Hard News by Russell Brown

Oops wrong button.
(But hey I was first post.)

Saw that report on Nightline, and my first thought was it has to be an April first joke. (And of of course they later confirmed that it was).
Sad thing was, that Fox that they got some of the footage off, didn't bother checking and had it as a real story.

Somehow I don't think it was an april fools day joke.

Can someone please send the link to Jacqui Dean's office.... please.

I can't due to my email being pretty much blacklisted.

The video from last night's first Media7 show has been encoded and will be uploaded later this morning. I'll let you know in a separate post as soon as that happens.

Oh good; I was wondering how I was going to get my serious TV fix.

If you want a drug for a trivial medical complaint, like a headache or indigestion, you can choose from a wide variety that have been tested and documented.

If you want one for fun, you have a choice of two (which have been extensively tested and found to be thoroughly harmful, of course).

Should anyone go through the effort of properly characterising methylone, synephrine or whatever, then no doubt Jim would ban it. This is almost completely independent of harm. Remember, Jim "would ban alcohol if [he] could" so *anything* is pretty much fair game.

Policy is not driven by wanting to prevent people gobbling hazardous substances all the time - policy is driven by an irrational belief that it's morally wrong to use psychoactive substances for "fun".

I suspect a lot of these new recreational substances will be largely placebo, really.

Meanwhile, big ups to TV3's David Farrier for the excellent April Fool's Day report (well, I hope that's what it was) on jenkem that aired on Tuesday evening.

Speaking of jenkem, The Onion's AV Club has an amusing feature called Don't bogart that jenkem: 18 fictional drugs.

The latest episode of Southpark from the US is bang on topic with Mr Garison accidentilly telling the kids about getting high from cat urine. Also known as "Cheesing". It's highly comical if not a little disturbing, particularly the contraptions used to extract the spray of cat wee. Lots of boobtastic parodies of the cartoon Heavy Metal when people are wasted.

Bitter orange and sevile oranges have a powerful effect on the human body.

Along with grapefruit, they're forbidden fruit for people on certain kinds of heart and blood pressure medication. These fruits quadruple the effects of the medication in an unpredictable way. They can literally kill you.

Watch your marmalade intake.

Along with grapefruit...

Grapefruit are scary

Jenkem is a straight rip off of the Brasseye episode about "Cake".

Back in the mid 90s Chris Morris and co. fooled some British MPs and celebs into believeing there was new drug called Cake that was killing younguns. One MP even asked a question in Parliament about whether the government was going to do something about this new drug scourge.

Just enter Brasseye +cake on youtube for much hilarity. Watch the other Brasseye episodes too, you wont be diasppointed.

Interestingly, it appears that a revamp of the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow for testing and approval of novel recreational drugs is still on the cards

Now this I completely support - shift the onus on to one of proven safety, rather than moral panic. If it could subsequently be extended to a complete clean-slate revamp of the MODA for ALL drugs that would be great.
What annoyed me most about BZP was that it was being sold as a product for human consumption without independent testing that it was OK to do so - and the banning seemed equally without tested merit.

Watch the other Brasseye episodes too, you wont be diasppointed.

seconded.

without wishing to detract from the brilliance of Media Lunch. You can see where a lot of their ideas came from....in a good way.

Watch the other Brasseye episodes too, you wont be diasppointed.

seconded.

without wishing to detract from the brilliance of Media Lunch. You can see where a lot of their ideas came from....in a good way.

Thirded.

The 'Paedogeddon' episode is one of the most hilarious pieces of television ever, an extremely black-humoured satire of the way in which the media whips itself (and the public) into a frenzy of moral outrage. All the more funny, since that was precisely the effect the episode had in the UK. Chris Morris a genius - watch 'Nathan Barley' (all eps on YouTube) for further evidence

Jenkem.... bringing a whole new meaning to "that was some good shit"

Grapefruit are scary

Heh, good old xkcd. It's a pity too, because they grow like weeds. My tree produced about 100 kg of grapefruit every year. I used to juice it, but now I'm on medication that clashes with it, I decided to use it for rootstock and hacked the thing down. My son's never got over it. Any time he's nervous about a stranger he threatens them with "Daddy CUT a TREE!". Now I've got to wait a hundred years for the ton of foliage to sequester, since annoying bylaws prevent me speeding the process up the way nature intended - with a match.

Russel you might want to ammend your article to say lightyears party pills different company.

Its on the packet.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff242/welsh_stoner/hummer.jpg

Bit embarrasing to hear one of your writers saying incorrect information on national radio :(

Russel you might want to ammend your article to say lightyears party pills different company.

No, it's definitely Stargate, although the company name's different on that packet for the British market. I have a press release from Matt Bowden saying so.

@delaway: synephrine is extracted from bitter orange :) Or atleast, thats where the molecule came from. I serously doubt there is any orange in there these days.

Grapefruit is a scary thing, esp for women on the pill. Basicly makes it like they never took the pill. Seriously. It's well documented, last time I looked, but most doctors dont point it out. As much as a glass a day is enough. Somethings it does that to (negates the effects), something it amplifies - it's something to do with liver enzimes.

