Unexplained sudden death and the likelihood of drug abuse

The common history of drug abuse in adults with an undetermined cause of death has led us to hypothesize that chronic drug abuse increases the risk of sudden death. To begin evaluating this hypothesis, we conducted a retrospective case-control study of 61 decedents whose cause of death remained undetermined following autopsy matched one to one to a control group of pedestrians or passengers killed in motor vehicle collisions. In 21 pairs, the case subject had evidence of drug abuse but the control did not, and in 5 cases the reverse was true. Analysis showed that individuals with an undetermined cause of death are 4.2 times more likely to have evidence of drug abuse than are victims of a motor vehicle collision.     

Reviews

John Miller, Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of Soviet Power. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, xviii + 267 pp., £45.00 h/b, £13.99 p/b.

Geoffrey A. Hosking, Jonathan Aves & Peter J. S. Duncan, The Road to Post‐Communism. Independent Political Movements in the Soviet Union, 1985–1991. London and New York: Pinter Publishers, 1992 x + 236 pp., £37.50 h/b, £12.99 p/b.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, xx + 264 pp., $41.50 h/b, $13.95 p/b.

Ian Jeffries, Socialist Economies and the Transition to the Market: A Guide. London: Routledge, 1993. 562 pp., £70.00 h/b, £19.99 p/b.

William M. Reisinger, Energy and the Soviet Bloc: Alliance Politics after Stalin. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1992, xiii + 184 pp., $37.95.

Joan DeBardeleben, ed., To Breathe Free: Eastern Europe's Environmental Crisis. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, xviii + 266 pp., £25.00 h/b, £9.50 p/b.

Donald D. Barry, ed., Toward the ‘Rule of Law’ in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992, 402 pp., $90.00.

Anna Lawton, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992, xvi + 288 pp. £35.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

David Pike, The Politics of Culture In Soviet‐Occupied Germany 1945–1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993, 691 pp., $ 55.00.

Alec Nove, ed., The Stalin Phenomenon. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1993, 216 pp., £25.00 h/b.

M. B. Broxup, ed., The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance Towards the Muslim World. London: Hurst, 1992, xxvii + 252 pp., £27.50.     

Acupuncture in drug treatment: Exploring its role and impact on participant behavior in the drug court setting

The originators of the Miami drug court incorporated acupuncture into the substance abuse treatment regimen that has been widely imitated in hundreds of drug courts since 1989. Although there is some evidence to suggest that acupuncture may be an effective adjunct to treatment more generally, research has not yet examined its role and impact in the drug court setting. This paper describes an effort to study the impact of acupuncture on offender behavior and progress in treatment in the Clark County, (Las Vegas) Nevada Drug Court using a prospective modified experiment, where 336 new participants were randomly assigned to acupuncture and no-acupuncture conditions. However, significant treatment contamination hindered straightforward analysis, as nearly 40% of the control group received at least some acupuncture. To compensate for the treatment compliance problem, two-stage least-squares (2SLS) regression is employed with original group assignment as an instrumental variable and acupuncture exposure as a predictor. Results indicate no significant difference along a range of criminal justice and treatment outcomes, with the exception of one measure of treatment progress. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings and the need to design studies that are better able to separate the effects of acupuncture from other treatment and court interventions.     

The development management task and reform of 'public' social services

With its emphasis on target-setting and performance measures, the New Public Management (NPM) appears to offer a coherent and 'no-nonsense' approach to public sector reform and the public management task. This article suggests that three questions require further thought: 'Management of what?', 'Management by whom?', and 'How to manage?' It considers these questions using the case of Community Based Health Care (CBHC) and its promotion by NGOs in Tanzania. The article argues that the task of public management is one of managing an arena of public action which includes (and excludes) a range of actors and agendas. Once this is taken into account, it becomes clear that the challenge to all development managers is how to manage more effective interdependence.     

Detection of nandrolone metabolites in urine after a football game in professional and amateur players: a Bayesian comparison.

