Introduction
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic drug that is injected into the body to block its sensory perception. In 2019, the US approved it for use on patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression, as well as those with acute suicidal behavior or ideation. As a dissociative drug, Ketamine can distort the user’s sight, sound, environment, color, and even self. Medically, Ketamine is used to provide short-term memory loss and to relieve pain. At higher doses, Ketamine disrupts the glutamate neurotransmitter, a chemical in the brain. Memory, pain recognition, learning, and emotion are all controlled by glutamate. However, in addition to its medical use, Ketamine also has hallucinogenic properties. This has significantly contributed to its abuse, especially as a “date rape” drug. Abusers often snort or mix it with other drugs like tobacco, cocaine, or marijuana while in social gatherings.
What Is Hand Sanitizer Made From?
Hand sanitizer is made from rubbing or isopropyl alcohol, aloe vera gel blended with an essential oil like lavender oil or tea tree oil. Lemon juice can also be used in addition to the oils. Alcohol is mixed with aloe vera gel in a ratio of 2:1, making it 60% alcoholic (Lindberg). This is the minimum amount required for it to kill germs.
How Can a Drug Look Like a Sanitizer?
A drug can look like a sanitizer based on the alcohol content contained in the drug, as well as the ingredients that are used in its manufacture. Sanitizers manufactured in huge batches follow a simple formula of ethanol or isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, glycerol, and boiled or sterile distilled cold water. Coincidentally, this is the same formula used by some drug manufacturers (Q&A on Hand Sanitizers and COVID-19). The result will be an antiseptic liquid with 60% alcohol concentration, a characteristic shared by some alcohol brands.
How Can “Smith X-Ray Machine” Detect the Illegal Drug?
The unprecedented growth rates of trade continue to provide drug traffickers with numerous opportunities to ship their products through various means. Indeed, drug traffickers are exploiting every available chance including in e-commerce to ship narcotics all around the world. This presents several challenges to organizations involved in fighting drug traffickings, such as the border control agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and courier services. However, with automatic X-ray scanners, the war on drug trafficking seems to be gaining track. Smith X-ray machines provide a comprehensive detection technology range based on their millimeter-wave and x-ray security imaging systems.
Smith X-ray machine uses a two-way algorithm for automatic detection of drugs; material discrimination and object recognition. In object recognition, machine learning is used to aid algorithm development that copies data processing by the human brain towards the identification of decision-making patterns. Here, hundreds of thousands of X-ray images are introduced into the algorithm for it to learn how to identify patterns in objects’ texture and patterns. Material discrimination is only used in high-level cases where it is focused on the intensity and color that the X-ray image represents. For instance, the orange color is an indication of organic material while the blue color represents a metal.
Algorithms can be smartly used and adapted to automatic detection of prohibited, contraband, and dangerous goods to attain very high detection. Interestingly, the false alarm rates of the algorithms are also very low. Algorithms work by being taught to identify anything that has precisely recognizable characteristics. However, when detecting substances that are inconsistent with form or shape, object recognition does not help much. This is where material discrimination comes in since it differentiates materials and not shapes. It then classifies the materials in terms of their characteristics to absorb X-rays. However, neither of these approaches of algorithms works when it comes to detecting narcotics. Narcotics often come in the form of liquids or powder, implying that they do not have a recognizable shape. Therefore, the object recognition approach cannot be used to detect them.
Material discrimination can only be used to identify narcotics that are relatively pure and drawn direct from producers before any contamination. This is based on their density and other physical characteristics that assure of high probability degree. Heroin and cocaine drugs are often mixed with other substances to either enhance their effects on users or increase profits. This leads to changes in the characteristics of the drugs, a factor that makes material discrimination invalid in detecting them. Smith X-ray machines are hence trained to detect the individual sources that combine to make the drugs. Nonetheless, the Smith X-ray machine is not completely foolproof. If the illicit drug manufacturers and traffickers constantly change the compounds, it becomes more challenging to detect.
How Can We Avoid Future These Practices? How Can It Be Detected in the Airports?
It is no doubt that drug production, cultivation, and trafficking pose public health and security problems in many countries across the world. This is thus a huge problem that requires an effective response. To reduce or eradicate the production and trafficking of such drugs, law enforcement efforts and vigilance must be stepped up, particularly in regions that are notorious for the same. It is also important to prevent drug use and dependence among populations. The production and trafficking of illicit drugs thrive because there is a ready market for them. If this market is cut off, the culprits would not have people to sell to. Incidentally, these are the most effective ways of avoiding these problems in the future.
At the airport, illicit drugs can be detected through the use of airport scanners that rely on X-ray radiation. Modern scanners used at the airport often have two detectors- low energy X-rays and high energy X-rays. Once both the detectors have collected the information from a piece of baggage, the outputs are compared for image construction to determine the object’s position, the materials used for making them as well as their densities. Puffer machines are then used to detect if the objects are illegal drugs.
SWOT Analysis
The case about the impounded Ketamine and steroids presents a variety of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the American government and the people. The strength lies in the fact that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in Cincinnati are hawk-eyed and meticulous in their jobs. However, the seized drug, Ketamine is not illegal in the US (Illegal Ketamine, Steroids Seized). This is a weakness since it is prone to abuse by users who end up committing heinous crimes. Nonetheless, all is not lost as there is still an opportunity to formulate laws to regulate its use as strictly a prescriptive drug. The threat, however, lies in the increasing growth of trade across nations (CBP Seizure and Ketamine Bust). Somehow, the drug will be sneaked in by clever traffickers, disguised as genuine trade goods.
Conclusion
Ketamine and steroids are not illegal drugs in the United States, but their abuse makes them dangerous to users and public health and safety. Drug traffickers are increasingly devising new ways of evading U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers to bring such drugs into the US. In response, the CBP should step up its surveillance efforts and come up with new ways of detecting illicit drugs at all entry points like airports.
Works Cited
“34 Pounds of Illegal Ketamine, Steroids Worth $263,000 Seized by Cincinnati CBP.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 2021. Web.
“CBP Seizure and HSI Collaboration lead Oklahoma State Police to Ketamine Bust.” U.S Customs and Border Protection, 2021. Web.
Lindberg, Sara. “How to Make Your Own Hand Sanitizer.”Healthline, 2020.
“Q&A for Consumers | Hand Sanitizers and COVID-19.”U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2020.