Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: "Meth contamination": the making of a moral panic

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 15:13:25 +1200

Meth OD-ists...
https://www.police.govt.nz/safety/how-to-identify-a-clandestine-drug-lab.pdf

Clandestine labs used to cook up methamphetamine have been found in houses, garages, motel rooms, business premises and vehicles. Between 2000 and 2012, Police discovered more than 1,800 of them around New Zealand. A record 211 clan labs were found in 2006, but the total tracked downwards…

BenWilson

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 14:58:27 +1200

I'm curious about the scale of the actual meth lab problem itself, given I'll be a landlord soon. How many houses has this actually happened in in NZ? Even a ballpark would be good. Are we talking hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands? Because if a cleanup…

Sam Bradford

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 21:42:45 +1200

I've seen ads in the paper – franchise opportunity! become a meth tester! It's clearly a racket.

Also particularly nonsensical given that, as many have pointed out, houses (both state and private) which pose far greater health threats are breezily rented out. Ours certainly has a ton of black mould.…

Sacha

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 21:02:56 +1200

houses like ours where the tenants have almost complete control over the mould

I'm about to move out of a home whose mould I cannot have controlled because the only ventilation is windows that open into the prevailing (and frequent, being Auckland) rain.

Thankfully, a heat pump is about to…

Prudence

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 20:07:50 +1200

” I wonder how often staff float between HNZ and commercial agencies.” Well one that I know of anyway. She now works for one of the real estate robbers and announced a year or so ago that she had just gained her P testing certification.
Very dubious I thought.

Moz

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:33:56 +1200

this govt are quite comfortable with state houses containing deadly mould.

There are houses where mould will be a problem regardless, and houses like ours where the tenants have almost complete control over the mould. Specifically, if they never open the windows there will be condensation and mould. To fix…

Mark Shanks

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:39:56 +1200

I wonder how about the creeping propaganda like this has? I seem to hear a lot of it from my friends who have National Party connections…
Yes Adam there is a definite link here. Remember Mike Sabin, the former National MP for Northland who resigned amidst serious allegations of misconduct,…

Steve Withers

Wed, 10 Aug 2016 07:31:22 +1200

I own a few houses. I have no idea what might have occurred in them in the past. In one case, there is a lockup under the house with no windows, lined with plastic sheeting. The previous owner was a builder who ran out of money.

To remove all doubt…

Shulgin

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 22:22:59 +1200

OMG...do you mean the auckland property market was fed by meth?

Shulgin

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 21:55:15 +1200

$20 million scam...and the rest...almost as much as a new flag expense...funterra...christ give me bank notes to lick...gib board...and a tripple wash...I want to drug test anyone who wants to utter a word to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebxfrJJ_S1k

well cum to your car! Homeless people...thank god for plywood coverup

Shulgin

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 21:17:35 +1200

poor foundations...cheesus next the country will be clamping down on the cornerstone of illicit drug harm in new zeeland...but I digress...as I do...

chinese precursors and steal...its possible...its possible I was told about this in may...again I digress...is that a kiwi? Fruit...fungus

just going to the shuan hendy book for…

Shulgin

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 20:42:06 +1200

Excellent, I am about to head over to Matters of Substance and read the full thing.

If I could just comment briefly, b 4 heading to the full script, the Ministry of Health Guidelines quoted a Mr Mike Sabin, from Methcon. What the hell is Mike Sabin doing being quoted…

Lucy Telfar Barnard

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 20:05:37 +1200

Someone might like to enquire how much Housing NZ money has been wasted on unnecessary refits/cleanup operations. I suspect it is many millions. Obviously the human cost of turfing people on the street is pretty terrible, but there is also the cost of houses not built or repaired because money…

william blake

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 19:32:58 +1200

The head of the Napier real estate assoc is on record as saying there is a specialist investment market for P contaminated houses, apparently using the contamination as a bargaining lever to buy the houses for cheaps.
#stateassetselloff #undeservingpoor.

nzlemming

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 19:15:50 +1200

Good journalism, bro.

