Analysis of pain management drugs, specifically fentanyl, in hair: application to forensic specimens

This article discusses the immunoassay screening of pain management drugs, and the mass spectrometric confirmation of fentanyl in human hair. Hair specimens were screened for fentanyl, opiates (including oxycodone), tramadol, propoxyphene, carisoprodol, methadone, and benzodiazepines and any positive results were confirmed using gas chromatography or liquid chromatography with mass spectral detection. The specific focus of the work was the determination of fentanyl in hair, since autopsy specimens were also available for comparison with hair concentrations. Using two-dimensional gas chromatography with electron impact mass spectrometric detection, fentanyl was confirmed in four of nine hair specimens collected at autopsy. The accuracy of the assay at 10 pg/mg was 95.17% and the inter-day and intra-day precision was 5.04 and 13.24%, respectively (n=5). The assay was linear over the range 5-200 pg/mg with a correlation of r(2)>0.99. The equation of the calibration curve forced through the origin was y=0.0053x and the limit of quantitation of the assay was 5 pg/mg. The fentanyl concentrations detected were 12, 17, 490, and 1930 pg/mg and the results were compared with toxicology from routine post-mortem analysis. The screening of pain management drugs in hair is useful in cases where other matrices may not be available, and in routine testing of hair for abused drugs.     

Ginsberg: Under the World

Liverpool Law Review -     

The Pacific Islanders' Fund and the Misappropriation of the Wages of Deceased Pacific Islanders by the Queensland Government

The Queensland Pacific Islanders' Fund operated between 1885 and the 1900s but is largely unknown today. It was established in the Treasury to facilitate the operation of the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880 Amendment Act 1885 to safeguard return fares and to ensure that the money due to deceased Islanders was returned to their families. However, over time, because of the high death rates, the wages of deceased Islanders became so substantial that they were able to be used to supplement the administration of the whole labour trade. Money was drawn off to subsidize Islander hospitals and Christian missions, to an extent that in the final 1900s deportation years there was no longer enough money available to pay full fares. The Queensland government seldom returned the full wages to the families of the deceased Islanders and profited largely from their deaths. In today's money, millions of dollars were misappropriated, in similar fashion to wages misappropriated by the same government from Aborigines.     

An evaluation of de Jong-Giervald's loneliness model with Australian adolescents

This study concerns the prevalence of loneliness in a sample of adolescent Australian college students and examines the predictors of loneliness in this group, in particular the impact of social network characteristics, social network appraisal, the functions of friendship, and the psychosocial variables of identity and intimacy (Erikson, 1978) within the context of de Jong-Giervald's (1987) model of loneliness. One hundred and thirty- eight college students aged between 17 and 20 years from one regional and one city tertiary institution were surveyed to ascertain the level of experienced loneliness as measured by the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russellet al., 1980). Measures of intimacy and identity were obtained using the Erikson Psychosocial State Inventory (Rosenthalet al., 1981) while the functions of friendship in general and of a specific same- sex close friend were those established in a previous study (Moore and Boldero, 1987). Comparison of the levels of loneliness reported with those found by other studies suggested that Australian adolescents are no less vulnerable to the experience of loneliness than their American counterparts. In addition, while no quantitative sex differences in loneliness were found, qualitative differences emerged. Specifically, although psychosocial intimacy was the best predictor of loneliness for both male and female, the other independent predictors were different. For males having fewer same- sex friends and an inability to share feelings with a specific same- sex friend predicted loneliness whereas for females social network appraisal, the ability to engage in mutual aid with a specific same-sex friend, living with family, and psychosocial identity were important. These differences were discussed in terms of the impact that the differential socialization of male and female has on ability of adolescents to engage in close and satisfying interpersonal relationships. Suggestions for intervention were made.This research was supported by a grant from the Research and Development Committee, Melbourne College of Advanced Education.An earlier verison of this paper was presented at the Children and Families at Risk Conference, Ballarat, Australia, April 1989.Received M.A. in Psychology from University of Auckland, New Zealand. Ph.D. in Psychology at University of Melbourne currently being assessed. Current interests include interpersonal relationships of adolescents and adults.Received Ph.D. in Counseling from Florida State University. Current interests include psychology as applied to educational issues and adolescent development.     

Global Knowledge Capitalism,Self-woven Safety Nets,and the Crisis of Employability

In the global economy, workers are increasingly expected to cultivate an unprecedented repertoire of abilities in an immaterial world of work. This signifies a limited shift in capitalist expansion in the post-Fordist world in relation to workers' employability therein. A model of worker subjectivity was introduced into Western management and psychology discourse surrounding employability in the 1960s and 1970s. In a developed, post-industrial global economy, management has begun to view workers less as cogs in the wheel or less as rational and predictable entities than as dynamic individuals with the capacity for symbolic reasoning, intelligence, independently generated ideas, and even the desire to work for the sake of self-fulfilment! The Fordist workplace was expected to become a distant memory and organisations were to become “learning organisations” rather than the hierarchical, Dickensian workfloors of the manufacturing age. Nevertheless, rather than offering freedom from the iron cage of capitalism, workers face a contemporary form of coercion that substitutes political representation with a set of expectations and limitations intended, ironically, to result in workplace emancipation. Emphasis on employability of individuals through workers' creation of self-woven safety nets demonstrates an elite-led project to reduce government responsibility for employment welfare. In order to make this claim, the article looks at the case of education policy in South Korea after the economic crisis of 1997.     

Prosecuting child sexual abuse in rural Kentucky: Factors influencing case acceptance by prosecuting attorneys

This study examined the relationship between felony prosecutors’ discretion and the legal and social factors present in cases of child sexual abuse. Prosecuting attorneys from 20 rural circuits in Kentucky were targeted for semistructured interviews in order to determine what influences them to accept or not accept a case for prosecution. Findings show a relationship between rural Kentucky prosecutors’ decision to accept a case and the availability of physical evidence, victims’ age and competence, potential trauma inflicted upon the victim, and the situation in which the allegation of sexual abuse originated. The relationship between prosecutors’ discretion and various factors is discussed regarding the impact on other criminal justice officials in their pursuit to combat child sexual abuse in Kentucky and in other rural communities as well. Winner of 1997 Outstanding Graduate Paper Award, Southern Criminal Justice Association     

Discrimination and deprivation: The effects of social comparisons

This article deals with relative deprivation with regard to wages, particularly the effects of gender and occupational sex-type on justice evaluations and on the perception of individual and fraternal deprivation. Underlying this analysis of the factors that allow perceived discrimination to be translated into feelings of deprivation is the basic assumption that workers in different occupational and gender categories report different levels of relative deprivation primarily because of their diverse comparison criteria for evaluating their rewards. The empirical findings point to systematic gender and occupation-type differences in choice of comparison others and in justice considerations.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1988 meetings of the Social Justice and Societal problems convention, Leiden, The Netherlands.     

Private regulation in mental health

General hospitals are increasingly important sources of care for chronic and acute mental patients. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH) standards for staffing in general hospitals require the same degree of physician supervision and control for all services, including mental health. This paper considers the economic impact of JCAH standards on the practice of psychologists in hospitals. The “voluntariness” of the standards is assessed and the evidence that these standards foster economic protectionism is considered. We conclude that in light of the demonstrated capability of nonphysician professionals, methods of quality control appropriate for physician health care in general hospitals should be reconsidered as these instutions diversify into mental health services.