Designer Drugs

 Designer Drugs, by Jack Shafer  is an article about "new herion", also called China White. China White a synthesised drug made to look exactly like and have the same effects of the poplular drug herion. But the designer was wrong.

Many deaths have been attributed to the new white powder, and no one knew why. Even though there was  a reported increase in overdoses, this did not stop herion users from trying the new drug. The major problem is the substance was completly legal when users started overdosing and dying. For a drug to be illegal it must be deemed so by the state or federal government. It was the first time anyone had produced and sold a legal heroin substitue. To make matters worse, it was amazingly cheap to synsthesize, only $500 in chemicals can produce up to 2 million dollars profit, which encouraged other chemists to try to make their own "batches".

A professor of pharmacology at University of California finally discovered the main ingredient as Fentanyl. It is believed there are about a thousand different forms of Fentanyl that could be used to make synthesised heroin. The Fentanyl in White China was 20 to 40 times stronger than heroin.

The most interesting thing about this new drug is that there is a large population of users who claim to be addicted to heroin but no trace of opiates are in their system. When their urine is tested for White China there is a large amount present, with no overdoses occurring. The large amount of users who overdose and die from the heroin substitute are users who have a lower opiate tolerance.

One major side effect of the drug, and the reason it gained so much attention, is Parkinsonian effects, such as stiffness, impaired speech, rigidity, tremors. When the heroin users symptoms were treated with Levadopa, a Parkinson's medication, the symptoms subside. Without it, the symptoms return, just like victims of Parkinson's disease. One case of a documented autopsy showed extensive brain damage from use of the drug. The effects of the brain damage caused dopamine levels to be altered, like Parkinson's. The effects this drug caused on these users brain is comparable to years and years of normal deterioration that occurs, in only a few uses of the drug. To me, that is amazing. People don't realize what they are doing to themselves.
 Underground chemists can modify the molecular architecture of almost every drug on the illicit market to create legal substitutes, and they do. However, they do not always know what the exact effects of the drug will be. The people who create these designer drugs are extremely intelligent, usually a graduate of a prestigious chemistry program. Too smart for their own good I think.

Memoir- The affects of drugs and relationships.

There is a drug epidemic in this country and you may or may not be surprised of the culprit. There are now more drug related deaths from prescription medications such as Oxycontin and other popular pain and anxiety medications. The abuse of these legal drugs has allowed the number of deaths to rise to more than heroin and cocaine combined. The streets can be a dangerous place for adolescents and young adults. Not every teenager gets the privilege to grow up in a wealthy and educated area. Growing up I lived in a nice neighborhood where everyone knew each other. There were many other kids my age, and we were all friendly and got along well with each other. Once kids start going to school they are guaranteed to meet children from other parts of their city, some good and some bad. My parents were hard workers and worked opposite shifts so one of them was always home to be with my brother and I. I have had many friends growing up that came from broken homes and bad neighborhoods, from houses with no parental supervision and no way to know right from wrong.

Growing up I had many friends my parents would say were, “from the wrong side of the tracks”. As a child and adolescent I saw things their parents did, drugs for example, that I did not understand at the time. If my parents knew now what was going on, I would never have been allowed in these houses. As I grew older the tables had turned from seeing my friend’s parents drinking and using drugs to seeing my friends doing it, at age thirteen. I had my first encounter with a drug related death at age fifteen when one of my very close friends overdosed on heroin her mother was allowing her to use. This event is something I have never fully recovered from.

High school is usually when most people start to experiment with alcohol and drugs. It was my adult years though, that my most of my friends turned down the wrong path. From age 22 to 26 I have currently lost two boyfriends and four very close friends to the Oxycontin epidemic. This doesn’t include family members or people I worked with that are also suffering from an addiction.  I was cheated on, stolen from and lied to over and over again. The trust in my relationships was completely destroyed. There were no reparations that could be done, and finally, after years of carrying that weight on my shoulders one by one I had to end my relationships’. You see there comes a time when you can no longer hurt because you can not control other people’s actions. It is a difficult and heartbreaking concept to accept. It never gets easy; to make the decision to walk away from someone you love, whether it is the first time or the fifth time. When someone decides to use drugs it completely takes over their lives. They are capable of doing things to people they love they would never normally do. The person is not the person you know and love, and it is very difficult to accept.

