Measures to enhance the success of global climate treaties

We analyze important forces that hamper the formation of successful self-enforcing agreements to mitigate global warming from an economic point of view. The analysis combines two modules: (a) an integrated assessment model that captures the feedback between the economy, environmental damages and the climate system and (b) a game theoretic model that determines stable coalitions in the presence of free-riding incentives. We consider two types of measures to enhance the success of international environmental treaty-making: (a) transfers, aiming at balancing asymmetric gains from cooperation; (b) institutional changes, aiming at making it more difficult to upset stability of a treaty. We find that institutional changes may be as important as transfers and should therefore receive more attention in future international negotiations.

Comparative Toxicology of Intentional and Accidental Heroin Overdose*

Abstract: The demographic and toxicological characteristics of deliberate (SUI, n = 50) and accidental (ACC, n = 927) fatal heroin overdose cases were examined. SUI cases were more likely to be female, had lower body mass indices, were more likely to be enrolled in treatment and less likely to have hepatic pathology. The median blood morphine concentration of SUI cases was significantly higher than that of ACC cases (0.70 vs. 0.40 mg/L, p < 0.001). Blood morphine concentrations of >1 mg/L were seen among 38.0% of SUI cases compared to 13.9% of ACC cases. Being a member of the SUI group remained a significant independent predictor of higher morphine concentrations after controlling for the effects of potential confounders (p < 0.001), other significant predictors being the absence of alcohol (p < 0.001), the presence of methadone (p < 0.05), and the presence of cocaine (p < 0.05). The current data are consistent with the view that suicide forms a small, but distinct, category of heroin overdose cases, rather than overdose being a parasuicidal phenomenon per se.     

Clinical and Autopsy Characteristics of Fatal Methamphetamine Toxicity in Australia

Characteristics of death attributed solely to methamphetamine toxicity (MT, n = 93) by forensic pathologists were examined and compared to cases of multiple drug toxicity (MDT, n = 634). The mean age of MT cases was 36.7 years, and 86.0% were male. Strenuous activity was reported in 12.9%. The most common witness observations were: collapse (60.3%), difficulty in breathing (36.2%), and hyperthermia (27.6%). MT cases had higher blood methamphetamine (0.54 vs. 0.11 mg/L) and amphetamine (0.04 vs. 0.02 mg/L) concentrations and lower likelihoods for opioids (12.5% vs. 80.9%), hypnosedatives (27.3 vs. 60.7%), antidepressants (14.8 vs. 29.8%), and antipsychotics (9.1 vs. 19.7%). MT cases had significantly heavier hearts than MDT cases (423.4 vs. 385.8 g) and were more likely to have cardiomegaly (37.1 vs. 20.4%) and replacement fibrosis (25.7 vs. 14.5%). The clinical picture was of a sudden cardiac event in a middle‐aged man with a high methamphetamine concentration. Cardiovascular signs of heavy methamphetamine use are frequently seen.     

Morphine Concentrations in Stomach Contents of Intravenous Opioid Overdose Deaths

Abstract:  Death caused by heroin overdose is almost always the result of intravenous injection of the drug in Australia. We briefly describe a case where a heroin overdose was initially thought to be the result of oral ingestion of the drug, primarily as a result of higher concentrations of morphine in stomach contents than in blood. During the subsequent criminal trial and investigation, however, the issue of the entero-hepatic circulation of morphine was raised as a possible reason for the presence of morphine in the stomach contents. In this study, we report on the distribution of opioids in blood, stomach contents, urine, liver, and bile in 29 deaths caused by intravenous heroin overdose. The mean total and free blood morphine concentrations were 0.60 and 0.32 mg/L , respectively, and the mean stomach contents total morphine concentration was 1.16 mg/kg. All cases had detectable morphine in the stomach contents, and 24 of 29 cases (83%) had higher concentrations of total morphine in stomach contents than in blood. The mean total morphine concentration in bile was c. 100 times that in blood, and the liver total morphine concentration averaged twice that of blood levels. We conclude that the entero-hepatic circulation of morphine and subsequent reflux of duodenal contents back into the stomach can result in the deposition of morphine in gastric contents. Consequently, the relative levels of opioids in blood and stomach contents cannot be used to determine the site of administration of the drug.     

Democratic accountability and the changing European political order

This article is about democratic accountability and a Europe struggling to find viable answers to the questions of who and what shall constitute “Europe” and how to develop legitimate political institutions for governing it. The article is, nevertheless, first and foremost about political order and change, rules for living together, the role of democratic politics in society and the relations between political organization and civilized coexistence, and the study of the political. Modern democracies live with unresolved conflict, and accountability regimes are part of an institutional arrangement for preserving order and continuity and also for creating dynamics and change. Accountability processes take place within settled and unsettled orders, and they affect and are affected by existing orders. Without denying the importance of contending interests, power struggles, strategic behaviour, non‐cooperative games, and (re)distributional battles, attention is directed towards the search for unity, political cohesion and solidarity based upon the informed voluntary consent of the people through reflection and reasoned deliberation among individuals with different values, interests, understandings and resources.     

Interrupting the Myth of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Partage</Emphasis>: Reflections on Sovereignty and Sacrifice in the work of Nancy,Agamben and Derrida

Agamben traces the bio-political essence of modern politics to the non-sacrificial killing of Homo Sacer in Roman law. Nancy, on the other hand, links the history of Western politics to the fundamental logic of sacrifice in Western metaphysics. He nevertheless contemplates the possibility that Western societies may finally have arrived at the threshold of a non-sacrificial existence. Derrida seeks to resist the sacrificial logic of Western metaphysics and politics, but nevertheless appears to accept it as an irreducible fact of human co-existence. Unlike Nancy, he envisages no actual or actualised beyond beyond the realm of sacrificial metaphysics and politics. He thus can be said to interrupt Nancy’s ‘myth’ of a non-sacrificial partage. This article compares these three philosophical stances in the hope of throwing more light on the role of sacrifice in the law and politics of our time. Professor of Law, Rand Afrikaans University. Conversations with Ann van Sevenant, Carol Clarkson, Louise du Toit, Peter Fitzpatrick, Costas Douzinas and Adam Thurschwell gave impetus to many of the themes developed in this article. Concomitant shortcomings and inaccuracies, as always, are mine.     

Development of a capillary zone electrophoresis method including a factorial design and simplex optimisation for analysis of amphetamine, amphetamine analogues, cocaine, and heroin

A capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method was developed for the analysis of amphetamine and 13 amphetamine analogues. A full factorial design was used to screen for important design variables (i.e. carrier electrolyte concentration, pH, and separation temperature), and a modified simplex was employed in a final optimisation step. The resolution values of the target compounds were used as responses in the screening and optimisation phases. This approach made it possible to control the effects of the design variables on the separation of the target compounds. The best results were obtained using a 100mM Tris/phosphate buffer (pH 3.1) at a separation temperature of 10 degrees C, and the analysis time was 23 min under these conditions. After slight modification, the method also enabled baseline resolution of the most commonly encountered amphetamine derivatives, as well as cocaine and heroin, within 7 min. There was a linear relationship between peak area and concentration for all substances, with correlation coefficients in the range of 0.9975-0.9999. Moreover, the technique was repeatable and exhibited relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) values in the ranges of 0.01-0.11% and 0.54-1.60% for relative migration time and corrected peak area, respectively. Lastly, the method was successfully applied to analyse street samples.