Andrew Jull

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 18:40:46 +1200

The application of thresholds is useful to discuss, but I keep looking for the information on the accuracy of the test used i.e. the sensitivity and specificity (and from what of evaluation that information was derived). From that information – essentially the rates of true positives and true negatives -…

andin

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 17:46:30 +1200

quite a few real estate agents setting up a side-business in meth-testing. It’s a shocking industry.
WTF! Is this industry just full of scum sucking shit bags and moronic self serving thugs. Is the mafia giving seminars on how to line your own pockets first now?
And some section of…

Russell Brown

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 17:18:34 +1200

Sacha

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 17:11:04 +1200

there's apparently no requirement that "the property" not be contaminated by lead, DDT, radioactive material etc etc.

Someone on Twitter pointed out this govt are quite comfortable with state houses containing deadly mould.

Rob Stowell

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 17:09:25 +1200

Great work Russell.

Sacha

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 17:00:38 +1200

HNZ has become completely devoid of any cognisance of its role as a crucial part of the social safety net.

The government that NZ has re-elected twice deliberately removed that role from HNZ.

Stephen Judd

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 16:52:45 +1200

Moz

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 16:52:26 +1200

Interesting that there's apparently no requirement that "the property" not be contaminated by lead, DDT, radioactive material etc etc. Possibly because properties free of detectable lead, DDT and radioactivity don't exist?

Moz

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 16:50:08 +1200

Where did that quote come from?

And actually, unless explicitly prohibited by law and backed with enthusiastic enforcement, private landlords could readily do exactly that. If you're looking to rent a house you're not usually in a good position to say "nah, paying for a drug test is a waste…

Glenn Pearce

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 16:43:07 +1200

The problem is the Tenancy Tribunal interpretation makes it virtually compulsory for landlords to "test" between tenancies

https://tenancy.govt.nz/starting-a-tenancy/renting-affected-properties/renting-a-property-affected-by-methamphetamine-p/

James Littlewood*

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 14:48:20 +1200

No private landlord could consider requiring its tenants to submit to drug testing. In a sense, it creates two different kinds of citizen.

Bloody hell. In a very real sense.

Matthew Poole

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 14:41:43 +1200

The most stomach-turning part of that piece (nice work, btw), for me, was HNZ's internal discussion about drug-testing potential tenants. That is truly, truly vile. As others have observed, HNZ has become completely devoid of any cognisance of its role as a crucial part of the social safety net.

BenWilson

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 14:18:24 +1200

Having recently acquired a new property, it was very strongly presented to me as a good idea (and a very expensive one too) by the guy I hired to do a builder's report. From what I could tell it was a real money spinner. My own feeling was that it…

Luke Williamson

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 14:15:59 +1200

Excellent work Russell. Thank you for bringing some sense to this issue. The battle to out bad science is ongoing and it's great to see you and the scientists in this article doing their bit.

izogi

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 13:52:28 +1200

I didn't have room to cover it, but there are quite a few real estate agents setting up a side-business in meth-testing. It's a shocking industry.

Yuck, but I don't feel surprised. I'm struggling to think of an experience I've had with a property agent where we weren't treated like…

Russell Brown

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 13:10:00 +1200

So there are drug testing businesses, real estate agents, and others all collecting fees from the moral panic, a panic which they help reinforce and perpetuate for profit.

I didn't have room to cover it, but there are quite a few real estate agents setting up a side-business in meth-testing.…

dave stewart

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 12:59:59 +1200

It's not just HNZ that have been paranoid – landlords and letting agents are also testing for P in the absence of any evidence to suggest its presence.
I had a personal experience of this at the end of last year.
We moved out of a rental house which we'd…

Adam H

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 12:30:30 +1200

Let’s face it, when you try to bring rationality to an argument that has been subject to moral bullshit for a hundred years it’s a hard ask. Especially for those who didn’t receive an education founded in critical thinking… we take our post-70’s schooling for granted I think.

I remember…

Lyndon Hood

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 12:12:39 +1200

They seem to have lost touch with Housing NZ’s role as a social agency.

This is the same organisation that was expecting people they couldn't find houses for to pay above the mark for emergency accommodation. So, yes.

Public Address

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 12:12:39 +1200

Discussion from blog post.