Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Mexico's Provocative Series about Drug Legalization to Make World Premiere Exclusively on Cinelatino

WDM Group PR Network 23 MAY 2012 WDM Group PR Network
 
MIAMI, May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The highly-provocative dramatic series from Mexico about the country's illegal drug trade, and the first Mexican series about drug legalization, "Estado de Gracia" (State of Grace), will make its world premiere on Monday, June 4, 2012, exclusively on Cinelatino—the nation's leading Spanish-language movie channel.
"Estado de Gracia" is a political suspense thriller that presents a realistic portrait of the drug trafficking crisis in Mexico, shedding light on the network of money, power and corruption that fuels the ongoing drug trade.
Set in Mexico City, the fictional series centers on a local congresswoman who proposes a law to legalize drugs in an effort to dismantle the powerful drug cartels and end the narco-related violence. Facing powerful enemies, the congresswoman—played by esteemed Mexican actress Karina Gidi—watches all aspects of her life come apart after proposing this controversial legislation.
The 13-episode series portrays a sobering view of the country's illegal drug trade and touches on sensitive issues such as corruption among politicians and police, blame, the impunity of drug traffickers, violence and drug-related killings, addiction, temptations among those in office, the role of the media, and the dangers facing non-corrupt police officers. The series also captures the human element to the story, showing the impact of drugs in the home, at the office and in school.
"We knew we had to acquire this series right away," said Ricardo De Leon, Director of Programming for Cinelatino. "Drug violence is a reality in Mexico, and no other Mexican series has dared broach the topics of drug violence and legalization in such an honest and realistic way."
"Estado de Gracia is one of the best-written, most cutting edge series to come out of Mexico, and we're proud to give our U.S. viewers access to it before it airs anywhere else in the world," said James M. McNamara, Chairman of Cinelatino. "With drug legalization as one of the hot topics in the presidential elections coming up in Mexico and the U.S., 'Estado de Gracia' is a relevant, must-see series that will have everyone talking."
The series was directed by the highly-acclaimed, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Carlos Bolado, who has won 21 awards at prestigious international film festivals for his work on films like Promises, a documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was nominated for an Oscar, and Solo Dios Sabe (Only God Knows), a romantic thriller starring Diego Luna and Alice Braga that was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
The series features top quality production values and a strong cast of top Mexican talent, including Karina Gidi(Abel; Gitanas), Daniel Martinez (Ella y el Candidato; El Infierno; Como No Te Voy a Querer), Raul Mendez(Mariachi Gringo; Sultanes del Sur; Amar a Morir), Jose Carlos Rodriguez (Rudo y Cursi; Vantage Point; Asi del Precipicio), Lisa Owen (Vantage Point; Nacho Libre), Roberto Sosa (Get the Gringo; Cartas a Elena), andDagoberto Gama (Amores Perros; La Reina del Sur; El Infierno).
Cinelatino, which has been on air for nearly 18 years, began airing highly acclaimed series in 2009 with the launch of "Los Simuladores." "Estado de Gracia" is among the high-caliber series to air on the premium, commercial-free movie channel. Cinelatino is available in more than four million homes across the U.S., fully distributed on the major cable, satellite and telco providers.
The first episode of "Estado de Gracia" will premiere on Monday, June 4, at 11 p.m. ET. New episodes will air each Monday at 11 p.m. ET.
Viewers can find more information and weekly schedules at www.cinelatino.com/EstadoDeGracia.
About  Cinelatino: Cinelatino is the leading Spanish-language premium film channel in the United States, with more than four million subscribers on major cable, satellite and telephony providers throughout North America.  Cinelatino offers the most current Spanish-language blockbusters and critically-acclaimed titles from Mexico, Latin America, Spain and the U.S. and transmits commercial-free, 24 hours a day.  Cinelatino is jointly-owned by Grupo MVS, InterMedia Partners and Panamax Films.
SOURCE Cinelatino
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Monday, May 21, 2012

