Sunday, August 18, 2013

One Hundred


One Hundred

 

This post is the one hundredth effort on this Blog.  While that mark is trivial, it is symbolic and provides a time to pause and assess how I’m doing.

Any collection of a hundred separate parts is going to be uneven in quality, with both hits and misses, but overall, I think this collection rates somewhat above average.  There are some glaring misses.  I said almost nothing about federal statutes since 1950 (except for the CSA) and very little about state laws.  Very few numbers are included, and quantification is the basis of most useful knowledge.  My lack of background in medicine and pharmacology is obvious.  I’ve probably tried too hard to share feelings and therefore refrained from saying what I really think about the baleful influence of religious thinking on public policy.  The biggest failing – and the greatest strength – is that I am driven by my own interests, but by overall policy needs.  One of my disappointments is that I had hoped to spark more debates than I have so far.

But as a career teacher, I know that any individual is the most inept grader of his own work.  So it’s time to ask what you think about my efforts.  These questions include:

Which pieces do you like the best and hate the worst?

What new topics should I look at?

What old topics should I explore further and which have hit dry holes?

Is my style readable?  How should I change it?

Am I too long-winded?

I hope the next hundred essays will be better than the ones so far.  I’m confident your advice and criticism will make them so.

Let me hear from you; and thanks for your readership.

I’ve done several multi-part essays: are they effective? Should I do more? Fewer?

What other gold stars can you give? Or rotten tomatoes throw?

1 comment:

  1. your style is readable and you are not long-winded. I like best the analyses that compare the drug control structure with other statutes and administrative agencies. The historical pieces, especially the Shanghai Opium Convention, are extremely interesting. I think the main area that needs more development is how to regulate psychoactive substances consistently under federal - e.g. keep the CSA but nicotine and take cannabis out? abolish the DEA and put drug control entirely in the hands of the FDA?

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