Detection of Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid in Various Drink Matrices via AccuTOF-DART*

Abstract: A new screening method for detecting gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) in drink matrices, using the IonSense, Inc. (Saugus, MA) direct analysis in real time (DART) ion source coupled to a JEOL exact mass time-of-flight mass spectrometer (AccuTOF), was validated and compared with the current screening methodology. The DART ion source allows for analysis of samples under ambient conditions with little to no sample preparation. Fifty drink specimens were spiked at levels of 1, 2, 3, and 4 mg/mL GHB, and analyzed on the AccuTOF-DART. Positive detection of GHB occurred for each of the samples at each concentration level, giving 100% accuracy for the samples tested. Twenty-five of the 50 drink specimens were spiked at 1 mg/mL GHB and tested using a color test known as the GHB Color Test #3. Only two of these 25 specimens tested positive for the presence of GHB, giving only 8% accuracy. Implementation of this new methodology as a screening tool for GHB analysis will quickly eliminate negative specimens allowing the examiner to focus analysis time on those that screened positive.     

The regular article tracking developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications – Co-ordinated by Herbert Smith LLP and contributed to by firms across Europe

This column provides a concise alerting service of important national developments in key European countries. Part of its purpose is to compliment the Journal's feature articles and Briefing Notes by keeping readers abreast of what is currently happening “on the ground” at a national level in implementing EU level legislation and international conventions and treaties. Where an item of European National News is of particular significance, CLSR may also cover it in more detail in the current or a subsequent edition.     

Hypothetical intentionalism in statutory interpretation

Intentionalism is the view that an utterance （understood broadly as a spoken phrase, a written text, or even a gesture） means what its utterer intends to mean by it. In the philosophy of language, Grice＇s version of intentionalism rules the day, but intentionalism in statutory interpretation has well-known enemies. Antonin Scalia argues that the search for the intentions of actual legislators destroys the publicity of law and leads judges into fact-finding rather than rule-application. The author argues for a sophisticated version of intentionalism according to which the utterer of law is not an empirical individual or group of individuals but a hypothetical sovereign. The meaning of a legal text is whatever an ideally rational and reasonable communicator would intend to mean by it. By divorcing the meaning of law from the actual intentions of sometimes-conflicted and insincere legislators, this theory preserves the publicity of law and helps avoid fact-finding. Furthermore, it does justice to canons of construction （e.g., ejusdem generis, noscitur a sociis）, which seem to aim at what an ideally rational and reasonable lawgiver would mean by a given legal text. Finally, hypothetical intentionalism accords with actual judicial practice, at least in the United States Supreme Court, where justices often seem to tacitly assume that the utterer of law always expresses her meaning in the best possible way.