On the biopolitics of humane drug policies: What can we learn from 19th century sobriety boards?

Background: In accordance with recommendations from The United Nations' Chief Executives Board of Coordination, several countries are in the process of reforming their punitive drug policies towards health-based approaches - from punishment to help. The Portuguese model of decriminalisation is generally seen as a good model for other countries and has been scientifically described in favourable terms, and not much scrutinised. Method: This article draws on foucauldian archaeological and genealogical approaches in order to understand and compare governance logics of the 19th century Norwegian sobriety boards and 21st century Portuguese commissions. In doing this, we problematize contemporary drug policy reform discussions that point to the "Portuguese model", which aims to stop punishing and start helping drug-dependent people, are problematised. Findings: The Portuguese commissions investigate whether drug-using people are dependent or not. Dependency, circumstances of consumption and their economy are considered when the commission decides on penalising, assisting, or treating the person, or a combination of all this. This model was studied alongside the Norwegian sobriety boards mandated by the Sobriety Act that was implemented in 1932. Sobriety boards governed poor alcoholics. Authorities from the sobriety movement were central in creating sobriety policies that culminated in sobriety boards. The Portuguese commissions have similarities to Norwegian sobriety boards. They make use of sanctions and treatment to govern people who use illicit substances to make them abstain, with the view that this is emancipatory for these people. The different apparatuses have distinct and different ways of making up, and governing their subjects. Conclusion: This article contributes to debates on drug policy reforms and aims to investigate whether they might produce biopower effects of governance masked by an emancipatory language. There is a need for critical studies on drug policy reforms to avoid policies that maintain divisions and control marginalised populations.

Correction to: Status and trends of circumpolar peregrine falcon and gyrfalcon populations.

While collating contributions and comments from 36 researchers, the coordinating authors accidentally omitted Dr. Suzanne Carrière from the list of contributing co-authors. Dr. Carrière's data are described in Tables 1 and 3, Figure 2 and several places in the narrative.The new author list is thus updated in this article.

Status and trends of circumpolar peregrine falcon and gyrfalcon populations.

The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) and the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) are top avian predators of Arctic ecosystems. Although existing monitoring efforts are well established for both species, collaboration of activities among Arctic scientists actively involved in research of large falcons in the Nearctic and Palearctic has been poorly coordinated. Here we provide the first overview of Arctic falcon monitoring sites, present trends for long-term occupancy and productivity, and summarize information describing abundance, distribution, phenology, and health of the two species. We summarize data for 24 falcon monitoring sites across the Arctic, and identify gaps in coverage for eastern Russia, the Arctic Archipelago of Canada, and East Greenland. Our results indicate that peregrine falcon and gyrfalcon populations are generally stable, and assuming that these patterns hold beyond the temporal and spatial extents of the monitoring sites, it is reasonable to suggest that breeding populations at broader scales are similarly stable. We have highlighted several challenges that preclude direct comparisons of Focal Ecosystem Components (FEC) attributes among monitoring sites, and we acknowledge that methodological problems cannot be corrected retrospectively, but could be accounted for in future monitoring. Despite these drawbacks, ample opportunity exists to establish a coordinated monitoring program for Arctic-nesting raptor species that supports CBMP goals.

Governance of substance use as a by-product of policing in Norway: A historical account.

AIM: The aim of this article was to study governance of drug use in Norway through a historical account. METHOD: A genealogy was conducted through the study of documentation and legal texts from the 1600s until contemporary times. FINDINGS: Based on legal texts addressing people using substances (both drugs and alcohol) various strategies for governance of drug use appears. The first section describes the emergence of institutions where people with alcohol problems were confined in a system originating the Dutch discipline houses. The second section describes the poor laws of the 1800s and the practice of the local poorhouses. The third section takes a look at the Vagrancy Act of 1900 and the state-owned labour camp at Opstad. The fourth section discusses the establishment of the sobriety boards and their role in confining alcoholics at cure homes. The fifth section describes developments in post-world-war Norway, with increased attention to illicit substances. CONCLUSIONS: The terminology justifying interventions is increasingly medicalised. Descriptions of the "drunkard" that appeared in 18th-century legal texts as immoral and free are contrasted by a positioning of this character as being a slave to his drinking in 20th-century political discourses, or as substance-dependent patients in the 21st century, alongside concerted efforts to dissolve open drug scenes.

