Now in its sixth year, the conflict in Mexico is a mosaic of several wars occurring at once: cartels battle one another, cartels suffer violence within their own organizations, cartels fight against the Mexican state, cartels and gangs wage war against the Mexican people, and gangs combat gangs. The war has killed more than 60,000 people since President Felipe Calderon began cracking down on the cartels in December 2006. The targets of the violence have been wide-rangingùfrom police officers to journalists, from clinics to discos. Governments on either side of the U.S.-Mexican border have been unable to control the violence. The war has spilled over into American cities and affects domestic policy issues ranging from immigration to gun control, making the border the nexus of national security and public safety concerns. Drawing on fieldwork along the border and interviews with officials at the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Department of Defense, U.S. Border Patrol, and Mexican military officers, Paul Rexton Kan argues that policy responses must be carefully calibrated to prevent stoking more cartel violence, to cut the incentives to smuggle drugs into the United States, and to stop the erosion of Mexican governmental capacity.
How much do you know about the Dangers of Drug Abuse? The class of drugs known as opioids includes both illicit street drugs like heroin and fentanyl, as well as popular painkillers that are legally prescribed by doctors. All opioids can pose a threat to the user's physical and mental health if abused. Drug abuse also has the potential to affect a person's life in many ways. This book provides the facts about the current opioid epidemic that is sweeping the United States today. It examines the most dangerous drugs—including two new deadly new opioids that are on the street. The book also focuses on the problems and issues that result from drug abuse and addiction. Unfortunately, the opioid crisis shows no signs of slowing down, and greater education is required to make sure it does not impact future generations.
Over the past decade, use of the illicit drug heroin has been rising steadily in the United States. Heroin overdose deaths have also spiked, increasing by more than 50 percent between 2007 and 2016, according to the most recently available data from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Heroin use was once relatively rare in the United States, but drug cartels from Latin America have been steadily shipping large quantities into the country. The demand for heroin has also been fueled because it is a cheaper alternative to prescription opioid painkillers that provides a similar “high.” This book examines the facts about the ongoing heroin crisis. It provides information about the drug cartels and their role in supplying this deadly drug, how heroin is distributed in American communities large and small, and the dangerous effects of the drug on its users.
"[This book] asks fundamental questions about US drug policies and social norms. Why do we endorse the use of some drugs and criminalize others? Why do we accept the necessity of a doctor-prescribed opiate but not the same thing bought off the street? This divided approach shapes public policy, the justice system, research, social services, and health care."
" While the legalization of marijuana in Canada begins with a straightforward change of the criminal code, its ramifications go far beyond this. Legalization will have a serious impact on the country's international treaty commitments, interprovincial relations, taxation and regulatory regimes, and social and health policies. The essays in this book address these outcomes from three main perspectives: the decades-long political path to legalization; the assumptions that underwrite the new policy, in particular the desire to stamp out the black market; and how legalization in Canada looks in an international context. Bringing together analysis by policy makers and scholars, including the architect of marijuana legislation in Portugal – a trailblazing jurisdiction – High Time provides an urgent and necessary overview of Canada's Cannabis Act."
Heroin is universally considered the world's most harmful illegal drug. This is due not only to the damaging effects of the drug itself, but also to the spread of AIDS tied to its use. Burgeoning illegal mass consumption in the 1960s and 1970s has given rise to a global market for heroin and other opiates of nearly 16 million users. The production and trafficking of opiates have caused crime, disease, and social distress throughout the world, leading many nations to invest billions of dollars trying to suppress the industry. The failure of their efforts has become a central policy concern. Can the world heroin supply actually be cut, and with what consequences?
"Based on Gabor Maté's two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver's skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically re-envisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical condition distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction."
Even while many states have passed legislation pertaining to'medical marijuana'and others have decriminalized or even legalized recreational use, a debate continues within society as to whether marijuana is simply a harmless substance that should be fully legalized, a possibly beneficial treatment for patients with certain illnesses, or a drug with the potential to worsen addiction and cause mental health problems. The controversy persists in the medical community as well, where accumulating evidence implicates marijuana use, especially in adolescence, as a risk factor for poor educational achievement and substance use disorders, as well as schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders -- all of which complicates the heated discourse on legalization.Although other books have explored the medical marijuana and the neuroscience behind marijuana, no single source of comprehensive information on marijuana and mental health in modern American society has existed to date. Balanced, focused, and highly readable, Marijuana and Mental Health fills this void. It provides an academic foundation for further study while also informing clinical mental health practice as well as policy decisions by articulating the connection between marijuana and mental health, particularly in the United States.
