"Health & Medical News"

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey is asking Congress to reverse a decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to apply reduced sentences for crack-cocaine offenses retroactively, Reuters reported Feb. 6.

The commission recently voted unanimously to reduce the crack penalties to bring them more into line with those for powdered-cocaine offenses and to apply the reduced penalties to individuals already in prison. The policy takes effect next month.

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Washington — With congressional debate on an upcoming 10.1% Medicare cut to physicians stretching into the final weeks of the year, physicians’ decisions on whether to participate in the program in 2008 took on added degrees of importance and complexity.

The year-end deadline for physicians to change their participation status is important because it likely will determine how doctors will be able to bill the program and receive payment for all of 2008. If physicians do not inform their Medicare carriers in writing of their intent to change their status before Jan. 1, they will be locked into their current choices for the next 12 months — possibly under a newly reduced fee schedule.

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By a 3-2 vote, the Utah Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission delegated its rulemaking authority to the state legislature on several key issues, the BYU NewsNet reported on Nov. 19.

These issues include whether alcoholic beverages should be sold only in state liquor stores, and labeling requirements for malt beverages and alcohol-infused energy drinks.

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The fight to determine whether so-called “alcopops” should be classified as beer or liquor in California sometimes smacked of regulatory arcana, but the issue nonetheless spiked the passions of youth leaders in the state.

Alcohol-policy groups and leaders involved in the successful campaign to get the California Board of Equalization (BOE) to change the classification of products like Smirnoff Ice and Mike’s Hard Lemonade from beer to liquor — thus increasing both regulatory restrictions and taxation — said that youth leaders were critical to the success of the Alcopops and Youth Coalition in forcing regulatory changes. The coalition is comprised of youths, law-enforcement officers, public-health researchers, treatment providers, and others. Most of the youth leaders were high-school students ages 16 to 18.

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Canada’s conservative government has given a Vancouver safe heroin-injection site a six-month lease on life, but the decision is being criticized by supporters of the Insite program, the Victoria Times-Colonist reported Oct. 3.

The program’s exemption from Canada’s drug laws was extended until June 2008 by Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement, but backers of the harm-reduction program called the move a delaying tactic to push the issue past a federal election.

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Jessica Biel admits that she’s dreading posing in the buff for her new movie, Powder Blue, because she is terrified of stripping off in front of the film crew. She stars the movie alongside Forest Whitaker and Ray Liotta. “I haven’t decided exactly about the nudity. It’s a tough one. I am considering it but it’s a very scary thing to do,” Contactmusic quoted her, as saying. “It definitely feels vulnerable to be naked in front of anybody let alone a film crew. And it’s scary because of the internet - you don’t know where it’s going to end up. It’s a moment that could be exploited.”

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