HPLC-NMR revisited: using time-slice high-performance liquid chromatography-solid-phase extraction-nuclear magnetic resonance with database-assisted dereplication.

Time-based trapping of chromatographically separated compounds onto solid-phase extraction (SPE) cartridges and subsequent elution to NMR tubes was done to emulate the function of HPLC-NMR for dereplication purposes. Sufficient mass sensitivity was obtained by use of a state-of-the-art HPLC-SPE-NMR system with a cryogenically cooled probe head, designed for 1.7 mm NMR tubes. The resulting (1)H NMR spectra (600 MHz) were evaluated against a database of previously acquired and prepared spectra. The in-house-developed matching algorithm, based on partitioning of the spectra and allowing for changes in the chemical shifts, is described. Two mixtures of natural products were used to test the approach: an extract of Carthamus oxyacantha (wild safflower), containing an array of spiro compounds, and an extract of the endophytic fungus Penicillum namyslowski, containing griseofulvin and analogues. The database matching of the resulting spectra positively identified expected compounds, while the number of false positives was few and easily recognized.

Some transformations of tacrolimus, an immunosuppressive drug.

Transformations of the macrocyclic lactone tacrolimus (1), an important immunosuppressive drug produced by Streptomyces species, are described. These transformation products are primarily of interest as reference substances for drug impurity analyses. Upon action of acid (p-toluenesulfonic acid in toluene), tacrolimus is dehydrated by loss of water from the ß-hydroxyketone moiety with partial inversion of configuration at C-8, resulting in formation of 5-deoxy-Δ(5,6)-tacrolimus and 5-deoxy-Δ(5,6)-8-epitacrolimus. The structure of the latter was determined by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. The same products are formed upon action of free radicals (iodine in boiling toluene), along with formation of 8-epitacrolimus. The latter is converted by p-toluenesulfonic acid to 5-deoxy-Δ(5,6)-8-epitacrolimus. Treatment of tacrolimus with weak base (1,5-diazabicyclo[4.3.0]nonene) gives, in addition to 8-epitacrolimus, the open-chain acid corresponding to 5-deoxy-Δ(5,6)-tacrolimus, a rare non-cyclic derivative of tacrolimus. Strong base (t-butoxide) causes pronounced degradation of the molecule. Thermolysis of tacrolimus leads to ring expansion by an apparent [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement of the allylic ester moiety with subsequent loss of water from the ß-hydroxyketone moiety. ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectra of the obtained compounds, complicated by the presence of amide bond rotamers and ketal moiety tautomers, were assigned by extensive use of 2D NMR techniques.

Alkaloid analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography-solid phase extraction-nuclear magnetic resonance: new strategies going beyond the standard.

The hyphenated technique HPLC-SPE-NMR is an important tool for rapid dereplication of complex mixtures of in particular small molecules and has been successfully employed in natural product research. However, positively charged alkaloids at low pH are often poorly trapped on the generally used SPE cartridge limiting the general application of the procedure. In this work, two new approaches for efficient SPE trapping of alkaloids and elution efficiencies were evaluated using 24 model alkaloids. Use of a 0.1 M NaOH solution as the post-column dilution greatly enhanced trapping of alkaloids on the commonly used cartridge containing divinylbenzene polymer (GP resin). This procedure, however, was unsuitable for trapping phenolic alkaloids. Severe line broadening and immiscibility with water made chloroform-d(1) unsuited as eluent. None of these problems occurred when methanol-d(4) was used as eluent. Previously, mixed mode cation exchange sorbents have not been used in HPLC-SPE-NMR analysis of natural products. In contrast to GP resin this material showed good retention and elution characteristics for retention and elution of alkaloids. As well the use of methanol-d(4) containing 1% aqueous NaOD (40%) as methanol-d(4) containing 5% aqueous NH(4)OH (30%) as eluents were successful, even though elution of alkaloids with pK(a) of the corresponding acid above 10 proved difficult. Alkaloid extracts of Huperzia selago containing complex aliphatic alkaloids and Triclisia patens containing bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids were used for validation of the protocols for analysis of a diverse collection of alkaloids. Mixed mode cation exchange sorbent was efficient for trapping and elution of both types of alkaloids as evidenced by acquisition of 2D NMR data for all trapped compounds. In contrast, GP resin proved only viable for all the H. selago alkaloids whereas trapping and elution of bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloids were dubious.