This title examines how climate change affects individuals and society, investigates how people are working to respond and adapt to climate change, and analyzes the controversies and conflicting viewpoints surrounding the issue. Features include a glossary, selected bibliography, websites, source notes, and an index, plus a timeline and essential facts. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
Water scarcity, urban population growth, and deteriorating infrastructure are impacting water security around the globe. Struggling with the most significant drought in its recorded history, California faces all of these challenges to secure reliable water supplies for the future. The unfolding story of California water includes warnings and solutions for any region seeking to manage water among the pressures of a dynamic society and environment. Written by leading policy makers, lawyers, economists, hydrologists, ecologists, engineers, and planners, Sustainable Water reaches across disciplines to address problems and solutions for the sustainable use of water in urban areas. The solutions and ideas put forward in this book integrate water management strategies to increase resilience in a changing world.
All systems produce waste as part of a cycle—bacteria, humans, combustion engines, even one as large and complex as a city. To some extent, this waste can be absorbed, processed, or recycled—though never completely. In Wasted World, Rob Hengeveld reveals how a long history of human consumption has left our world drowning in this waste. This is a compelling and urgent work that traces the related histories of population growth and resource consumption. As Hengeveld explains, human life (and population growth) depends not only on mineral resources but also on energy. People first obtained energy from food and later supplemented this with energy from water, wind, and animals as one source after another fell short of our ever-growing needs. Finally, we turned to fossil energy, which generates atmospheric waste that is the key driver of global climate change. The effects of this climate change are already leading to food shortages and social collapse in some parts of the world. Because all of these problems are interconnected, Hengeveld argues strenuously that measures to counter individual problems cannot work. Instead, we need to tackle their common cause—our staggering population growth. While many scientists agree that population growth is one of the most critical issues pressuring the environment, Hengeveld is unique in his insistence on turning our attention to the waste such growth leaves in its wake and to the increasing demands of our global society. A practical look at the sustainability of our planet from the perspective of a biologist whose expertise is in the abundances and distributions of species, Wasted World presents a fascinating picture of the whole process of using, wasting, and exhausting energy and material resources. And by elucidating the complexity of the causes of our current global state, Hengeveld offers us a way forward.
The marked increase in concentration of CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases has increased the global temperature during past few decades. An increase in global temperature and precipitation has increased the proliferation of vector borne diseases in plants and animals including human beings. The changes in climatic conditions may be detrimental to forest and aquatic ecosystems. Scientists have distinguished and environmental engineers contributed several chapters for the present book which includes important pollution management strategies useful to academicians, industries and forest planners. The health aspects of plants and human beings are discussed in detail in changing global environmental scenario. A chapter also discusses ozone depletion and its consequences. The book will be an asset to readers and hope it will provide various clues to reduce damages caused by environmental pollution and climate change.
Volume 17, entitled Lead: Its Effects on Environment and Health of the series Metal Ions in Life Sciences centers on the interrelations between biosystems and lead. The book provides an up-to-date review of the bioinorganic chemistry of this metal and its ions; it covers the biogeochemistry of lead, its use (not only as gasoline additive) and anthropogenic release into the environment, its cycling and speciation in the atmosphere, in waters, soils, and sediments, and also in mammalian organs. The analytical tools to determine and to quantify this toxic element in blood, saliva, urine, hair, etc. are described. The properties of lead(II) complexes formed with amino acids, peptides, proteins (including metallothioneins), nucleobases, nucleotides, nucleic acids, and other ligands of biological relevance are summarized for the solid state and for aqueous solutions as well. All this is important for obtaining a coherent picture on the properties of lead, its effects on plants and toxic actions on mammalian organs. This and more is treated in an authoritative and timely manner in the 16 stimulating chapters of Volume 17, which are written by 36 internationally recognized experts from 13 nations. The impact of this recently again vibrant research area is manifested in nearly 2000 references, over 50 tables and more than 100 illustrations (half in color).
