Order Description
this is a speech and powerpoint presentation.
please leave speech notes in the ‘note section’ under each powerpoint slide
you need to select and critique a media article on a crime topic using the Toulmin framework. This will be presented in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. See the documents attached for full details:
Assessment 4 Article Options
Select one of the four options below to analyse in your PowerPoint presentation. Click on article title to visit the webpage where the article was originally published.
Article 1
Should Pregnant Addicts Go to Jail
Criminalizing dependency is counterproductive and unconstitutional.
Amanda Winkler|Mar. 22, 2015 12:00 pm
Dykes is not alone. Approximately 900 babies were born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) in Tennessee last year, a 10-fold increase from a decade ago. NAS is caused when mothers continue their opiate use through pregnancy. Babies can usually be weaned off the drug within a few weeks after birth, and there are no known long-term effects.
Tennessee officials have declared NAS an “epidemic,” however, and took action last July by implementating Public Chapter 820. This law allows the authorities to charge a woman with assault for using a narcotic while pregnant if her child is born harmed by the drug. An assault conviction is punishable by a fine and anywhere from one to 15 years in prison. So far, at least nine women have been charged.
The law has been controversial, with opponents saying it’s counter-productive to put a drug- addicted mother in jail. Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich, a strong proponent of the law, says the point isn’t to lock up these women. Instead, she considers the law a state- sponsored “motivation” to seek treatment.
“What we hope to do is to get these women help for their addiction,” says Weirich, explaining that the women have the choice to go through drug court and complete rehabilitation instead of being processed through the regular criminal justice system. Once treatment is successfully completed, she says, the charges would be expunged from their record. But if the program is not completed, jail time is the consequence.
Amanda WinklerDarienne Dykes smiles as she thinks about her 5-month-old son, Phoenix. “He’s everything to me,” says the 21-year-old Nashville resident. “Being a mother is just the most amazing experience.” Wiping tears from her eyes, she continues, “And now looking back, I definitely regret continuing using drugs during my pregnancy.”
Thomas Castelli of Tennessee’s American Civil Liberties Union points out that threatening mothers with the criminal justice system doesn’t help when there’s not enough drug treatment facilities to begin with. There are only 19 facilities in the entire state that offer rehabilitative care to pregnant women, and these are mostly centered in populated areas, leaving rural women with the burden of driving long distances to attend treatment. For many of these lower-income single mothers, this is logistically difficult.
This shortage in treatment facilities has resulted in waitlists ranging from a few weeks to a few months. Due to the new law, the waitlist can mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment for a pregnant woman.
Castelli argues that the law not only will prove to be counterproductive but is unconstitutional. “It violates the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court back [in 1962] determined that it would be cruel and unusual to punish people for having a status or having an illness,” he says. The case, Robinson v. California, concluded that the state’s law which criminalized being a drug addict was unconstitutional. Castelli argues that this law does the same thing.
The law has a sunset provision and is set to expire in two years, at which time lawmakers will review its efficacy and consider extending it. In the meantime, Dykes, who has been clean for nine months, plans to continue her successful drug rehabilitation for years to come.
“Just the joy he brings me from hearing the little giggle to seeing the little smile, there’s nothing else that can beat that in life,” says Dykes. “There’s no drug that can give you that feeling.”
Article 2
Black market tobacco ‘booming’ in Australia: KPMG study
Nick Toscano Published: April 12, 2014 – 3:00AM
Australia’s tobacco lobby has employed an ex-gangland taskforce detective to investigate Melbourne retailers selling black-market cigarettes and commissioned a report that found the illicit trade has reached record levels.
The KPMG report, bankrolled by cigarette manufacturers and obtained exclusively by Fairfax Media, attributes the surge in illegal tobacco to Australia’s high tax rates and the introduction of plain packaging in 2012.
International crime gangs also avoided an estimated $1.1 billion in taxes last year by smuggling tobacco through Australian ports, according to the research. But anti-smoking campaigners, including the Cancer Council of Victoria, have slammed the report as ”self- serving rubbish”.
”The release of the second tobacco industry-commissioned report into illicit tobacco in less than six months smacks of desperation. Australia has already introduced plain packaging with Ireland, NZ and the UK now saying they may follow suit,” Cancer Council of Victoria chief executive Todd Harper said.
He also criticised the methodology of the KPMG report, which relied on an online survey and counting discarded cigarette packets as the basis for its findings. ”Big tobacco is scraping the bottom of the barrel, going through people’s bins to collect empty packs in a desperate attempt to perpetuate this furphy about illicit trade,” Mr Harper said.
New data from Australian Customs and Border Protection reveals the amount of illegal tobacco detected and seized at the Australian border has remained ”fairly consistent” over the past six years. But in 2012-13, tobacco smuggling detections jumped from 55 to 76, with the number of seized cigarettes jumping from 82 million to 200 million.