Try a glass of GJ with an espresso chaser - see how it effects you. Just make sure you have only one. And dont have a major heart condition.

I've used Synephrine-containing products (those "dodgy" weight loss pills, which are anything bit - it's quite a science, with no lack of large companies making them - think EAS, the (previous?) sponsor of the warriors). It definitly gets you going, but I wouldn't call it even close to BZP - or speed. ZERO euphoria, not a hell of a lot of energy (in comparison), no jaw clenching etc, tho my body temp did go up, but that was the point - run a little warmer, burn more fat.

BTW, for fat loss, they do work, but you have to exercise too. No surprise there.

Having not tried them (i'm in the UK), I can't say for sure, esp as Mr Bowden has a history of putting some strange stuff in pill form and selling them (Ease, anyone? They were quite good....). But if synephrine is the only magic ingredient, I'd have to rate them a "meh". Useful, yes, but not as a party pill.

Bring back "the bomb", I say :)

The Noel Edmonds 'Brass Eye' episode that was cut at the last minute by the C4 controllers was hilarious, in a 'what the fu....' kind of way.

But none of you Kiwi's probably have the faintest who cuddly old Noel is.

Russell - the paperwork for whatever has been 'patented' in these pills should be frely available 18 months from the earliest filing date of the application. How what is in the patent relates to the actual street prduct is a different story.

Bring back "the bomb", I say :)

Secret ingredient until the authorities twigged: ephedrine.

But none of you Kiwi's probably have the faintest who cuddly old Noel is.

Um, anyone who watched TV1 in the '90's should know... we had several seasons of the Noel Edmonds show... Mr Blobby, Crinkley Bottom, etc.

Secret ingredient until the authorities twigged: ephedrine.

Oh hell yes. I didn't know when I was using them - damn, that was a LOOOOONG time ago - but they were good. I've had ephedrine from the US (as sold by EAS (and 100's of others) until they banned it in the US), and it had less of an impact on my body (except for the desired impact - fat loss) than the "safe" replacement. Go figure.

As usual - and it's the same with BZP and most other stuff - fairly limited or controlled use is very very safe (assuming you dont have a heart condition - I have/had high BP, and I was able to use ephedrine safely by monitoring my BP closely*). Abuse it, and it can mess you up. Nothing new there - alcohol is the same, and if you smoke a whole packet of ciggies - and are not a regular smoker - that may kill you on the spot (nicotine posioning).

Hows this for a piece of interesting law (which has now been amended): If you bring in a bottle of ephedrine tablets/caps into the country, they get taken off you - ephedrine is illegal. However if the bottle said "ephedra" (which is the plant name), you are fine. Which is like saying caffeine is illegal, but gurana is fine - except its the same thing. Needless to say, that got cleared up - and I must say, the folks at Medsafe in Takapuna are a nice bunch of resonable people. Or they were circa 2003.

* ultimate catch-22: BP drops if I lose weight. Weightloss is easiest/quickest/best with exercise, and enhanced by use of thermogenics, the gold-standard of which is (syn)ephedrine/caffine/asprine, which can raise BP.... (sigh). Queue caution and a portable BP monitor.

Once I moved from Auckland (90 min commute 2x a day) to Wellington (20 mins in a bus, worst case), my BP dropped sharply (from crazy to just above normal). Yes, folks, the rumours are true: Wellington IS good for you!

This is all so bloody cyclical. There was a "thermoblast" scandal in Wellington in the mid-90s. I tried some and immediately felt compelled to do a 20km cycle around the bays and city streets. I am pretty sure I lost half a kg.

Yes, Wellington is good for you. After moving to Auckland then Hong Kong I realised quality of life was more important than dollars alone and returned to this beautiful and vibrant town.

Yeah that Campbell Live was probably a bad decision on an icky Tuesday considering what a great weekend it was at UPFM's birthday party and the legendary Split Enz.

John spilt his water all over the table with less than 30 seconds to mop it up with his tie before going to air and things went from bad to worse after that. The plonker saying "LONG TERM EFFECTS ARE ANYBODY'S GUESS" is hopefully looking for employment elsewhere this week...

There is probably some synephrine in the floradrene blend, be interested to see what people say after trying it actually. As others have noted, if you have any medical conditions or are on any medicines, don't take the products.

Does anybody remember GENESIS DISKOTONIK in 1998? Used Sida Cordifolia as a natural source of ephedrine and TURBINA CORYMBOSA for natural lysergic acid with MAYTENUS extract which was similar to Qat (cathis edulis) from which we get cathinone and methcathinone.

Those were some nice pills, way cooler than the CAFFEINE/EPHEDRINE/ ASPIRIN stacker bombs ... but we got shut down by Medsafe in about 6 months with GENESIS and vowed that next time we'd put up more of a fight.

Yeah.

anyone who watched TV1 in the '90's should know... we had several seasons of the Noel Edmonds show... Mr Blobby, Crinkley Bottom, etc

You poor bastards.