The case presented is of a 49-year-old white male decedent who admitted to oral ingestion of methamphetamine. He believed he was being followed by the police while walking his daughter to school in the morning and swallowed the "8-ball of meth," which is known to be one-eighth of an ounce or the equivalent of about 3 g. The following autopsy specimens were analyzed for the presence of methamphetamine and amphetamine by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry: femoral blood, urine, bile, vitreous fluid, brain, liver, and gastric contents. Blood drawn at the hospital approximately 12 h after ingestion was also analyzed. The methamphetamine concentration in the hospital blood was 3.0 mg/L, and the concentration in the femoral blood from autopsy was 30 mg/L. Other drugs confirmed included tramadol, lorazepam, and 11-carboxy-Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol. The pathologist ruled the cause of death to be cardiac dysrhythmia due to excited delirium as a result of methamphetamine drug effects. Discussion of the timeline from ingestion to death and the clinical presentation of the decedent are included.
Vitreous fluid specimens are often used in the Montgomery County Coroner's Office as a second matrix confirmation for both cocaine and opiate analyses. In this manuscript, calibration curves constructed for both vitreous and blood were used to quantify vitreous specimens to evaluate if any matrix effects occur when measuring vitreous specimens using a calibration curve in blood. Cases that screened positive by ELISA for cocaine metabolite and opiates were confirmed by solid-phase extraction. Gas chromatography with mass spectral detection in the positive electron impact mode was used for the detection and quantification of oxycodone, free morphine, codeine, 6-monoacetylmorphine, hydrocodone, cocaine, and benzoylecgonine. For interpretive purposes, no significant matrix effects were found in concentrations of vitreous specimens quantified with a calibration curve constructed in a blood matrix. After determining that vitreous fluid can be accurately measured with blood calibrators, a comparison was made between blood and vitreous concentrations for the above analytes. Concentration differences between blood and vitreous specimens for each drug are evaluated with selected case histories included.
Inspired by poststructuralist insights and the critical literature on the topic of school-based sexuality education, this paper is derived from a close examination of the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) resource materials devised for teachers involved in delivering the programme in Irish schools. It seeks critically to uncover how students are expected to come to know themselves socially and sexually. It is argued that the liberal individualist discourse, which is very pronounced in the RSE discursive framework, promotes a narrow kind of sexual subjectivity, which obscures sexual pleasure and desire. Some suggestions are made as to how a discursive space might be created in the classroom in the interests of facilitating students' exploration into how they can be sexual, safe and ethical in their relations and activities.
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