Population drug use in Australia: a wastewater analysis

Accurate information on drug use in communities is essential if health, social and economic harms associated with illicit drug use are to be addressed efficiently. In most countries population drug use is estimated indirectly via surveys, medical presentations and police and custom seizures. All of these methods have at least some problems due to bias, small samples and/or long time delays between collecting the information and analysing the results. Recently the direct quantification of drug residues in wastewater has shown promise as a means of monitoring drug use in defined geographical areas. In this study we measured 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), methamphetamine and benzoylecgonine in sewage inflows in metropolitan and regional areas of Australia and compared these data with published European data. Cocaine use was small compared to European cities (p<0.001) but was compensated for by much greater consumption of methamphetamine (p<0.001) and MDMA (p<0.05). MDMA was more popular in regional areas (p<0.05) whereas methamphetamine and cocaine were mainly consumed in the city (p<0.05). Greater than 5-fold increases in MDMA use were detected on weekends (p<0.001). This approach has the potential to improve our understanding of drug use in populations and should be further developed to improve prevention and treatment programs.     

François Mitterrand’s Visit to Sarajevo, 28 June 1992

At 10:30 in the morning on 28 June 1992, a Dauphin helicopter landed at Sarajevo airport carrying a precious cargo: the French president, François Mitterrand. Since the beginning of the Bosnian War, Bosnian Serb forces had controlled the airport and restricted the delivery of humanitarian aid to the city’s destitute population, which formed an important cornerstone of their siege strategy. In reaching the airport, the president secured its re-opening and, with it, the commencement of one of the longest humanitarian airlifts in history. However, Mitterrand’s visit also had implications and significance beyond the Bosnian capital. The visit secured humanitarian intervention through the United Nations as the international community’s modus operandi for conflict resolution in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Through its permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and enthusiastic engagement with humanitarian intervention, France would shape the intervention in Bosnia-Hercegovina and thus continue to justify its position amongst the world’s Great Powers.     

The Islamic State's Evolving Chemical Arsenal

This article examines the growing chemical weapon capabilities of the Islamic State from the crude poisons and toxins of its founding father Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi to the current battlefield use of indigenously produced mustard gas in Iraq and Syria. By examining this evolution as a phenomenon separate from Al Qaeda, a clearer picture emerges of a dedicated and increasingly successful chemical weapons program that threatens military forces and civilian populations around the world.     

Parental Self-Efficacy and Bullying in Elementary School

This study investigated associations of general and specific parental self-efficacy factors with bullying and peer victimization behaviors among 142 fourth and fifth graders and their parents. Using structural equation modeling, exploratory factor analysis was used to examine one general parenting self-efficacy measure and a bullying-specific parent self-efficacy measure. The latter produced two unique factors: (a) self-efficacy to know when one’s child is bullied, and (b) self-efficacy to respond to one’s child being bullied. Child reports of bullying and peer victimization were simultaneously regressed on the three (i.e., one general and two specific) parent self-efficacy factors. Findings revealed that parental self-efficacy to know when one’s child is bullied was uniquely and negatively associated with both bullying and victimization. Additionally, and contrary to expectations, parental self-efficacy to respond when one’s child is being bullied was uniquely and positively associated with victimization.     

Book Reviews

Small Firms and Local Economic Networks: The Death of the Local Economy?. James Curran and Robert Blackburn, 1994. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. 210 pp.; £29.95 hardback. ISBN: 1 85396 209 0

Tourism and Politics: Policy, Power and Place. Colin Michael Hall, 1994 (reprinted. March 1996). Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. 239 pp.; £14.99 paperback. ISBN: 0 471 9647 2

European Union Spatial Policy and Planning. R. WILLIAMS, 1996. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. 304 pp. £16.95 paperback. ISBN: 1 8539 6 305 4

Disability and the City: International Perspectives. Rob Imrie, 1996. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. 200 pp.; £15.95 paperback. ISBN: 185396 273 2 (paperback)     

Guest Editorial: Political geographies of children and young people

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the present Special Issue of Space & Polity tackling the political geographies of children and young people. Historically given scant attention by the sub-discipline, since children and young people appear to have little active influence on the workings of states, nations, geopolitics and the like, there are now small signs of how and why political geographers might look anew at the experiences and contribu tions of this population cohort. An empirical vignette, based on letters written by children and young people to Eleanor Roosevelt during the Great De pression, is deployed to develop this claim. Contrasts are then drawn between political geographies of children and young people that are ‘adult-centred’ and those that are ‘child-centred’, as related to claims about the distinctions and connections between ‘macro-politics’ and ‘micro-politics’. It is suggested that, notwithstanding the exciting insights to be derived from child-centred approaches, the situation should not be a matter of privileging these over adult-centred approaches. Indeed, it is argued that there are dangers in going down such a route and of thereby collapsing ‘the political’ into ‘the personal’, thus missing what is distinctively political about the geographies needing to be researched and written. Following a brief excursion into debates about the supposed political apathy of (post)modern children and young people, the paper then introduces the other contributions to the Special Issue.     

State,society and the African crisis

Rehabilitation after violent conflict is today relevant to many countries - especially but not only in SSA - and hopefully will become so for more. It is in generally too narrowly specified, too short term and too fragmented with no macro strategic or conceptual frame. Further it is usually based on quite inadequate knowledge of the history, priorities and dynamics of the afflicted country. Rehabilitation has-or should have-interacting economic (especially livelihood rebuilding), social (stress and perceived inequity reducing) and political (reconciliation and legitimacy restoration not least by rehabilitating basic service access including user friendly, personal security oriented civil police and magistrates courts system). In severely war impacted countries these are likely to be among the most economically efficient ways to regaining growth and restructured economic development as well as of rebuilding social and political reconcilliation and religitimisation.