Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Synthetic cannabis: it just keeps coming

BenWilson

Thu, 21 May 2015 13:00:54 +1200

Advertising? Unsold stock? Rents? Wages? It's pretty easy for a very successful business to go broke quickly when the product is legislated out of the market.

Alfie

Thu, 21 May 2015 11:35:21 +1200

Matt Bowden's Stargate Operations owes Inland Revenue $846,000 and other creditors around $700,000. I would have thought that selling legal highs with a large markup would be incredibly profitable. I wonder where all the money went?

Rob Stowell

Wed, 20 May 2015 16:21:10 +1200

where the heck is the Press Council?

Complain!
(I don’t think they do anything without a complaint – and you need to complain to the publication first. Having recently made a complaint, it wasn’t painful, can all be done online, and Press Council were quick to respond and encouraging.)

Bart Janssen

Wed, 20 May 2015 13:57:36 +1200

the Herald editorial:

Dear Editor, you have misinterpreted Prof Glue’s article.

And again where the heck is the Press Council? The editorial is deceptive false reporting.

Rob Stowell

Wed, 20 May 2015 12:46:05 +1200

Here’s quite a serve
Lordy. Herald again trumpeting black is white. This should be deeply shameful for the writer. In a scrupulous publication the writer would be eating the editorial raw while composing a tearful apology and retraction.

Russell Brown

Wed, 20 May 2015 12:35:20 +1200

Here's quite a serve — From Doctor Geoff Noller – in the comments under the Herald editorial:

Dear Editor, you have misinterpreted Prof Glue's article. It reports on the "three months before and after implementation of the PSA on 18 July 2013". Thus the results, i.e. a 42% reduction in…

Alfie

Wed, 20 May 2015 12:19:22 +1200

Here's another almost identical sentencing, this time for a little shitbag who was blackmailing women and making their lives a living hell. He also received 350 hours community work and 12 months supervision. The court didn't require him to attend any sort of rehabilitation.

One of these people committed some awful…

Russell Brown

Wed, 20 May 2015 12:17:26 +1200

Including this gem: “So much for the black market. So much for the claim that prohibition never works”.

One pretty major thing that editorial leaves out is that the study it quotes says psychiatric presentations halved during regulation under the Psychoactive Substances Act.

Alfie

Wed, 20 May 2015 10:55:33 +1200

Meanwhile a 59 year old Naseby woman receives 350 hours' community work, 12 months' supervision and is ordered to complete a drug and alcohol programme for growing a few plants and giving them away to her friends and neighbours.

Michael Savidge

Wed, 20 May 2015 08:39:03 +1200

Today's Herald online editorial:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11451299

Including this gem: "So much for the black market. So much for the claim that prohibition never works".

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 18 May 2015 19:07:49 +1200

Russell Brown

Mon, 18 May 2015 14:54:29 +1200

I’ve received a very civil letter from Peter Dunne, which is attached to this comment (see the link above this sentence).

My response is as follows:

---

Dear Peter,

Thanks for your letter.

I think you’ve misunderstood part of my post. At no point did I say that MDPV, Alpha-PVP…

BenWilson

Mon, 18 May 2015 13:50:22 +1200

I'm trying to get a feel for how this number compares to other products. It looks low, but that's the problem with numbers on very big and very small scales. Leaving out the obvious alcohol and tobacco for now, the rate of hospitalizations for energy drinks in the US seemed…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 18 May 2015 12:45:36 +1200

I'd just link this bit of research from tatjna.

By the MoH's own figures: 3.5 million packets of synthetic cannabis sold and a maximum of 600 people had problems in the 10 months of regulation. 0.017%

BenWilson

Mon, 18 May 2015 11:16:12 +1200

Not that I think Dunne actually set out to do that. It's just what happened.

BenWilson

Mon, 18 May 2015 10:30:47 +1200

It was nothing but a confidence trick all along.

It was like a manufactured casus belli for the War on Drugs. Dunne blew his own railway up and blamed it on guerrillas.

Tom Semmens

Mon, 18 May 2015 08:30:07 +1200

If anyone was still in any doubt that our psychoactive drug laws passed and lauded as “world leading” are nothing but a giant con job – a designed-to-fail law that is a smokescreen behind which a cynical government with no intention of ever allowing anything to become legal can hide…

Alfie

Sun, 17 May 2015 17:52:38 +1200

Why would you want to see him fail at having a successful business that encourages responsible use and crowd sourcing responsible use and knowledge?

Because I don't like either his ethics or the business he was running.

The product he was selling is evil shit and I know one person…

Sofie Bribiesca

Sun, 17 May 2015 16:56:57 +1200

Bowden admits he has made millions out of synthetics which surely raises questions about the liquidation. And he's the last person in the world I'd want to see making money out of weed.

Why? Yes he has has some success. Then yes he has had the Govt curb all that…

Alfie

Sun, 17 May 2015 12:40:34 +1200

Matt Bowden has put his Stargate Operations into liquidation. I can't find any mention of this on the Harold, but TV3 News deemed it important — they ran it as the lead story on Saturday's 6pm bulletin. That story included the revelation that Bowden "wants the public's help to produce…

politikiwi

Thu, 14 May 2015 22:30:56 +1200

The other side is parents using cannabis, being so 'relaxed' that feeding the kids, getting them to school, pro actively encouraging their kids education are simply not important.
Have you got any evidence which proves this is anything more than a straw man argument? Not anecdotal "evidence" – real evidence…

Michael Savidge

Thu, 14 May 2015 14:36:35 +1200

Interesting new research on psychosis and teen pot smokers: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/new_study_finds_that_smoking_weed_does_not_cause_psychotic_episodes_in_teen

BenWilson

Wed, 13 May 2015 16:45:25 +1200

But no matter how our laws change, I doubt we’ll see vast fields of green again.

