Archive for July 2024

Nearly 150 social workers have signed on to a letter urging President Joe Biden to fully remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), arguing that despite the administration’s proposal to downgrade cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, there’s nevertheless a “critical need for decriminalization.”

The method described here is called Mendelian randomisation. In a systematic review, my colleagues and I evaluated 63 Mendelian randomisation studies on the relationship between substance use and mental illness to determine what we have learned so far.

Dr. Nabila El-Bassel, Wilma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work at Columbia School of Social Work (CSSW), served as Principal Investigator on the New York site with help from a multidisciplinary team of scientists at the Social Intervention Group (SIG). Dr. El-Bassel and her colleagues across the study relied heavily on community coalitions made up of policy makers, healthcare professionals, stakeholders, people with lived experience, and more to establish a unique, scientific approach that uplifts the voices of the communities.

It’s also a story about the progressive resistance to this onslaught of money poisoning American democracy, a pushback that may finally be weakening AIPAC’s influence. By training its sights on left-wing members of Congress, AIPAC is setting up a battle not just over U.S. policy surrounding Israel and Palestine, but for the soul of the Democratic Party — and a progressive future…. Turner recalls a conversation with a former ally who does business in Cleveland: ​“They told me they didn’t recognize me anymore, that Palestinians have no rights [and] that if I didn’t ​‘disavow’ the Squad, they were going to come at me with everything they had. And that is, in fact, what they did.”

The Budget is expected to take place in early October, but preparations will be made in the months leading up to it — with Social Justice Ireland saying that all social welfare payments should be increased to at least €25 per week to support households hit by the cost of living crisis.