After three-quarters of a century of prohibition, Australia's cannabis industry is the same financial size as her gold industry, twice the size of her wine industry and three-quarters the size of the nation's beer industry [1, 24 June 2000 no. 32]. More Australians consume cannabis than any other illicit drug. Of the 15 million Australians aged 14 years and over, 5.7 million report having ever ...

Section 2 of the 1957 Homicide Act is indefensible: the concept of 'mental responsibility' is a hybrid which turns the psychiatrist witness either into a thirteenth juryman or a spare barrister. But reform does not lie along the lines suggested by the Butler Committee or the Criminal Law Revision Committee. The latter leaves the jury with insufficient guidance; the former returns to the bad eig...

The public does not want all laws enforced. In the closed society of law enforcement institutions, police discretion, the conspiracy of silence, the lack of an administration with integrity, and susceptible law enforcement officers contribute to the development of corruption from occupational deviance. Corruption in law enforcement agencies may have similar roots in business, law, medicine, and...

BACKGROUND The proposed Pharmacy Bill of Malaysia which served to consolidate and harmonise the existing pharmacy legislation which has been used for more than 60 years. This new Pharmacy Bill contains 17 parts and a total of 170 legislative sections covering laws governing pharmacy practice, medicinal products classification, registration, sale, supply, licensing etc. Our article could serve a...

What limits do judges have when creating specialty courts such as Veterans Treatment Courts (“VTCs”)? Many states have virtually no limits. I argue that states should enact legislation authorizing the creation of VTCs to maintain democratic legitimacy and ensure that the judiciary respects the separation of powers doctrine. VTCs represent an innovative and courageous approach to treat and rehab...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 was signed into law by President Obama on March 23. This legislation has elicited much debate among policy experts and the public alike. No one knows exactly how this new complex law will play out, and objective evaluation of its effects is important. The American College of Physicians hopes that the legislation will advance key pri...

The paper raises a number of issues regarding the ethical character of the Coalition government s Australian Workplace Relations Act. While key principles such as freedom of association and freedom of choice are incorporated into the legislation, it is argued that equity is a higher order ethic. On the face of it, the language of the legislation addresses equity, but notwithstanding the Coaliti...

The polycentric Rhine-Main mega-city region experiences changing spatial relations associated with the globalising service economy (as shown in the previous regional reports for POLYNET actions 1.1, 1.2, and 2). The POLYNET action 3.1 aims at understanding how official policies react to these changes at national, regional and local levels, and how these policies relate to ESDP and NW Europe pol...