To understand rural criminal justice, researchers need more than stats—they need a way to grasp the social fabric of rural communities. Our latest digest highlights Michele Statz & @profwillgarriott.bsky.social’s case for ethnography as one such tool.
Buprenorphine cuts opioid withdrawal, cravings, and overdose risk by 50%—yet only 1 in 4 who need it get it. A family medicine provider examines the access gap in Philadelphia - and how some progress is being made. https://buff.ly/3EAy5np
Ben Cocchiaro, Drexel University #opioids
“Today’s sober-curious, by contrast, post on Instagram about how Dry January has reduced their inflammation, sharpened their jawline, and improved their sleep score. The sanctity of the home, or the overall moral health of society…appears to be less of a concern.”
“In the latter half of the 19th century, young people signaled their moral virtue by taking temperance pledges.”
Booze isn’t inherently bad in today’s version (health risks not withstanding), so much as self-optimization has become a moral imperative.
This new temperance movement (if you can call it that) doesn’t have the same ambitions as the one that ushered in Prohibition, but they both share a strong moral orientation.
Doing Dry January or just generally “sober curious”? You may be part of the Neo-Temperance movement. 🧵
But again, these outliers don’t reflect how most students experienced the course, and so shouldn’t be the basis for making major changes or questioning our effectiveness in the classroom.
To be sure, we shouldn’t ignore the outliers. A very positive comment reminds us that we’re making an impact. A very negative comment can show us an important truth even if it doesn’t feel good to receive it.
And if we’re not careful, we may start redesigning an entire course because one student hated it, or keeping everything the same because one student loved it.
The best advice I’ve gotten on course evaluations is to ignore the extremes, both positive and negative, and to focus on what all the other responses are saying. I’ve found this helpful because it’s the opposite of what our brains seem to want to do.
“Perhaps as they get more familiar with AI, the scientists will get happier with using it, but there are no guarantees.
‘A key, creative part of the process was automated,’ said Toner-Rodgers. ‘People just might be unhappy with that permanently.’”
“While many AI optimists believe the technology will reduce the number of tedious tasks people have to perform, the scientists felt that it took away the part of their jobs—dreaming up new compounds—they enjoyed most.”
All of which is to say, social trends and tendencies are real. But we shouldn’t overlook how politics shapes those same tendencies and trends.
The movement also faces pushback, particularly from public officials in red states, even if the majority of folks support legalization.
And now there’s an industry doing its own advocacy work as well.
Marijuana is the case I know best. Libertarianism has played a role, but only as part of a broader advocacy campaign that made strategic use of the courts, the media, and the ballot box.
Marijuana legalization, gambling legalization, gun rights expansion, and vaccine pushback are all the result of successful political mobilization.
I agree. Things have changed. But I don’t agree it’s social drift towards libertarianism.
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/b...
I’ve read several stories recently about Syria’s role in the captagon trade and how it became a narco-state. Here’s some background.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Picture of the article “Attuning to the chemosphere” in the journal, cultural anthropology.
Just finished the @propublica.org article on domestic formaldehyde exposure and it immediately reminded me of this great article by Nicholas Shapiro.
It’s another step in the ongoing calibration of criminal law with the enforcement needs of the regulated marketplace. In this case, the crime in question is not possession per se, but violation of the requirement to use an odor proof container.
“[U]nlike the odor of burnt cannabis, the odor of raw cannabis coming from a vehicle reliably points to when, where, and how the cannabis is possessed — namely, currently, in the vehicle, and not in an odor-proof container.”
