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Legal implications of addiction discussed Mental health experts from MUSC joined legal professionals from throughout the state to discuss the science behind criminal activity with hopes of collaborating on treatment, intervention and sentencing.   The daylong seminar, held Dec. 1 in the Institute of Psychiatry auditorium featured improvisational intervention strategies that demonstrated the right and wrong ways to encourage an individual to seek help for addiction.   Meanwhile, FBI statistics show South Carolina leading the nation in violent crime. Methamphetamine addiction, formerly afflicting rural western states, now is a growing problem in South Carolina. This powerful and destructive addiction stems from cheap and available drug-making components.     Currently, meth addiction is the subject of a unique study by MUSC scientists, including Robert Malcolm, M.D., a leading psychiatrist whose research has focused on the use of pharmacological agents in outpatient detoxification of alcoholics, and the use of a calcium channel blocker in the treatment of cocaine dependence. Malcolm was a facilitator in the seminar. MUSC recently was chosen as as one of only two research centers to continue the meth study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The other medical facility to receive renewal for the study was University of California Los Angeles.   While research linking crimes to mental illness and/or drug abuse is ongoing, legal and medical experts believe recognizing conditions such as depression and addiction, and understanding their effects on judgment and reasoning abilities, could have significant impact on the reduction of crime rates.   Combining perspectives generate the potential for attorneys to intervene with their clients and potentially prevent repeat offenses, as well as aid judges in sentencing. For clinicians, the collaboration could lead to enhanced research opportunities and increased patient load for treatment clinics.   The panel, made up of law enforcement officers, mental health experts and legal professionals, discussed the dynamics of addiction treatment, strategies for intervention, signs and symptoms of depression, ethics and the methamphet-amine epidemic. MUSC researchers also appealed to the audience of lawyers to refer clients their way for possible intervention studies.     Friday, Dec. 15, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.