Abstinence Message Ineffective
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy recently analyzed seventy-three controlled studies of 250 pregnancy prevention programs, according to Reuters Health, and concluded that programs teaching only the avoidance of sex until marriage do not work. "The few early results from abstinence-only programs are not encouraging," said Dr. Douglas Kirby, the report's author.

Abstinence-only programs, like the Southern Baptist-sponsored "True Love Waits," received considerable attention after Congress passed the 1996 welfare reform bill. That legislation allocated $85 million per year to teen pregnancy prevention programs that restricted their message to abstinence.

Paul Webster of the Institute for Youth Development said that these programs have not been given the funding or the time necessary to prove their worth. He went on to say: "A lot of taxpayers have a moral objection to promoting sexually explicit conversations to school children."

Campaign President, Sarah Brown, believes most Americans favor a balanced approach to educating teens about sexuality. Despite the research, she said, communities will continue to make their own decisions based on local values, politics, religion, and economics.

Notably absent from this list: "Does the program actually work?"

The Healthy Faithful
It is fast becoming conventional wisdom that churchgoers are generally healthier than nonchurchgoers. A study, recently published in the Annals of Behavioral Intervention and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute on Aging, explains why. This thirty-year study followed 2,676 people and discovered that churchgoers got more exercise, regular checkups, had more friends, were less depressed, and were much less likely to smoke or drink to excess.

Clearly, churchgoers are a good risk for insurers. Will the faithful soon enjoy reduced premiums on health insurance the way good drivers do on auto insurance?

The Burning Question
Despite the fact that all branches of the U.S. government seem immovable in their stance against medicinal marijuana, some researchers are trying to harness the drug's therapeutic value while eliminating its better-known side effect.

Some cancer patients find that THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, eases post-chemotherapy nausea. It is also considered a potentially effective treatment for AIDS-related appetite loss, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis. In these cases, the high may be an unwanted side effect, reports the Wall Street Journal. Scientists are experimenting with ways to eliminate the buzz, including altering molecules, crossbreeding plants, and developing alternative drug-delivery methods.

Professor Mahmoud El Sohly of the University of Mississippi has one such method: a THC suppository. Designed to ease post-chemotherapy nausea, he's given his drug to human and animal subjects and claims it does not produce a high. He is currently trying to interest drug companies in paying for clinical trials sure to cost millions.

But what are the chances that any marijuana-based drug could ever actually make it to market? Even if Dr. El Sohly could get a pot suppository through the clinical trials process, it's hard to imagine that the Food and Drug Administration would ever let it see the light of day.