Doctors Seek New Approach for Jailed Addicts


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Published: May 20, 2012
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A group of prominent addiction doctors has mounted a quiet legal campaign on behalf of Cameron Douglas, the troubled son of the actor Michael Douglas, in hopes of finding a sympathetic ear for their view that drug addiction is best handled with more treatment, not more prison time.
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Cameron Douglas with his father, Michael, in Hollywood in 2009, is now in prison on drug charges.
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In December, Mr. Douglas, who is 33 and already serving a five-year federal sentence for drug distribution and heroin possession, was sentenced to an additional four and a half years after being caught behind bars with heroin and Suboxone, a prescriptionmedication used to blunt the pull of opioid addiction.
And it was that sentence, believed to be one of the harshest ever handed down by a federal judge for drug possession for an incarcerated prisoner, that prompted about two dozen addiction doctors and groups to file a brief on behalf of Mr. Douglas, whose case is under review by a panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Their argument is that Mr. Douglas, who began injecting heroin daily in his mid-20s, is a textbook example “of someone suffering from untreated opioid dependence” and that more prison time would do nothing to solve his underlying problems.
“My outrage is as a physician for someone who has a medical condition which has been ignored,” said one of the brief’s signees, Dr. Robert Newman, the director of the Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center. “What the judge has imposed has zero benefits for the community and has staggering consequences for society.”
The sentence, handed down by Judge Richard M. Berman of Federal District Court in Manhattan, came after heroin and Suboxone was found in a cell Mr. Douglas was occupying at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, while testifying against a former drug supplier. Shortly after that, he pleaded guilty to one count of drug possession by a federal prisoner.
Such charges are unusual; most inmates caught with drugs behind bars are sanctioned administratively with loss of prison privileges, said Daniel N. Abrahamson, the director of legal affairs with the Drug Policy Alliance, the drug reform group that drafted the brief. Those punishments have also been levied on Mr. Douglas, whose penalties have included stints of isolated confinement in his cell and loss of family visits.
At a sentencing in December, prosecutors asked for an additional term of anywhere from 18 to 24 months, according to Mr. Douglas’s appeal. But Judge Berman made it clear that his patience with Mr. Douglas was done, saying the inmate had been “continuously reckless, disruptive and noncompliant” and had repeatedly squandered opportunities and refused to obey the law.
Mr. Douglas would seem an unlikely candidate for a cause célèbre, as the scion of an acting family. But Mr. Abrahamson said the case had little to do with Mr. Douglas’s fame, though he acknowledged that few inmates have the resources needed to wage an appeal in federal court.
He said the goal of the brief was not only to help obtain a reduction, or dismissal, of Mr. Douglas’s 54-month sentence, but also to have the appellate panel make a statement on “how the federal corrections systems, in particular, but corrections in general have for a long time ignored the treatment need of their inmates.”
Mr. Douglas’s defense team filed the appeal in early May, outlining its client’s childhood, during which he drank heavily as a teenager, moved on to intravenous cocaine and heroin, and eventually was arrested in New York in 2009 for trying to sell large amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine. In 2010, he pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Mr. Douglas’s travails since his arrest, including episodes in which drugs were smuggled to him while he was incarcerated, have been tabloid fodder, something Howard Josepher, another of the brief’s signees, said has probably made efforts at recovery harder.
“A guy like this gets into prison, he’s got star power, so people inside actually they want to get close to him,” said Mr. Josepher, who runs the New York-based Exponents, which offers drug treatment programs. “And they do that by offering him drugs.”
Mr. Josepher, 73, an ex-convict and heroin user who said he has been clean for 45 years, said he hoped Mr. Douglas’s case would highlight what he called a contradictory approach to drug abuse by the criminal justice system.
“The various powers that be view addiction as a disease,” he said. “But they treat people who have this illness as criminals.”
Prosecutors had no comment on the brief. Mr. Douglas’s lawyer, Nicholas M. De Feis, would say only that he and his client were “gratified that such a distinguished group of practitioners and experts have taken an interest in the case.”
For his part, Michael Douglas said that he did not want to comment on the brief out of respect for the court, but was relieved by reports that his son had recently been released from protective custody at the federal prison in Loretto, Pa. “We did get some light at the end of the tunnel,” Mr. Douglas said
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Friday, May 18, 2012

