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Background: Cannabis prohibition can generally be regarded as the main driver for home growing of marijuana. In this paper, I discuss the impact of drug prohibition on cannabis cultivators from the three German-speaking countries: Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In particular, this refers to the questions; how illicitness influences motivations for growing; which precautionary measures are taken against the risk of discovery; how penal consequences differ in the three countries and how these aspects are linked to each other.Methods: The results come from a sample of 1578 respondents from the German-language online survey conducted following the International Cannabis Cultivation Questionnaire (ICCQ). The survey was carried out in late 2012 and early 2013.Results: While most of the reasons for growing cannabis relate to avoiding negative consequences of prohibition, the illicitness of cannabis also plays a major role for concern about the cultivation activities as well as measures to avoid negative consequences. Swiss growers are less worried about their activity compared to respondents from Germany or Austria.Conclusion: The results confirm the notion that the illicitness of cannabis is the main drive for the private cultivation of the plant. At the same time, prohibition is the principal reason for concern regarding the growing activity. The severity of possible sentences seems to be linked to the degree of concern and precautionary measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical trials for the treatment of schizophrenia now often include cognitive assessments in addition to clinical ratings of symptoms. Recently, these trials have included cross-national assessments. It is not clear if translated psychological tests produce consistent results across different languages. This paper presents the results of a study of the comparability of the results of cognitive assessments in different English-speaking countries and a number of countries where tests were translated into other languages. Performance on tests of executive functioning, verbal and visuo-spatial learning and memory, language skills, psychomotor speed, and vigilance was compared across the first episode patients with schizophrenia (n=301) assessed in six different languages (English, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, and Afrikaans), including two different countries where patients were assessed in English and other languages: Canada (French) and South Africa (Afrikaans). The variance in performance across the sites tested in English was as large as the variance between English and non-English speakers when all tests were considered. Performance differences across English and other languages were found only for executive functions, vigilance, and psychomotor speed, with executive functioning differences nonsignificant when education was considered. No differences were found between English and non-English speakers in Canada. These results suggest that the translation of tests of memory and verbal skills can lead to consistent results across translated versions of the tests. Differences between countries were greater than differences between languages, suggesting the need to consider representativeness of patient samples in terms of local educational attainment. In general, these data support the validity of cross-national neuropsychological assessments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Parental leave policies across the globe have become much more generous than they used to be. This is also true for prenatal maternal leave. While this may be costly in the short run, little is known about the effect of maternal employment during pregnancy on newborn health. In this paper, I exploit three sharp policy changes on the duration of paid parental leave in Austria that strongly affected the share of mothers who work up to the 32nd week of pregnancy. I use administrative data from Austria on the working history of women linked to the full Austrian birth register and coupled with a regression discontinuity framework to identify the effect of prenatal employment on their offspring. Maternal employment during pregnancy with the second child reacts strongly to these policy changes. The share of employed mothers sharply declined in 1990 by 19.1 percentage points, increased in 1996 by 6.9 percentage points and declined again by 6.4 percentage points in 2000. None of these changes in prenatal employment translated into effects on newborn health measured via birth weight, gestational length, and Apgar scores. This result holds true for mothers of different socioeconomic backgrounds and across industries. The effect is precisely estimated, which suggests that prenatal employment prior to the 32nd week of pregnancy does not causally affect the fetus for measures visible at birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]