Lessons learned after three years of legalized, recreational marijuana: The Colorado experience.

In November 2012 Colorado voters approved legalized recreational marijuana. On January 1, 2014 Colorado became the first state to allow legal sales of non-medical marijuana for adults over the age of 21. Since that time, the state has been monitoring potential impacts on population health. In this paper we present lessons learned in the first three years following legal sales of recreational marijuana. These lessons pertain to health behaviors and health outcomes, as well as to health policy issues. Our intent is to share these lessons with other states as they face the prospect of recreational marijuana legalization.

Know when to hold 'em, fold 'em. A tool to project expected provider pay from contracts.

The authors present a method to approximate costs of multiple individual practices. The formula approximates costs, builds in an acceptable profit margin and encourages productivity. In addition to developing a rational, analytic approach to pricing, they describe how they convinced the organization's physicians that its managers negotiated fair fees for them and that they would maintain their incomes if the organization achieved a predetermined level of fees.

Road dust lead (Pb) in two neighborhoods of urban Atlanta, (GA, USA).

Road dust continues to be a major potential reservoir of Pb in the urban environment, and an important potential component of child Pb exposure. This study presents ICP-AES analyses of metals in 72 samples of road dust (<250 µm) collected in the urban core of Atlanta, Georgia. In the Downtown area, median Pb concentrations are ~63 mg/kg Pb, with high values of 278 mg/kg. For comparison, median Pb values in a nearby residential neighborhood (also in the urban core) were ~93 mg/kg, with a high of 972 mg/kg. Geospatial variability is high, with significant variation observed over tens to hundreds of meters. Spearman Rank Correlation tests suggest that Pb and other metals (Cu, Ni, V, Zn) are associated with iron and manganese oxide phases in the residential area, as reported in other cities. However, Pb in the Downtown area is not correlated with the others, suggesting a difference in source or transport history. Given these complexities and the expected differences between road dust and soil Pb, future efforts to assess exposure risk should therefore be based on spatially distributed sampling at very high spatial resolution.