Nandrolone (19-nortestosterone) is a widely used anabolic steroid in sports where strength plays an essential role. Once nandrolone has been metabolised, two major metabolites are excreted in urine, 19-norandrosterone (NA) and 19-noretiocholanolone (NE). In 1997, in France, quite a few sportsmen had concentrations of 19-norandrosterone very close to the IOC cut off limit (2ng/ml). At that time, a debate took place about the capability of the human male body to produce by itself these metabolites without any intake of nandrolone or related compounds. The International Football Federation (FIFA) was very concerned with this problematic, especially because the World Cup was about to start in France. In this respect, a statistical study was held with all football players from the first and second divisions of the Swiss Football National League. All players gave a urine sample after effort and around 6% of them showed traces of 19-norandrosterone. These results were compared with amateur football players (control group) and around 6% of them had very small amounts of 19-norandrosterone and/or 19-noretiocholanolone in urine after effort, whereas none of them had detectable traces of one or the other metabolite before effort. The origin of these compounds in urine after a strenuous physical activity is still unknown, but three hypotheses can be put forward. First, an endogenous production of nandrolone metabolites takes place. Second, nandrolone metabolites are released from the fatty tissues after an intake of nandrolone, some related compounds or some contaminated nutritive supplements. Finally, the sportsmen may have taken something during or just before the football game.     

Justice as freedom,fairness, compassion,and utilitarianism: How my life experiences shaped my views of justice

This essay lays out my definition of justice and traces the origins of its conception. I identify and discuss very specific life experiences and how they have affected my understanding of justice. Specific incidents include early childhood experiences, key events in adolescence, and the most important episodes from early adulthood. I examine my own family conditions and early relationships and consider the influences of certain television shows and music in childhood and adolescence. I also discuss the effects of various educational experiences. The culmination of these life experiences was the emergence of a very strong sense of justice, reciprocity, and compassion for others, particularly for the least powerful and most vulnerable in our midst. These experiences in essence pushed me into the field of criminal justice and into the worlds of academia and social justice activism. They also allowed me finally to see my mission in life and to understand how all my life experiences have shaped my sense of justice.     

Age trends in eye-witness suggestibility and compliance

Abstract

This paper addresses two issues: whether there is a developmental trend in suggestibility to misleading post-event information, and whether suggestibility can be reduced by use of part of the cognitive interview. Twenty participants from each of three age groups (four-to-five year olds, eight-to-nine year olds and adults) watched a filmed event, and half of the participants in each age group were subsequently asked to recall everything they had seen using a method derived from the cognitive interview procedure. Following this, all participants were asked questions about the filmed event, some of which incorporated misleading information. Twenty four hours later the witnesses were interviewed again, this time critical questions were included about the truth of the presuppositions introduced in the initial questionnaire. It was found that although the eight-to-nine year olds were more suggestible than adults, the apparent greater suggestibility of very young children (four-to-five years) could potentially be explained in terms of heightened compliance to the perceived demands of the interviewer. The 'be complete' part of the cognitive interview only produced an improvement in performance for the eight-to-nine year olds.     

Academic freedom and the occupation of Germany and Japan

Abstract

In the years 1948-54, New York University suffered an anticommunist “purge” of its faculty which was extreme even in its day. That the “McCarthyite” period at NYU was so vicious is at first puzzling. National hysteria about atomic secrets notwithstanding, it remains true that some universities with greater prestige (and hence seemingly of greater political importance) and others with more conservative administrations stopped far short of the suspension of academic freedom experienced at Washington Square and University Heights. Further, the “purges” seem to have been the product of a minority movement of anticommunist activists, and not a rebellion on the part of libertarian-minded faculty or students. A politically conformist and usually passive campus had to be convinced of the need for an ideological crusade.     

Neoliberalism and the future world

The persistence of illiberal or predatory systems of political and social power in circumstances where neoliberal market economies have advanced rapidly is often explained in terms of the last-ditch resistance of vested interests, weak institutions, or an absence of social capital. In contrast, this study argues that these seeming paradoxes are often integral to a process of neoliberal reform in that they enable the expropriation of public assets and policy agendas necessary for the emergence and consolidation of powerful private interests. At another level, the rise of neoconservative policy agendas and the blurring of state-business relations within the neoliberal camp itself may be seen to undermine the epoch of neoliberalism. This article argues that the shift toward various manifestations of empire is a political response to crises designed to preserve those hegemonic relations established by neoliberal agendas. These various mutations of markets' predatory oligarchies, illiberal politics, and empire possess a substantial internal coherence.