There's no magic wand that can be waved to end - or even reduce - the epidemic of deaths and mayhem coming from the reckless or criminal use of guns.  The Journal Sentinel called for a Summit to begin a dialogue in the Crossroads section (April 26), focusing mainly upon our political and community leaders.

As commendable as that may be, we feel that our most affected neighborhoods can't wait for another summit to put into effect strategies that would end their continuing exposure to death and injury by gunfire.

A federal judge declined on April to order the removal of marijuana from the Drug Enforcement Administration's Schedule I List. The Schedule I List includes drugs that are classified as having no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. This list includes drugs such as heroin and LSD alongside marijuana.

23 states currently allow the use of medical marijuana, and this reinforcement of marijuana's place on the Schedule I List will prove an interesting battle between federal and state law. See the article here.

Since the 1990s, suicide rates among elementary-age black children have nearly doubled, while suicide rates among white children have fallen, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The study examined statistics for children between the ages of 5 and 11 from 1993 to 2012, and found that while the overall suicide rate among this age group remained stable, the rate increased significantly among black children (from 1.36 to 2.54 per 1 million children), and decreased significantly among white children (from 1.14 to 0.77 per 1 million children), during the same period. While the suicide rates among elementary-age children in general are relatively low compared to the number of suicides committed by adolescents and adults, these statistics are significant because they explore a little-studied demographic and because they show the reversal of a trend.