Category: Health

By Leo E. Laurence, J.D. / NUG Magazine / July 12, 2011

When you carry a badge, you learn to smell trouble; you can sense it sometimes. Some believe the struggle for medical marijuana dispensaries in Southern California is in serious trouble.

“We’ve got a lot of trouble coming,” stressed Ken Cole, an outspoken former Australian basketball coach who played on two Olympic teams. He owns the elegant One-on-One dispensary at 923 Sixth Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter. He totally restored the 1865 interior of the one-time bar, including the antique beer spigots behind the wide, New York style bar.

Scientists believe that dog feces left at Dog Beach in Ocean Beach represents a health threat to humans. In general, this is a concern since bacteria capable of causing human disease can be found in animal feces.

With the hypothesis that a potential source of fecal bacteria in recreational waters is the canine feces left behind by owners who do not clean up after their pets, scientists recently screened the DNA that was isolated from canine feces. 20 samples were collected from the shoreline at Dog Beach, processed and screened.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, Im Writing / July 9, 2011

He arrives after morning service, having thanked God for another day in an upright position. He stops at the nurse’s station, not to check in, but rather to greet whomever is on duty by first name, applaud the glorious weather, ask about the family, chuckle over the latest joke and say something as sweet and charming as his tousled white hair and proper bow tie.

Progress towards a new labor contract between unions and three Southern California supermarket chains is moving at a glacial pace, but the rhetoric is heating up over the main sticking point – health care.

A Vons grocery chain spokesman on Tuesday characterized the unions’ health care benefit proposal as “unrealistic,” while a San Diego union leader said the grocery stores’ claim that half of the union workers don’t contribute to their health benefit package is “a blatant lie.”

From the National Alliance on Mental Illness

The tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six innocent citizens in Arizona focused national attention on the state of the public mental health system in Arizona and other states. Many asked how a tragedy like this could happen again, with chilling references to Virginia Tech. How did Jared Loughner fall through the cracks when the signs of a serious psychiatric crisis seemed so clear?

San Diego’s controversial restrictions on medical marijuana cooperatives could be reversed next week.

The San Diego County Registrar is expected to certify over 31,000 signatures collected by medical marijuana supporters that oppose the ordinance. That would force the city council to make a decision; end the ordinance and start over, or put it to the voters.

June 23, 2011 – 7pm – Joyce Beers Community Center

“The same cast of characters currently engaged in attacks on Planned Parenthood, other Family Planning Clinics and Title X in general, are also in the forefront throwing roadblocks in front of DADT repeal, fighting against marriage equality and fighting against employment protections – and even hate crimes protections – for LGBT people” according to Jacqueline Palmer, Membership Director for San Diego Democratic Club. She continued, “Women’s reproductive rights IS an LGBT issue.”

It was one of those articles that after you read it, you have to go back and re-read it because what it describes doesn’t make sense. This was what happened when I first read Craig Gustafson’s June 13th article in the San Diego U-T about San Diego’s ambulance service – how they bilked the City out of $18 million but get to keep operating ambulances for us – and are able to increase their fees to San Diego residents – the users of ambulances.

Conservation groups and a Native American tribe sued San Diego County’s environmental agency to stop a proposed dump they claim will harm endangered species habitat, a critical drinking water source and sacred tribal sites.

The lawsuit filed Monday by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, RiverWatch and the Pala Band of Mission Indians argues that the Department of Environmental Health violated state laws when it permitted the proposed Gregory Canyon landfill.

Editor: Hugh Moore is the Chair of the San Diego Green Party.

An Open Letter to the California Democratic Party:

By Hugh Moore, RN, / June 13, 2011

I’m a registered nurse who works in a hospital that serves the disenfranchised and sees every day the damage that the lack of a healthcare system causes. So when I heard that the California Democratic Party had added the principle of healthcare as a right rather than an option of all people I was ecstatic.

By Laurie Macrae, MLS

May 25th, Capitol Action Day in Sacramento, saw a thousand members of the disability community, in-home health care workers and family members massed before the capitol trying to get the attention of state legislators who have put their survival on the chopping block.

It rained steadily as people, many in wheel chairs, many being assisted by care workers and many family groups moved about the pavilion and the various organization tables, gathering information and communicating with their regional counterparts. All day individuals and groups trooped in to the capitol building to meet with legislators.

Editor: Here are several reports from local San Diego media on this issue.

Grocery Workers Get Support From Other Union Members

Union leaders say the Vons, Ralph’s and Albertson’s stores are trying to gut the worker’s health care plans, shifting up to 80 percent of the cost to the workers. The grocery chains say they’re are making a fair offer that gives workers access to excellent coverage. The AFL CIO Labor Council’s 190,000 members pledged to honor a possible strike.