A customs spokesman attributed the recent rise to crime syndicates increasing the number of smaller shipments, rather than an overall increase of smuggling activity. But he said Australia remained a lucrative target for international smugglers because the high cost of tobacco products provided greater profit margins for the gangs.
Last week, Fairfax Media visited several retailers in Melbourne’s west including gift shops, milk bars and liquor stores, with the ex-Purana Taskforce detective employed by British American Tobacco. Illicit tobacco products were freely available upon requests for ”cheap cigarettes” and pre-rolled ”tubes” of loose tobacco or ”chop chop”.
Illegally imported cartons of Marlboro Red and Dunhill Red cigarettes were sold at half the legal retail price, while other brand-named packs of 25 cigarettes cost as little as $8, compared to the normal price of almost $20.
One Asian grocery store in Sunshine was asking $90 for a ten-pack carton of Manchester cigarettes – a fake brand manufactured in the Middle East for the black market. None of the illicit cigarettes were sold in the plain, olive-green packs required by Australian law, and many had no health warnings.
According to KPMG’s report, illegal tobacco consumption jumped more than 2 per cent last year and now accounts for almost 14 per cent of the Australian market. Roy Morgan Research surveyed 2100 regular smokers, while tobacco research specialists MSI counted discarded cigarette packets across 16 Australian cities.
Tobacco giants British American, Imperial and Philip Morris claim the findings confirm illegal cigarettes have surged because of plain packaging and tax hikes. ”Due to high excise rates, Australia is a very lucrative target for illegal tobacco smugglers,” British American Tobacco spokesman Scott McIntyre said. ”And it’s made more attractive as there’s no real enforcement at the retail level once packs hit the streets.”
Despite the widespread availability of contraband cigarettes, only two Victorian retailers have been prosecuted since January for possessing illicit tobacco – one was fined $12,000 and banned from selling cigarettes for three months.
Health Minister David Davis recently foreshadowed tougher penalties, including an increase in fines for retailers who flout the law. He said rogue retailers would face fines of more than $34,600 when the legislation is introduced.
Quit executive director Fiona Sharkie said the suggestion that 13.9 per cent, or one in seven, cigarettes smoked in Australia had been smuggled or made with illegal tobacco was not plausible. Ms Sharkie said the industry-sponsored research dramatically overstated the illicit tobacco trade, and other Australian studies had put the illicit tobacco rate at less than 2 per cent of the market.
Article 3
Staggering 85% of Australians believe marijuana SHOULD be legalised as top psychologist warns 14-year-olds are more likely to smoke cannabis than tobacco 85 per cent of more than 50,000 Australians said that they support the legalisation of marijuana Cannabis researcher and psychologist Dr. Matthew Large, said there is no good reason for the drug not to be approved for medical use He said legalising cannabis for recreational use could mean users would be better informed of the health side-effects due to government regulation Former police officer Damon Adams has been using cannabis for pain relief after a knee operation which left him with no cartilage at the joint Mr Adams said that the pain limited his daily life
By Lillian Radulova for Daily Mail Australia
Published: 00:16 EST, 7 October 2014 | Updated: 08:01 EST, 7 October 2014
More than 85 per cent of the 50,000 Australians surveyed in a recent poll, believe that marijuana should be legalised across the country.
Conducted by SBS’s Insight team, the poll reflects the current ongoing public debate which has seen federal politicians consider a medical trial.
As public opinion tips in favour of legalising the drug, a variety of voices have come forward to have their say on the positives of cannabis use, from mothers and former policemen to psychologists.
Cannabis researcher, Dr. Matthew Large from the University of New South Wales School of Psychiatry, told Daily Mail Australia that despite research showing the ill effects of the drug, he supports the movement to legalise it.
‘My view is, with respect to medical cannabis, that there are no strong arguments against it,’ Dr Large said.
‘We have other drugs that are illegal that can be prescribed including opiate drugs, the illegal version of which is heroin and legal version morphine. There are also stimulant drugs that we use in the treatment of ADHD and sleep disorders that are illegal and so I can’t see that there’s a particular issue with cannabis.
‘There are several not particularly common conditions for which cannabis is a good second line treatment for when the first line doesn’t work: muscular spasticity in multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain disorders and conditions in relation to people who have terminal conditions or difficulty eating.’
However, the Sydney psychiatrist noted that ‘there is no doubt that cannabis is a dangerous drug’.
Dr Large said that studies have shown that cannabis smokers who develop schizophrenia, do so about three years earlier than people with schizophrenia who don’t use the drug. It also leads to a ‘severer and more irreversible’ form of the illness.