Direct (13)C NMR detection in HPLC hyphenation mode: analysis of Ganoderma lucidum terpenoids.

Solid phase extraction (SPE) was introduced as a crucial step in the HPLC-SPE-NMR technique to enable online analyte enrichment from which proton-detected NMR experiments on submicrogram amounts from complex mixtures were possible. However, the significance of direct-detected (13)C NMR experiments is indubitable in simplifying structural elucidations. In the current study, we demonstrated direct (13)C NMR detection of triterpenoids from a Ganoderma lucidum extract in hyphenation mode. The combined advantage of a cryogenically cooled probe, miniaturization, and multiple trapping enabled the first reported application of HPLC-SPE-NMR analysis using direct-detected (13)C NMR spectra. HPLC column loading, accumulative SPE trappings, and the effect of different elution solvents were evaluated and optimized. A column loading of approximately 600 µg of a prefractionated triterpenoid mixture, six trappings, and an acquisition time of 13 h resulted in spectra with adequate signal-to-noise ratios to detect all C-13 signals.

From retrospective assessment to prospective decisions in natural product isolation: HPLC-SPE-NMR analysis of Carthamus oxyacantha.

An extract of Carthamus oxyacantha (wild safflower) was investigated using two approaches: a traditional, nontarget fractionation by VLC and HPLC, and the hyphenated technique HPLC-PDA-HRMS-SPE-NMR followed by targeted isolation of selected constituents for inclusion in a screening library of pure natural products. While the nontarget fractionation involved considerable time spent on pursuing fractions containing well-known or undesired compounds, the hyphenated analysis was considerably faster and required less solvent and other consumables. The results were used to design and execute an optimized, HPLC-HRMS-guided, targeted isolation scheme aiming exclusively at a series of identified spiro compounds. Thus, HPLC-PDA-HRMS-SPE-NMR is a dereplication technique of choice, allowing economical acquisition of comprehensive data about compounds in crude extracts, which can be used for rational, prospective decisions about further isolation efforts. A total of 15 compounds were identified in the extract. Six spiro compounds, of which four have not previously been characterized, and tracheloside (a lignin glucoside) are presented with assigned 1H and 13C chemical shifts.

[Training in multiprofessional emergency medicine in primary health care]. / Tverrfaglig akuttmedisinsk teamtrening i kommunehelsetjenesten.

BACKGROUND: Most Norwegian hospitals have systematically trained trauma teams in cooperation with the BEST Foundation: Better & systematic trauma care. A group of general practitioners, ambulance personnel and primary care nurses have modified this training concept for use in general practise, with the aim to strengthen acute medical competence within Norwegian primary health care. This study describes experience gained with a training method for dealing with receival and stabilisation of victims of injury in multiprofessional teams in primary health care. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Multiprofessional training courses were held in 10 municipalities in Finnmark county in northern Norway. The course consisted of two hours of lectures on handling of critically injured patients in the primary care setting, followed by practical training with simulated patients. Communication, leadership and cooperation was emphasised during the training. The simulation sessions with dolls were video recorded and evaluated after each session. Individual questionnaires were distributed before and after training. RESULTS: Most municipalities that we contacted responded positively. Training was arranged for 22 teams and 145 participants completed questionnaires. The participants reported a significantly improved confidence in their own role and the correct order of necessary procedures. 91% would recommend the course to a colleague. INTERPRETATION: This group of different health professionals reported a great need for training and a high outcome after the intervention. The findings support further dissemination of this training method in Norwegian primary health care.