A review of impurity profiling and synthetic route of manufacture of methylamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine,amphetamine, dimethylamphetamine and p-methoxyamphetamine

Amphetamine-type substances (ATS), like other synthetically derived compounds, can be produced by a multitude of synthetic pathways using a variety of precursors and reagents, resulting in a large number of possible contaminants (by-products, intermediates and impurities). This review article describes the common contaminants found in preparations of methylamphetamine (MA), 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine (MDMA), amphetamine (AP), N,N-dimethylamphetamine (DMA) and p-methoxyamphetamine (PMA) synthesised via common synthetic pathways including reductive amination, Leuckart method, Nagai method, Emde method, Birch reduction, “Moscow” method, Wacker process, “Nitrostyrene” method and the Peracid oxidation method.Contaminants can facilitate identification of the synthetic route, origin of precursors and may suggest information as to the location of manufacture of these illicit drugs. Contaminant profiling can provide vital intelligence for investigations in which linking seizures or identifying the synthetic pathway is essential. This review article presents an accessible resource; a compilation of contaminants resulting from a variety of manufacturing methods used to synthesise the most common ATS. It is important for research in this field to continue as valuable information can be extracted from illicit drug samples, increasing discrimination amongst ATS, and in turn, leading to an increase in evidential value and forensic drug intelligence from forensic drug samples.     

Community reintegration of ex-prisoners: type and degree of change in variables influencing successful reintegration

Community reintegration of ex-prisoners is an important issue in efforts to reduce recidivism. The present study examined the multiple, complex, and dynamic nature of variables influencing successful reintegration by assessing the type and degree of change in reintegration variables over time. Participants were 79 adult prisoners (54 male, 25 female) who completed a prerelease questionnaire 1 month before their release, which focused on prison-related variables, participant background, and anticipated conditions upon release. A postrelease questionnaire was administered to the same participants at 1-4 weeks and 3-4 months postrelease, focusing on the quality of life conditions experienced following release. Results indicate that current health ratings and several indicators of drug use were significantly different over the three measurement phases. Ratings of employment and housing stability, finance, and social support were unchanged over the postrelease period. Theoretical implications of the present investigation for reintegration theory are discussed, together with practical applications.     

Prostitute homicides: a descriptive study

It has been estimated that women involved in street prostitution are 60 to 100 times more likely to be murdered than are nonprostitute females. In addition, homicides of prostitutes are notoriously difficult to investigate and, as such, many cases remain unsolved. Despite this large risk factor, little literature exists on homicides of prostitutes, and there is a lack of basic statistics and knowledge regarding this very specific victim group that could possibly help investigators. The aim of the current study is to conduct an exploratory study to explore the key characteristics of this group and how they differ from other subgroups of homicide. Forty-six cases of U.K. prostitute homicides are analyzed and compared to 59 male offender-female victim nonsexual homicide cases and 17 male offender-female victim sexual homicide cases.     

Policing Australia’s ‘heroin drought’: using an agent-based model to simulate alternative outcomes

Our paper examines how street-level drug markets adapt to a macro-level disruption to the supply of heroin, under three experimental conditions of street-level drug law enforcement: random patrol, hot-spot policing and problem-orientated policing. We utilize an agent-based model to explore the relative impact of abstractions of these three law enforcement strategies after simulating an ‘external shock’ to the supply of heroin to the street-level drug market. We use 3 years of data, which include the period of the ‘heroin drought’ in Melbourne (Australia) that commenced in late 2000 and early 2001, to measure changes in a selected range of crime and harm indicators under the three policing conditions. Our results show that macro-level disruptions to drug supply have a limited impact on street-level market dynamics when there is a ready replacement drug. By contrast, street-level police interventions are shown to vary in their capacity to alter drug market dynamics. Importantly, our laboratory abstraction of problem-orientated policing is shown to be the optimal strategy to disrupt street-level injecting-drug markets, reduce crimes and minimize harm, regardless of the type of drug being supplied to the market.

‘How the Modern Girl Attains Strength and Grace’: the Girl's Own Paper,sport and the discipline of the female body, 1914–1956

In the first half of the twentieth century there was a great deal of debate about increasing female participation in sporting activities, and changes to the female sporting body and the way in which it was displayed. Magazines for girls played a key role in the construction of the female body, and in mediating for their readers a range of diverse views on the meaning, purpose and benefits or dangers of female physical culture. This article explores the way in which one periodical, the Girl's Own Paper (GOP), disseminated those discourses and allowed its readers to explore different viewpoints. It argues that the way in which GOP presented sport for girls and women was contingent upon the age of the intended readership, and that the coverage of sport within the paper reached a peak in the 1930s when the target readership was aged 12 to 16.     

SCIENTIFIC FACT AND VALUE IN U.S. OCEAN DUMPING POLICY

Controversy among scientists over appropriate use of the ocean for waste disposal impedes U.S. policy in this area. The problem arises in part because scientific uncertainty over the fate and effects of wastes released into the ocean requires a large element of judgment, and hence value, when the uncertain science is applied to policy. Scientists often supply that judgment and so impose their values, though seldom explicitly, on policy. Further, science often determines policy because many perceive it as an objective basis for decisionmaking and so less subject to the debate that arises from weighing public preferences in policymaking. Thus, scientists' values rather than the public's come to set policy. The resulting policy may elevate one expert's values over another's. Then as values and so interpretation of science shift, policy changes. Or, as in the case now with arguments over the ocean's ability to assimilate many anthropogenic wastes, conflicting science, really conflicting values, results in an agreement and policy inertia. These problems are partially circumvented when scientists make the nonscientific factors behind their reasoning clear. These factors may then be evaluated by the public along with the supporting scientific evidence. Thus, weighing the welfare of society rather than resolving conflicts among scientists becomes the focus of policy.     

Reviews

R. W. Davies, The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 1. The Soviet Offensive: The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929–1930. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1980, xxi+491 pp., twenty tables. £20.00.

The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 2. The Soviet Collective Farm, 1929–1930. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1980. x + 216 pp., nine tables. £20.00.

Zdeně'k Mlynár, Night Frost in Prague. The End of Humane Socialism. London: C. Hurst & Co., 1980. 300 pp. £9.50.

Alistair McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union: Poverty, Living Standards and Inequality. Hemel Hempstead: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1979 and Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979. xix + 389pp. £15.00.

Nicolas Spulber, Organizational Alternatives in Soviet‐type Economies. London: C.U.P., 1979, x + 290 pp, index. £15.00.

J. H. Moore, Growth with Self‐Management: Yugoslav Industrialization 1952–1975. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1980. xvi + 334 pp. $17.95.

Richard K. Ashley, The Political Economy of War and Peace. The Sino‐Soviet‐American Triangle and the Modern Security Problematique. London: Frances Pinter (Publishers) Ltd., New York: Nichols Publishing Company, 1980. xv + 384 pp. £15.

Boris Komarov (pseud.), The Destruction of Nature in the Soviet Union. Foreword by Marshall I. Goldman. White Plains, New York: M. E. Sharpe,* 1980. x+150pp. $15.00.

George Katkov, The Kornilov Affair: Kerensky and the Break‐up of the Russian Army. London and New York: Longman, 1980. xiv + 210 pp. £4.95 paper.