Furthermore, he revealed that the drug is particularly harmful for people under the age of 16 who have a higher chance of educational failure and, in the long term, are more likely to suffer cognitive impairment and have a significant loss of IQ by the age of 50 if they use cannabis.
‘What I would personally support would be if marijuana was legalised and carefully regulated in much the same way as tobacco, but not in the same way as alcohol,’ Dr Large said.
‘We have a drug that is illegal but widely used and about which the general populace has little information about and no way of making informed decisions about.
In Australia at the moment, 14-year-olds are more likely to smoke cannabis than tobacco and that’s because we have been putting out all these health warnings and information campaigns.’
Former South Australian police officer, Damon Adams, has been using cannabis as a form of pain relief following a knee operation which left him with no cartilage at the joint.
Mr Adams was first prescribed with opiates after the surgery, but the former Australian Navy member told Daily Mail Australia that ‘opiates and my body weren’t a good combination’.
He soon found himself taking a number of anti-histamines to counter the side effects of the opiates, which included night sweats and constant itching.
It was instant relief,’ Mr Adams said of the first time he resorted to cannabis instead of opiates. ‘The pain was always there but cannabis gave me the ability to be able to move on and keep doing things. I had better sleep and wasn’t sweating anymore I was just healthier.’
Like Dr Large, Mr Adams would like to see marijuana legalised for recreational use, as long as the government puts forward effective regulation.
The final results of the national poll conducted by SBS Insight, which prompted voters through an interactive billboard placed in Sydney and Melbourne’s CBD, will be revealed on Tuesday night at 8:30pm when Insight explores the use of medical marijuana.
The billboard featured synthetic marijuana plants that ‘grew’ or ‘died’ depending on the results, according to SBS.
Article 4 ‘Ice destroyed my life’: recovering ice addict and former dealer speaks out By Luke Waters, SBS, 25 Mar 2015
From private school education to ‘Chapel Street dealer’, why recovering ice addict Melinda Hansen wants to help others turn their lives around.
More than 1.3 million Australians have sampled the drug ice – which is now officially the most problematic illicit substance in the country, according to the Australian Crime Commission.
The alarming statistics form part of Australia’s first national intelligence report into the so- called “ice epidemic”.
In releasing the landmark report in Canberra today, Justice Minister Michael Keenan noted the drug ice touches “all stratas” of Australian society.
Twenty-five year old Melbourne woman Melinda Hansen is a prime example. After a private school education, she lived in London for two years where she says cocaine use was regular.
Upon returning to Australia she found the drug ice more accessible and cheaper. “One point could cost $80 to $100,” she said.
Melinda is now nine-months “clean” and is helping others in a Melbourne-based residential rehabilitation program.
Reflecting on her introduction to the drug, she says – at the time – puffing on an ice-pipe seemed socially acceptable, but it led to a life-changing journey of unwanted media attention, intravenous drug use and jail.
“Stripped me of my confidence, my self-esteem, it tore away my family and my friends and destroyed my life,” Ms Hansen said.
At the time of her arrest, Melinda was living in an upmarket Melbourne hotel which was raided by police. They discovered what they described as equipment “suitable for the manufacture of methylamphetamine.”
The media likened the arrangement to something out of Breaking Bad. Melinda was dubbed the “Chapel Street dealer”, making her introduction to prison-life even more challenging.
“It was really confronting that I was about to walk into jail. I’d never ever been to jail before and to know that the whole yard was about to be talking about me,” she said.
Sadly, lives ruined or ended by ice are increasingly common.
The Australian Crime Commission report says seizures of the drug and pre-cursor chemicals are at record levels.
“We have trans-national groups coming from nearly 50 countries who are importing drugs and/or involved in the manufacture or trafficing within Australia,” Crime Commission Chief Executive Chris Dawson told SBS.
Criminologist and associate professor John Fitzgerald cautions against approaching the ice problem solely from a law-and order perspective.
“What we’re seeing – we’re detecting a whole lot more drug crime but it’s probably related to the fact that police are putting a whole lot more energy in discovering the problem in the first place,” he said.
Associate professor Fitzgerald says community interventions and ice-specific rehabilitation are crucial elements of the debate, and the govenment concedes an “all-agency” approach is necessary.
Drug counsellor Carlo La Marchesina agrees. He fears the ice situation will worsen unless government funding is significantly increased.
“If we don’t take care of this situation now we’re going to create a generation of aggressive zombies,” he said.
Melinda Hansen is now on a 18-month community corrections order, and has been ordered to perform 200 hours of community service work.
She now plans to use her first-hand experience of ice to will help others.
“Be able to share what I’ve gone through and help them get a chance to open their lives to the opportunities of recovery,” she said.
