes, a Los Angeles public school teacher who won an early victory for fair housing in California when she and her husband used the courts to challenge the racism of their Pacoima neighbors, died Sept.19 in Petaluma. She was 84. The cause was complications from heart and kidney disease, said her son, Emory Holmes II. In 1959, Holmes and her husband, Emory, moved with their three children from an integrated neighborhood on the east side of Pacoima to an all-white section a few miles away.

Many California doctors are making large profits by prescribing and directly dispensing custom-made "compounded" drugs to people with work-related injuries, according to a new Rand Corp. research report. Use of these pricey drugs ? mostly painkilling creams for patients who might need an alternative to pills ? has soared in recent years, driving up costs in California's workers' compensation system and alarming some legislators, who are now looking to rein in their use. Rand was hired to do the study after lawmakers asked the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation to look into the compounded-drug trend.

Daniel Ellsberg remembers the day he learned that time may indeed heal all wounds. "By the end of the Cold War, around 1989 or so," recalls Ellsberg, who had been despised and disowned in the '70s for leaking classified documents about the Vietnam War, "I'd be in a meeting with someone, and they wouldn't leave the room. " This small triumph ? he offers a shy smile ? may not sound like cause for celebration. But when you've been called "the most dangerous man in America" by Henry Kissinger, you take your good news where you can get it. Ellsberg's growing unease about the Vietnam War, his decision to leak the 7,000-page Pentagon Papers to the press and members of Congress, and the turmoil he experienced afterward are the subjects of POV's "The Most Dangerous Man in America," an Academy Award-nominated documentary that PBS broadcasts Tuesday.

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....

In the 1980s and '90s, rising crime, dilapidated streets and a perception that police alone could not keep the streets of Los Angeles safe led a few neighborhoods to take matters into their own hands. In areas as varied as Old Pasadena, Westwood, Hollywood Boulevard and downtown L.A., business and property owners banded together to assess themselves and form umbrella organizations aimed at keeping their areas safe and clean.

Re "Should we tax pot?" Opinion, Dec. 4 Patt Morrison tells us that a Rand Corp. researcher estimates that if pot were legal, 60% to 70% of the population would smoke it regularly, as its addictive potential has supposedly been underestimated. Yet pot is legal or decriminalized in some countries -- the Netherlands, for example -- and rates of regular use in these countries are lower than in the U.S., where pot is illegal. Was Morrison high when she wrote this column? Jonathan Taylor La Habra :: Morrison's witty musings miss the key issue behind changing marijuana laws.

Until the Institute for Civil Justice came along, the American urge to sue was the subject of a lot of rhetoric and educated guessing but little factual information, says Kevin McCarthy, director of the RAND Corp. program. "There were anecdotes, people arguing moral imperatives, but not much quantitative research," McCarthy said. Much of that has changed after eight years of scrutiny by the institute.

Babies cried and beepers beeped; at one point, identical twin toddlers, seeking any kind of amusement, attempted to toss coins at the august speaker's feet. But such fleeting distractions did not deter Henry Kissinger, who on Wednesday had come to a crowded room at the RAND Corp. to deliver a commencement address to the Santa Monica think tank's newest crop of intellectuals.

More toll lanes, one-way streets, pricier parking and bus-only lanes are the best short-term fixes to keep traffic moving in the Southland, according to a study released today by the Rand Corp. There are few ideas in the study that haven't been floated before by a variety of interest groups -- "floated" being the key word. But Rand researchers say that with little room to build or expand roads in Southern California, the only real option is a coordinated effort to better manage traffic.

Re "Education and the arts," editorial, Sept. 11 The Rand study on arts learning is about investing in the kind of arts education that teaches the young how to see, hear and find meaning in works of art. These skills enable people to discover what the arts have to offer, a discovery that often leads to lifelong arts involvement. Drawing more Americans to the arts is a desirable goal of public policy because the arts enrich people's lives, foster personal growth in ways that benefit society and contribute uniquely to public life.