But school policy analyst Trisha Powell Crain sees A.L.i.C.E. training as part of a shift toward more active resistance in crime situations. Before Sept. 11, 2001, Crain says, passengers were advised to comply with hijackers. Self-defense instructors used to tell women to go limp to survive a rape. Today, she says, experts have changed their thinking about how potential victims should respond.

"Teamwork. Strength in numbers, guys. You don't want two things going at his head, you want 34 things going at his head," Corbett says. "You're gonna be fighting, throwing, screaming, yelling and swarming, getting out of the way, moving."

In one school building, Corbett says, 12 students were killed in one room and eight in another. But in a classroom where students barricaded the door, "it was zero," he says. "They made a decision that day, it saved their lives. How many of you want to be in that classroom?"

Corbett points out huge differences in room-to-room survival rates based on what occupants did. At Virginia Tech, a professor was killed, but not before he saved students' lives by getting them to jump out windows.

"We don't tell [students and staff] what to do. We tell them what they can do," Crane says. "Ultimately, they're going to be the ones experiencing this danger, and we want them to be the ones to decide, 'What is it that I can do that will increase my chance of survival?' "

They are able to hit so many people, he says, in part because the staff and students are just too easy to shoot. "We've conditioned them to go sit in a corner, go sit under a table."

notes that even trained police officers miss roughly three-quarters of their shots fired in the line of duty. In contrast, he says, school shooters "don't miss at that high a rate. In fact, they almost hit at that high a rate.

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While there are no scientifically established treatments for postconcussion syndrome, reassurance and education about the effects of concussion have been shown to reduce the incidence of symptoms at six months.

"These disorders can be very disabling, but since you can't see them like a broken bone or tumor, they are easily missed," Tramontano said. He added that patients with the syndrome "may do great cognitively," but they can become more emotionally unstable and have impaired social judgment. They may say things out of context, for instance, become more impulsive or show personality changes.

The postconcussion syndrome is real. The Boston doctors described it this way: "A constellation of sometimes disabling symptoms, mainly headache, dizziness and trouble concentrating in the days and weeks following concussion. Once established for more than a few weeks, symptoms often persist for months and tend to resist treatment, although they eventually lessen." They added that some patients "have vertigo, or experience motion of the environment while walking or driving."

A cascade of chemical reactions follows, all of which need time to recede to allow brain function to return to normal. Just as an injured muscle needs time and rest to heal, so does the injured brain.

people who are dazed after a head injury but who do not lose consciousness may have sustained the mildest form of concussion.

Johnson told his story after reading about Andre Waters, a hard-hitting defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles who committed suicide at age 44. An autopsy revealed brain damage similar to that of an 85-year-old with beginning Alzheimer's disease.

Nor was she told that even a mild concussion may leave "invisible" but disturbing symptoms: fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, memory problems and sometimes depression.

At 34, Johnson, who sustained repeated concussions on the field, is showing signs of dementia and has become addicted to amphetamines, which he started taking to relieve the previously unrecognized and untreated symptoms of postconcussive syndrome. The damage to his brain is now thought to be permanent, his neurologist told The New York Times.

The external bump on her head was of no consequence, but the internal "whiplash" of her brain had caused an intense headache, nausea and amnesia about the event.

The article also cites an Ohio A.L.I.C.E.-trained 17-year-old student who reportedly was told by her high school teacher that the plan for evacuating her second-story classroom through a window would involve having students tie their jeans together to form a rope. The student was quoted as calling the idea “weird” because no one would then be wearing pants.

reportedly

Brock, the school psychologist, reportedly says that teaching such tactics may cause unnecessary anxiety and stress for students, especially young kids who are more easily traumatized.

The A.L.I.C.E. program, which stands for Alert-Lockdown-Inform-Counter-Evacuate, is described as “controversial” in a March 28th article by Mother Jones writer Deanna Pan entitled, “Schools are training second-graders to attack mass shooters.”

A.L.I.C.E. training — teaching students to attack armed gunmen — is “an overreaction and potentially dangerous,” according to Dr. Stephen Brock of the National Association of School Psychologists.

burgeoning

The assessment notes that, according to the latest figures, “The estimated economic cost of illicit drug use to [U.S.] society for 2007 was more than $193 billion.”