 I am not writing this to imply I am a better person than those who could not avoid the lifestyle or resist temptation. I am writing to shed light to the fact that I have lost a great deal in my life to drugs, things that were very important to me, people who still are very important to me, and it is not because of choices I’ve made. Drugs are a very big part of society, they are hard to avoid, and present in my life very much, even though they are not welcome.

Dealing with the effects of drugs in my life has also helped shaped me into the strong person I am today. It has lead me down the career path I have chosen as a nurse. I have sympathy and empathy for addicts, and I will eventually dedicate my career to helping people overcome addiction. People often ask me how I can work with a group of individuals who have caused me so much pain. I do believe addiction is a sickness and if I can help just one person get and stay clean it would make me feel unbelievably accomplished as a nurse. Not many people understand, and that’s okay.

It is a terrible feeling to lose someone you care about whether it be a friend, significant other or a family member because of the lifestyle they choose to live; It has happened to me time and time again.  choices they make in respect to drugs, stealing and other various crimes.  There comes a time when you put yourself first and no longer worry for your loved ones, instead move on and hope they will one day return to a healthy and drug free lifestyle. I know I am not the only one affected by this problem. But sometimes it feels like it.

Funny Money in Canada

According to an article by Grant Robertson, Funny Money: How counterfeiting led to a major overhaul of Canada's money. , Canada has a  major problem with their currency. One group of individuals in Canada are responsible for the largest counterfeiting ring in the country has ever seen; they are responsible for passing more than $11-million worth of known fake $20 bills, and many more that were never discovered and are still circulating in wallets and cash registers across the country. This group of individuals was caught by chance from a tip by two armoured car drivers. Two of the men in the group were driving around buying small items with $20 bills and receiving legitimate change.  According to Robertson Canada’s’ currency is one of the highest leading forged currency in the world. So how does the Canadian government stop the printing of their colourful currency? The government has decided to replace the paper currency with polymer notes. They believe that by limiting the material used to make banknotes you can limit counterfeiting. The reason the counterfeiting boomed so quickly was because a series of bills was present too long, allowing counterfeiters to master the bill.  Canada has added a number of features to their banknotes to try to shield from forged bills, and instead of counterfeit bills decreasing, it steadily climbed. The counterfeit problem was so well known to the country many businesses stopped taking bills over $20 to protect themselves from a potential loss.  
I thought it was interesting that the article describes how the counterfeiter goes about printing money. How they decided on paper and colors, etc. One counterfeiter, Mr. Weber, is believed to have printed about $6 Million in Canadian $100 bills. At the time of his arrest he was in the process of printing $233,000 in $100 bills.  I find it amazing that by a tip from the Brinks drivers police were lead to a factory that housed over $6.7 Million dollars in counterfeit money, that they didn’t even know existed yet, because it wasn’t in circulation. How much money did this organization actually print?! The workers in the warehouse had figured out how to replicate every security measure the government had in place to stop forgery, and perfected it.
Canada has been producing polymer money and will introduce it over the next two years while destroying all their paper money.

Rhetorical Analysis

                                                     

This ad is posted on a website called "The gun zone". It is a website that encourages the second amendment, the right to bear arms. The ad is delivered to the target audience bluntly and with a small paragraph about homeowners owning handguns to cease burglaries and home invasions, making the image very effective to the audience.