Hepatitis C Cases In Rural Wisconsin Underscore Drug Link


by SCOTT HENSLEY
06:14 pm
May 18, 2012
 
Map of Wisconsin
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Yes, hepatitis C is big among baby boomers. And the feds are moving toward a recommendation that all of them get tested at least once for the infection.
But new hepatitis C cases are cropping up in young people, too, and some of them live in out-of-the-way places that haven't been hotbeds for the illness.
The Wisconsin Division of Public Health noticed a strange uptick to 24 cases a year recently, from eight, or so, annually before. Some cases of the liver disease were bad enough to land people in emergency rooms, an unusual situation. Those cases provided the initial tip that something was up,Marisa Stanley, an epidemiologist with the state told Shots.
Researchers looked at 25 cases of hepatitis C, all involving people under 30, in 2010. The investigators interviewed 17 of them and found that 16 had either injected or snorted illicit drugs. Many were also sharing their gear.
"People were using all sorts of different drugs," Stanley said. "It wasn't just sharing needles. It was sharing all sorts of drug preparation, snorting and injecting equipment."
 
The hepatitis C virus is pretty hardy, said Sheila Guilfoyle, a colleague of Stanley's, and drug paraphernalia contaminated with it can be hazardous for a while.
Stanley and Guilfoyle were among the authors of the report about the cases in the latest issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Now a couple of things seem worth pointing out. The problems were concentrated in a half-dozen rural counties, not cities where hepatitis C was already recognized as a problem.
Several of the people who injected drugs started out with opioids, such as morphine or oxycodone, before moving on to heroin, which is less expensive.
So the uptick in hepatitis C cases appeared to be tied, at least in part, to an increase in abuse of injected narcotics that began with legal drugs. "We've looked at this as asubstance abuse issue," Stanley said. But, she added, the link with hepatitis C cases means "we have to look at it as a bigger public health issue."

More: Public Health

Kotzebue, Alaska, is a remote arctic community of some 3,000 people. Alaska public health official Dr. Michael Cooper says that when he worked here three years ago, he occasionally saw patients with classic symptoms of tuberculosis — but he failed to make the connection.
Don't rely on luck to keep kids safe from lead.
A mother and child wait to receive treatment at the HIV clinic in Nyagasambu, Rwanda, in Feb. 2008. The clinic was built by the Washington-based Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation with a grant from the PEPFAR program.

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Monday, May 14, 2012

Smoking Medical Marijuana May Decrease Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms, Study Suggests

Smoking Medical Marijuana May Decrease Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms, Study Suggests

Posted: 05/14/2012 3:19 pm
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Medical Marijuana Multiple Sclerosis
Smoking medical marijuana could help relieve some symptoms of multiple sclerosis, a small new study suggests.
Researchers from the University ofCalifornia, San Diego, found that people with MS who smoked cannabis had decreased pain and muscle tightness, called spasticity. However, the researchers warned that smoking the cannabis also led to problems with focus and attention.
The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, included 30 people -- 63 percent of them women -- with an average age of 50. More than half the participants needed aids for walking, and 20 percent of them were in wheelchairs. Some of the study participants were randomly assigned to have the cannabis, while others received a placebo.
At the end of the study, researchers found that people who smoked the cannabis had lower numbers on a spasticity scale, as well as a 50 percent decrease in pain scores.
But researchers found that the people who smoked the cannabis had decreased cognitive functioning, in that they scored lower on a test that measured their focus. This effect was only seen for a short term.
"Smoked cannabis was superior to placebo in symptom and pain reduction in participants with treatment-resistant spasticity," researchers wrote in the study. "Future studies should examine whether different doses can result in similar beneficial effects with less cognitive impact."
Just last year, a study in the journal Neurology also showed that multiple sclerosispatients who smoked medical marijuana have a doubled risk of developing cognitive impairments.
"Whatever benefits patients feel they might be getting from smoking marijuana might come at the cost of further cognitive compromise," the researcher of that study, Dr. Anthony Feinstein, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, told WebMD.
Marijuana use is currently legal for medical purposes in 16 states and Washington, D.C., the New York Times reported.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institutes of Health. It occurs when the myelin sheath, which is responsible for protecting nerve fibers, is damaged, causing symptoms of cognitive problems, muscle weakness, disturbed vision, strange touch sensations and balance and coordination problems.
While there's no cure for the condition, current treatments for multiple sclerosisattacks include taking drugs called corticosteroids and undergoing plasma exchange (where blood cells and plasma are mechanically separated), according to the Mayo Clinic. Other drugs and even physical therapy can help reduce symptoms or even slow the disease down.
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