Some people are unlucky enough to see drugs everyday. Sasha Shaw sees drugs everyday but she is not unlucky at all. She�s a forensics officer at the Victorian Forensics Science Center in Mcleod.
Sasha did four weeks work experience at the Victorian Forensics Science Center and �to cut a long story short, they were happy with me so they offered me a job,� Sasha said. She started working there at the end of the year, 2000.
The work experience was organized through Chisholm TAFE in Frankston where Sasha completed Certificate IV in Laboratory Technology. �I hated homework and that was my downfall,� she says, �I spent a lot of time in the library cramming.� This is the Sasha that I know but like me Sasha says she learnt a lot in her time at TAFE. Sasha hopes to finish the Diploma of Applied Science �someday when I have some time.�
Sasha is twenty-two years old and she lives with her two brothers and her mother. She also lives with her �special little babies�, Casper who is �a mixed bag of lollies� and Kerry who is a Labrador/Kelpie cross. I am of course talking about her beloved dogs.
She went to high school in Frankston where she still lives and after high school she spent eight months traveling around England, Scotland, Norway and Germany. She had a few casual jobs in �numerous places, but mainly bar or waitressing work.�
There is basically three parts to Sasha�s job. First they get a sample of drugs and they have to establish what type of drug it is. Then they have to decipher how pure the sample is. Then they have to find out what it�s mixed with if it�s not pure. To determine what sort of drug it is there is a simple test called a spot test where a special chemical is put on a slide with the sample on it. Then a gas chromatograph is used to determine the purity. This machine uses a very complicated system to determine what is in something. Then anything that is not pure is tested to see what else is in it. �You�d be astonished at what we find sometimes,� Sasha said, �and we get a lot of unknowns that we have a number of different tests for. We do that later on.�
�We only deal with drugs where the drugies are going to plead guilty in court,� Sasha told me.
�You should see the building, it�s huge,� Sasha was saying, �They do so many different things there from fingerprinting to firearms.� Other areas include fire and explosives; crime scene, blood alcohol, video and audio, documents and even tools are analyzed.
�The highlight of work so far has been my trip to Canberra,� she said. It was the 16th International Forensics Symposium and Sasha was lucky enough to go along. �They chose me by the very scientific way of pulling my name out of a hat,� she joked. �It was all about how our labs are run and so on,� she explained, �It was such a great opportunity.� There were only fifteen people out of �about 150� from her work that went.
When I asked Sasha for a closing quote she said, �No we do not take home drug showbags, no we don�t test the drugs ourselves, no we don�t get free samples and no we don�t do lines at lunchtime.� As I�m sure you can see Sasha has a sense of humor, but she also has a very interesting job don�t you think?
LINES AT LUNCHTIME
