January 15, 2013

Page 1

HOCKEY SHOWS FIGHT THROUGH LOSSES

PAGE - 6

NO PAUSING, REWINDING IN JOURNALISM

OPINIONS - 4

STUDENT JUGGLES BUSINESS, SCHOOL, SMOOTHIES ARTS - 3

ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Printing the news, sounding the alarm, and raising hell since 1899

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013

FIND US ONLINE ‘Like‘ us on Facebook facebook.com/dailywildcat

Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/dailywildcat

Find us on Tumblr tumblr.com/dailywildcat

VOLUME 106 • ISSUE 79

DAILYWILDCAT.COM

UA voices support for marijuana study

ON OUR WEBSITE

MULTI MEDIA

Tucson forum tackles streetcar concerns STEPHANIE CASANOVA Arizona Daily Wildcat

For breaking news and multimedia coverage of the biggest stories on campus check out DAILYWILDCAT.COM

QUOTE TO NOTE

The beauty of the news is that it keeps happening every day, and you can’t just ‘suspend’ it until you feel comfortable again.” OPINIONS — 4

WEATHER HI

47 28

SUNNY

LOW

Weed, CA Blunt, SD Denver, CO

44 / 25 23 /21 35/ 26

Campus Health short on flu shots RACHEL MCCLUSKEY Arizona Daily Wildcat

A rising number of flu cases have depleted the supply of flu vaccinations on the UA campus, but some community members are not concerned. According to Lisette LeCorgne, a nurse practictioner and coordinator for urgent care at Campus Health Service, Campus Health no longer has flu shots available to students, after running out Jan. 11. She said she wasn’t sure when more shots would be available again. Arizona has had about 1,300 cases of the flu, and Tucson has had between 200 and 300 as of Friday, according to Sean Elliott, the medical director of infection prevention at the University Medical Center. However, Arizona is not currently facing a flu epidemic, he added. The number of flu cases reported by Campus Health has been increasing since Christmas, LeCorgne said. “We’ve had probably at least a dozen positives,” LeCorgne said. “But we are seeing dozens more than that. We are starting to see that

FLU SHOTS, 2

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KYLE WASSON/ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT

Research delayed by state restrictions on campus RACHEL MCCLUSKEY Arizona Daily Wildcat

The UA recently declared its support of amending a state statute to clarify that marijuana research may be conducted at the university, with the proper federal authorization. The support, given in a UA statement, comes as a result of delays in a UA study intended to determine if marijuana will benefit veterans with post traumatic stress disorder. Currently, Arizona state law states that marijuana research may not be performed on state campuses. The study, run by Sue Sisley, a physician at the UA College of Medicine’s downtown Phoenix campus, is still waiting for the approval of two organizations. The UA Institutional Review Board and the Food and Drug Administration have approved the study, however, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Drug Enforcement Administration have not. In the study, 50 veterans would be placed into five groups and given various dosages of marijuana, explained Sisley, who will conduct the study if it is approved. Once in those five groups, the subjects would be sorted again into either a smoking group or vaporization group to determine the method of administration. An alcohol-based plant without the THC would be used for a placebo as well. The study would run for more than eight weeks with a year-long follow-up with the subjects. The biggest obstacle of the study is the at-home selfadministration, Sisley said, as NIDA feels it is unsafe to allow subjects to smoke at home. She said that NIDA would prefer to have subjects placed in an in-patient hospital. “Most of these people want to be functional. They don’t want to be high,” Sisley said. “That’s what is so frustrating. We want to create a real-world study; it’s not real-world to live in a hospital for 10 weeks. That’s absurd.” The study is the first of its kind to be administered, according to Sisley. “It’s really crucial that we collect high quality data rather than anecdotal experience,” Sisley said. “That’s what we have now; we have literally thousands of vets that are telling us that cannabis is the only thing that helps control their PTSD symptoms.”

Currently only Zoloft and Paxil are available to treat symptoms. Sisley suggested that the notion of using cannabis to control symptoms could provide relief and renewed hope for people who have never had any. Ricardo Pereyda, a public management and policy senior, is a student veteran who served in the United States Army Military Police Corps from 2003-2009 and was mainly deployed in Baghdad. PTSD is a prominent problem among veterans, according to Pereyda, who said he has first-hand experience. According to Pereyda, he was 23 when he came back from deployment and was on 12 different medications at one point. “I think that rather than trying to just throw pills at veterans, where all the side-effects may not be known, or just try to make them numb is not the right course of action,” Pereyda said. “If using marijuana responsibly will help alleviate some of those symptoms so that individuals can enter a classroom, or go to a supermarket, and not get a panic attack as soon as they open the door, [it] is a good thing.” Sisley said NIDA believes that subjects will take the marijuana home and sell it on the street but that her team has created preventative measures to ensure this doesn’t happen. Sisley began outlining the study design and working with the FDA in early 2010 and approval occurred in early 2011. The FDA has a 30-day required timetable to approve or deny a study, but according to Sisley, NIDA doesn’t have such a restriction. She explained that she has been waiting on a decision regarding a separate study from the organization for seven to eight years. “They can take 10 months or 10 years and that’s what they’ve proven,” Sisley said. “That’s their tactic: to delay and stonewall and simply say it’s under review. They don’t say that it’s under a permanent review.” Despite her frustrations, Sisley said she is happy the UA’s Institutional Review Board accepted the study. “I’m really proud of the U of A for having the courage to defend good science,” Sisley said. “Our IRB at the U of A looked and examined the science; they did their job, which is protecting human subjects. They didn’t allow politics to enter into it.”

Landowners and developers, city council members and other Tucson community members attended a design charrette to voice their concerns and make suggestions about development along the streetcar route, which runs through the UA campus, at the Rialto Theatre on Monday night. The meeting was the first of several this week where community members can give their input on the route’s design. The county, city and Regional Transportation Authority intends to use the community’s input to properly create density along the route while still preserving historic neighborhoods and catering to people’s needs. “We’ve got some very sensitive areas to get through and we can’t do that like a bull in a china shop,” said Corky Poster, architect and planner for Poster Frost Mirto. “We need to do that in a way that’s thoughtful and careful and listens very, very carefully to what people have to say in those areas.” Substituting cars in downtown with alternate modes of transportation will ideally increase density without congesting downtown Tucson, according to Poster. In order to cater to the needs of non-drivers, investing in sidewalks and adding bike racks along the corridor is a necessity, Poster said. “We don’t think there are any solutions that are rule-of-thumb solutions,” Poster added. “We need to take advantage of the transportation mode choices.” David Heineking, director of UA Parking and Transportation Services, shared data with Poster regarding UA students and employees’ preferred transportation modes. Poster presented the data at Monday’s meeting, which said that 80 percent of UA students and employees who live within one mile of the university, walk, ride a bike or use alternate transportation modes to get to campus. The meeting also included discussion about what types of retail and housing will be necessary along the route once the streetcar is running. Businesses along the streetcar route should lend themselves to alternate transportation, Poster said.

STREETCAR, 2

DREW GYORKE/DAILY WILDCAT Corky Poster, a Tucson architect, speaks at a citywide meeting at the Rialto Theatre on Monday about the downtown streetcar.

WE MATCH AND OTHER ONLINE RETAILER

S

your us the Get money 1.Buy books 2.Show lower price* 3. back! uabookstore.arizona.edu

(*Outside in the lower level Rotunda within 7 days of purchase)

uabookstore.arizona.edu


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
January 15, 2013 by Arizona Daily Wildcat - Issuu