A revised and updated edition of a collection of personal essays that illuminate what life is like for those who live with mental illness, and how it impacts their family members.More than 4 million Canadians and 57 million Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental illness, and yet there are still considerable stigmas and a great deal of misunderstanding surrounding even the most common diagnoses—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, clinical depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dissociative identity disorder.Rather than analyze the diagnoses and symptoms, these first-hand accounts focus on the very essence of a psycho-emotional breakdown, and respond to the mental, physical, and emotional turmoil it inevitably causes. What does a mother do when her teenage son's personality suddenly fractures? How does a police officer cope when his employer refuses to provide adequate care until he can prove his PTSD is work-related? How do children grow up under the care of a manic father whose illness lands him in and out of medical and social incarceration?Raw, honest, and painful, these essays communicate disappointment and despair, but also courage and compassion. They offer a lifeline for sufferers and support for their friends and family, and promote new and improved attitudes toward those with mental illness.With a foreword by respected physician, bestselling author, and renowned speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, Hidden Lives gives readers a place to turn, and provides a platform to share their struggle.
This dynamic and richly layered account of mental health in the late twentieth century interweaves three important stories: the rising political prominence of mental health in the United States since 1970; the shifting medical diagnostics of mental health at a time when health activists, advocacy groups, and public figures were all speaking out about the needs and rights of patients; and the concept of voice in literature, film, memoir, journalism, and medical case study that connects the health experiences of individuals to shared stories. Together, these three dimensions bring into conversation a diverse cast of late-century writers, filmmakers, actors, physicians, politicians, policy-makers, and social critics. In doing so, Martin Halliwell's Voices of Mental Health breaks new ground in deepening our understanding of the place, politics, and trajectory of mental health from the moon landing to the millennium.
Research from health psychology and medical science has shown that a considerable number of cancer patients tend to rely on meaning while coping with stress caused by their illness. Chapter One examines the relationships between meaning structures embedded in meaning in life and coping strategies, and mental adjustment among gastrointestinal cancer patients. According to lifespan psychology, late adulthood is a period of substantial changes in the psychological life of human beings. Chapter Two discusses the need to develop a dedicated psychological approach towards this age group, where the typical factors determining their mental functioning will be investigated and elaborated upon. Chapter Three presents an approach to the psychoeducation of parents and siblings, combining Aggression Replacement Training and techniques for developing prosocial behavior. Chapter Four reviews the literature that establishes Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a major developmental precursor to Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Chapter Five discusses the measurement error of self-reported outcome measures in depression. Chapter Six aims at validating the Arabian version of Beck Depression Inventory- Fast Screen (BDI-FS-Ar) in war conditions, and determining its psychometric properties in samples of MS patients (as a medical population) and university students (as a non- medical population) in Syria. Chapter Seven summarizes the current knowledge regarding structural and functional brain alterations associated with dissociation – both in patients suffering from short-lived dissociation such as in PTSD and in chronic states as seen in patients with dissociative disorders. This book concludes with Chapter Eight, a discussion on the complex treatment of dissociative disorder.
Adolescence and young adulthood is a significant transition period in a person's life in many ways. Young people may experience challenges including a range of mental and behavioural disorders, anxiety-related conditions, depression, substance use, self-harm and suicidal behaviours. What is good mental health, and how can young people be encouraged to seek help if they are struggling? This book looks at the prevalence of mental health problems for young Australians and offers general advice on how to maintain good mental health. Tips include advice for parents and friends on how to help someone with a mood disorder, as well as options for mental health assessment, treatments and therapies for teenagers who are not coping as well as they would like. A key focus of the book is self-harm and suicidal behaviours, revealing the latest approaches to reducing youth suicide. Learn how to watch out for the warning signs, work on your mental wellbeing, and banish the blues.
This book offers a unique, interdisciplinary, and thoughtful look at the challenges and potency of Black women's struggle for inner peace and mental stability. It brings together contributors from psychology, sociology, law, and medicine, as well as the humanities, to discuss issues ranging from stress, sexual assault, healing, self-care, and contemplative practice to health-policy considerations and parenting. Merging theory and practice with personal narratives and public policy, the book develops a new framework for approaching Black women's wellness in order to provide tangible solutions.
