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ABSTRACT Aims Decisions on whether and how to 'schedule' drugs (i.e. to determine their legal status and penalties to be applied for sale or possession) are often heavily criticized. We sought to assess more comprehensively the results of such decisions for newly emerging drugs. Methods Through analysis of legislation and secondary sources, we identified 63 substances that have emerged since 1971, including all that have been added to the most restrictive schedule by the United Nations, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and/or New Zealand. Measurements For each jurisdiction we recorded whether, when, and how the substance was scheduled and note what decisions engendered substantial criticism or controversy within the international treaties' framework of balancing medical benefits with risk of abuse. Findings (i) The rate of emergence of new drugs has been fairly steady. (ii) There is broad cross-national agreement on what should be scheduled. (iii) The United States often acts first. (iv) Temporary bans that delay final decisions by 12-18 months can sometimes allow final decisions to be grounded on a substantially expanded research base. (v) It appears that no more than seven of the decisions reached by the United States with respect to the 63 substances are candidates for being considered errors, and arguably the United States has committed at most one serious Type I and one serious Type II error. Results for other countries are broadly similar. Conclusions The process for determining the legal status of new psychoactive substances appears to function reasonably well, within the framework of international treaty obligations. Most criticisms relate to one or a few substances (e.g. 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and/or complaints that the decisions discount benefits that are not recognized by the treaties (e.g. recreational or religious use). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically tested two hypotheses in order to evaluate the validity and applicability of the APT to the UK stock market using monthly individual price data from the LSE. Results obtained in this study support the first hypothesis (HI) that the risk free rates are equal to the corresponding estimated intercept terms of the models tested. As this inference could have resulted from weak test methodology, another set of tests was conducted to see if the intercept terms were equal to zero. The earlier inference was supported due to the finding that the intercept term was significantly different from zero. However, the results of testing the second hypothesis (H2) utilizing two different procedures (i.e., the Chi-square test and the t-test) show that the risk premia are not significantly different from zero. This latter finding does not support the APT and is in conflict with the results of Hughes (1982) with regard to the Canadian stock market and several other studies (e.g., Gehr, 1975; Roll and Ross, 1980; and Chen, 1983) based on US stock market data. Given the mixed results obtained in this study, no conclusive statements can be made regarding the validity and the applicability of the APT to the capital markets of the UK. It should be noted that the results of previous tests of the APT using US and Canadian stock market data are also mixed at best." The results obtained in this study and in the previous studies do not provide any conclusive evidence either to accept or reject the APT. Further research is required before any conclusive judgement is passed on this theory which appears to have great potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]