The ad is broken into two equal sections with a white background. On the top half of the image is a phone and the buttons 911 with the statement, "Dialing takes seconds." The bottom half of the image is a woman holding a gun, with the words, "Fight back!" The woman appears to be in her thirties with short brown hair holding a small black gun. The woman's expression is serious and she looks like she means business, in perfect stance to shoot if necessary. In both the top and bottom half of the image the image and the words are opposite to each other. Directly in the center of the image, splitting the top and bottom halves, it reads, "Waiting for help may take the rest of your life." The expression in the middle of the image is of white lettering with a black background, opposite of the top and bottom halves lettering, making it stick out to the reader more. The phrase, "Fight back!" is larger than the rest of the text in the ad. It is meant to stand out more. The words and images function together well. The upper and lower halves can coexist without the middle image and they both could stand alone. No part of the ad looks like it does not fit together properly.The important objects in the ad are the phone, the 911 buttons and the woman with the gun,
The setting is left to the readers imagination. The information conveyed in the ad using words is that dialing 911 will only take you seconds, but waiting for the help can cost you your life. The "Fight back!" at the bottom reiterates the woman holding the gun. The ad is supporting the second amendment to bear arms, it is telling the reader to defend themselves, specifically with a handgun. There are no experts or testimonials given, the wording and the woman are enough to properly convey the intended message to the audience. The tone used is one of essence. Time is essential to your survival, and knowing how to properly handle the handgun will likely save your life.

The message of the ad is that waiting for help can be detrimental, and the solution is to learn to defend yourself, and, "Fight back!"The target audience seems to be women, however this ad is applicable to everyone. An appropriate place for the ad is Shooting Times, Handguns, Guns & Amo or any gun magazine. The ad seems logical to the emotions and values for that target audience because if they are reading a gun magazine they are very likely to support the second amendment to bear arms, and likely already do. The design of the ad suggests to the reader how to view and understand the message.
I would not make any changes to the ad, i think it works perfectly just the way it is.

The ad is effective because of the various phrases strategically placed with the corresponding images. The other reason the ad is effective because the phrase, "Waiting could take the rest of your life", is very real and I believe it would hit home with the audience. I would not make any changes to the ad, i think it works perfectly just the way it is.

Raise the Crime Rate

The article I read was "Raise the crime rate", by Christopher Glazek.

This article describes how personal violence crime rates are dropping but crime is rising in other areas, such as finances. Glazek says America is safer now than it has been in the last forty years with rapes, robberies, stabbings and shootings statistics dropping. The article then changes its focus to crimes that occur in prisons, primarily rape. It is usually unreported as the prisoners are afraid of the consequences, when it is reported it is often ignored. This includes rape by fellow inmates, and guards. In 2008, more rapes occurred in prisons than out of prisons and made America the first country to have more men raped then women. According to Glazek, "the U.S. prison system does not need to be reformed, it needs to be abolished." I do not agree with that statement, I believe prisons are essential, and they do need reformation. The article ends with the author slams you with what i believe the article was actually about, an "assault" on prisons being needed.


I was surprised that the New York Times reported as unemployement rate grew, violent crime dropped for the fourth year in a row. Doesn't crime usually rise when unemployement rises? I found it interesting that the article described how drugs and violence entered every major city from herion and crack and how strict sentencing did not deter the criminals.  I was also surprised to learn that in maximum securtiy and overcrowded prisons rape is more likely; In minimum securtiy prisons, it is much easier to find support/protection from your fellow inmates, and rape from inmates and guards is less likely
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The writters style was consistent throughout the article. He did change his focus often, making it slightly difficult to follow and often lost my attention. He used laymans terms and it was easy to read.

Rewrite sentences

My hometown was a wonderful (or choose your own adjective) place to grow up.
Laci had a rather eccentric style.
Mr. Brown is the worst teacher I’ve ever had.
The room seemed very insttional.

Taunton has always provided activities for the youth, there was always something fun going on.

Laci was dancing around the room in circles, chanting about the sun and the moon.

Mr. Brown barely taught us, never answered any of my questions, and I failed every quiz he gave us.

The room had white walls and was empty.

Proposal

I have chosen crime to be my theme. I would like to look at the crime rates in certain areas and compare it the education and poverty level in that area. I have a degree in criminal justice and enjoy reading about crime and punishment. I feel like I am able to predict the outcome of researching crime and education & poverty but it will still be interesting to see the results. I would also like to look at what can be/is being done to help educate young people and keep them out of trouble.

My second choice would be in the health/medicine area. I would like to look at new medicines and see how the are come up with, and how effective they are. I think it would be interesting to see more in depth about the clinical trials.