“I don’t see anything wrong [with legalizing all drugs],” he later added. “The figures I have is that, in Mexico, not more than a thousand people, not more, die from an overdose of drugs of whichever drug. In exchange, tens of thousands of people die from drinking alcohol in excess or die from smoking [tobacco] and getting cancer.”

Although Fox noted that Mexico already allows the consumption of any drug, he suggested that in dealing with its narcotics problem, Mexico should go a step further and legalize the sale, use, and production of all drugs as a means to end the drug war that has claimed thousands of lives in that country.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said the United States should legalize all drugs, starting with marijuana, because it will have enormous benefits for Mexico, where violence associated with drug trafficking has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in recent years.

The letter may have helped — the FDA announced this week that it would look at the scientific research on marijuana's medical benefits, meaning it might reclassify the drug. 

For that, we can thank the DEA. The DEA classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the same rating given to heroin, ecstasy, peyote and LSD. Schedule I drugs have "no currently accepted medical use" and aren't eligible for federal research funding.

States are deciding certain diseases can be treated with pot, but because the federal government has classified marijuana as an illegal and dangerous drug, research on its health benefits are sparse. It's a catch-22 manufactured by the Drug Enforcement Agency: marijuana is illegal because the DEA says it has no proven medical value, but researchers have to get approval from the DEA to research marijuana's medical value.

But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.

States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no increase in drug use.

On that question, available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial impact on drug use.

The bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can't ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs themselves.

It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we can't collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan).

In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use.

First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects. Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses.

The same condition holds for hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use.

Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances.

It’s like the old saying goes, ’tis better to feel yourself than to not feel at all

Because there’s nothing worse than a “pretty good dancer.”

It’s when you show up in sweats at 1 a.m. because you can.

feeling himself, a concept that should not be met with any negative connotations.

Beyoncé

Ciara

Usher

Chris Brown

More than 2 million Americans are behind bars, a greater number than in any other country.

Scientists seeking research money from NIDA are well aware of this fact. As a result, they emphasize the negative effects of drugs to get their research funded.

NIDA funds more than 90 percent of all research on the major recreational drugs. Its mission “is to lead the nation in bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction” (emphasis mine). Of course, recreational drugs such as cocaine, heroin and marijuana produce other effects, including positive ones, that have nothing to do with “abuse and addiction,” but that isn’t part of NIDA’s mission.

Any informed scientist must know that all drugs — including heroin, cocaine and over-the-counter and prescription medications — can produce both positive and negative effects. They must know that their safe use can be enhanced or diminished depending upon several contextual factors, including the dose taken, the user’s level of tolerance and the setting in which drug use occurs.

In fact, the last three occupants of the White House — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — all smoked marijuana when they were younger. Obama also admitted to having used cocaine. The point is not to tarnish the reputations of these men — they all served their country. My point is that their drug use did not result in an inevitable downward spiral leading to debauchery and addiction. And the experience of these men is the rule, not the exception. The overwhelming majority of drug users are not derelict addicts.

For example, different studies show that between 75 and 90 percent will never become addicted.

He appeared exasperated by the focus on drugs’ harmful effects, which “impeded the ability to have legitimate research that could benefit human health.”

The drug has been shown through years of scientific research to relieve chronic pain, prevent PTSD, stimulate appetite for people with AIDS wasting syndrome, control nausea, relieve intra-ocular pressure associated with glaucoma, treat opioid dependence and improve the symptoms of Crohn's disease.

Other research has found that ecstasy has robust anticancer properties, particularly for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. In 2011, researchers from the University of Birmingham found that a slightly modified form of ecstasy was 100 times more potent at destroying cancer cells than the original form of MDMA. "Further work is required, but this research is a significant step forward in developing a potential new cancer drug," the researchers said in a statement.

Research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2012 found that volunteers taking psilocybin had enhanced recall, making the substance an effective adjunct to psychotherapy. Another 2012 study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the drug slowed activity in the centers of the brain that are hyperactive in people with depression.

A commission of $13,726 went to the city, a $3,238 fee to the public administrator, $19,453 to Mr. Sweeney.

3,000 the bid, 3,500, 35 the bid, 4,000…” — the car went for $9,500, beating expectations. After expenses, $8,631.50 was added to the estate.

The refrigerator was unplugged, with unfrozen frozen vegetables and Chinese takeout rotting inside. Roaches had moved in.