The 6th Annual Alexander Awards: The Best Tox Reading of 2015

Alexander Gettler At the end of every year, TPR bestows the coveted Alexander Awards on the best long-form writing on toxicology topics that have appeared in the popular press during the preceding 12 months. To be eligible, an article must be open-access and freely available, not locked behind some paywall. The awards were named for Alexander Gettler (1883-1968,) the head of toxicology for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on the City of New York during the first half of the 20th century. Gettler has been called the “father of forensic toxicology in America.” His work was vividly described in Deborah Blum’s fascinating book The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. This year, a very hot topic covered by popular media was that of the skyrocketing use of  synthetic cannabinoids. Steve Featherstone’s article ‘Spike Nation’ in the New York Times Magazine describes how “spike” (i.e., “Spice” or synthetic cannabinoids) has affected the poor and homeless population of Syracuse, New York: “They [spike users] aren’t curious teenagers dabbling in what they thought was a legal high dispensed from a head shop. They’re broke, often homeless. Many have psychiatric problems. . . . Doctors could tell me what happened when people overdosed on spike, but they couldn’t tell me why anyone would smoke it in the first place, given the possible consequence...
Source: The Poison Review - Category: Toxicology Authors: Tags: Medical Alexander awards arsenic earth and fire erowid erowid.org marsh test opiates opioids spice spike synthetic cannabinoids Source Type: news