The French have a saying: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same). This is well illustrated by study of the decades long battle to enact legislation to regulate the food and pharmaceutical industries in the late 19th and early 20th century. Accounts of the …
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Teaching (and Learning) Chemistry
Of the many things I did to earn my keep, I had the most fun teaching chemistry. I started part time (adjunct) in community college after doing my day job with DEA. (full disclosure: I was, at best, a lousy college student back in the day). For the most part, I taught adults who were …
Ensign Screw-Up
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000005770 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000005753 A significant rite of passage for young men back in the 1960’s involved military service. Once one turned 18, all males were required to register for the draft. You reported to your draft board, and after a physical, you were classified with a draft status. I never knew how these …
The War on Drugs – Notes from the Front
Early in his first term, President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. I had just joined the Drug Enforcement Administration, in whose forensic labs I spent the next quarter century. Within a year or so, I was at headquarters, where, among other pursuits, I was tasked with trying to figure out how a small coterie …
Coronavirus: Random Thoughts
Clueless Red State Governors Georgia -Just found out within last 48 hours that the virus can be transmitted even from asymptomatic people….(been common knowledge for at least two months before that utterance…Who knew?) -South Dakota is not New York. We don’t need these closures, distancing measures, etc. (Tell that to Smithfield packing plant employees, where …
Dihydrogen Monoxide: A Strange Substance
Dihydrogen momoxide (aka Water) is an extremely common substance we all know about – or do we? Some odd properties of water: It has a much higher heat capacity than most substances. Heat capacity is the quantity of heat which must be applied to raise the temperature of a given amount of substance by, say, …
Fentanyl – A Primer
Fentanyl is an extremely potent drug, whose legitimate uses include pain relief for cancer patients. It is one of the most potent drugs in the pharmacopeia. A usual dose of 100 micrograms or less does the trick; it would take about 10 milligrams of morphine to achieve the same result. For those who are metric …
Happy Endings
Ever wonder where the happy endings to our children’s nursery stories, to Hollywood pictures and other types of prose, have gone? Well, many of the nursery stuff (particularly ones from our English culture) were somewhat gory, when you think about it (think of the unfortunate Humpty Dumpty, Jack with Jill on the hill and others). …
The Seaman’s Exam
Fresh out of 90-day wonder school, I reported to my first duty station, line officer, USS Aeolus (ARC-3). (I always will remember when they passed out these assignments. My company chief told me where I was going, then took a beat “Mr. Canaff, what the hell is an ARC?”) The ship, converted from a Navy …
Caveat Emptor (what you see is (often not) what you get…….)
We seem to be hearing a lot of Latin these days (quid pro quo and all that). In a past career with DEA, I was editor, for a time, of a newsletter and journal we called Microgram. We received a never ceasing flow of mail concerning bait-and-switch in the drug trade (caveat emptor, buyer beware). …
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