Agreed. For starters, I don't think there's really that much demand locally. Every hectare could equal the supply of a thousand hydro growers. A small farm could probably supply the entire country. But it's…

Alfie

Wed, 13 May 2015 14:23:08 +1200

All I'm saying is that growing using the sun and rain and earth like how it evolved would probably dominate the production just on cost, very, very quickly, as it does in practically every other plant material used by humans.

I remember wandering around the top of the South Island…

Russell Brown

Wed, 13 May 2015 13:52:17 +1200

“But 90% of illicit drug users don’t enter emergency departments or become addicted” – actually, I think it’s more than that.

It very probably is.

What emergency doctors are saying these days is quite notable. They often have a pretty clear-eyed view. I spoke to one recently who said his…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 13 May 2015 13:33:52 +1200

"But 90% of illicit drug users don’t enter emergency departments or become addicted" – actually, I think it's more than that.

BenWilson

Wed, 13 May 2015 12:19:31 +1200

Anyone lucky enough to visit Amsterdam or Colorado is able to appreciate quality weed – not because it’s stronger, but because of subtle differences in the effects.

Sure. I've done that myself. But it's still roughly the same price there as it is here. So we're not making the comparison…

Alfie

Tue, 12 May 2015 19:28:48 +1200

A kilo of weak cannabis is still going to get you high for months to years.
Of course it will. In the way that a barrel of cheap plonk is guaranteed to keep you pissed for weeks. But is that really what most smokers want?

The measure should not be…

BenWilson

Tue, 12 May 2015 13:52:18 +1200

I don’t accept BenWilson’s suggestion that dope smokers would be happy with truckloads of of grade B cannabis. It simply doesn’t work that way. There’s a market for good wine – and there’s a market for good cannabis. Synthetics by comparison are the cheapest, nastiest cask wine you could imagine.…

Russell Brown

Tue, 12 May 2015 11:31:34 +1200

He wasn’t having to see on a daily basis the lives interrupted by alchohol and drug abuse.

Generations.

If decriminalisation, legalisation (and resulting control and regulation) and taxation will contribute towards better control of supply, education and mitigation of negative effects….why do we have such a HUGE problem with booze?…

linger

Tue, 12 May 2015 11:05:51 +1200

To be fair, it looks like "alchohol" if viewed through the splatter from some chthonic dimension.

Katharine Moody

Tue, 12 May 2015 10:07:31 +1200

Oh for fuck’s sake.Seriously, what does this kind of dehumanising drivel serve beyond big-noting your own sense of moral superiority?

And bad spelling. It's alcohol, Rosemary.

Alfie

Tue, 12 May 2015 09:59:51 +1200

Rosemary. Your hollier-than-thou presumption that the only possible motivation for using cannabis is to escape from some undescribed horror in one's life is, frankly, insulting. I walked away from my computer last night rather than responding, hoping that someone calmer and more eloquent would pick up the mantle. Russell, Linger…

Joe Wylie

Tue, 12 May 2015 09:34:04 +1200

These people

Oh for fuck’s sake.
Seriously, what does this kind of dehumanising drivel serve beyond big-noting your own sense of moral superiority?

Rosemary McDonald

Tue, 12 May 2015 09:28:49 +1200

And....

A school comprising of children from some 28 families realised that their appalling record for 'learning outcomes' was largely due to the parents/caregivers use of alchohol, dope and other more harmful drugs.

They asked all families to sign a "drug and alchohol free' contract....for the sake of their children.…

Rosemary McDonald

Tue, 12 May 2015 08:48:41 +1200

No, dealing, with the splatter.

I understand it is unfashionable to resist decriminalisation of anything.

I have had "Prohibition of alchohol didn't work!!!!" screamed in my face by an Alliance Party member promoting legalising cannabis.

He wasn't having to see on a daily basis the lives interrupted by alchohol and…

linger

Tue, 12 May 2015 08:15:30 +1200

I worked in the Drug and Alchohol sectorInteresting way of putting it; care to elaborate? The context suggests this may not have been in the supply side of the industry.

Russell Brown

Tue, 12 May 2015 08:09:06 +1200

Taxes on alchohol come no where near to contributing to the costs.

It’d be the same if dope was decriminalised.

Got any evidence for that? Pretty much everyone who wants to use cannabis in NZ uses it already. Most people try it, most people stop. And the legal status of…

Katharine Moody

Mon, 11 May 2015 21:45:42 +1200

Taxes on alchohol come no where near to contributing to the costs.It’d be the same if dope was decriminalised.

But the same cannot be said of tax on tobacco. A Treasury paper of some years ago (when the Maori Party was pushing for the three-year series on tobacco tax rises…

Rosemary McDonald

Mon, 11 May 2015 17:12:49 +1200

anyone seriously under the influence of just about anything is unlikely to put the needs of their children first, but physical and psychological violence against children must be the central tenet of any drug reform/policy.

What I was trying to say.

I get it about the 'evidence based research', that…

Katharine Moody

Mon, 11 May 2015 16:27:34 +1200

When discussions are being had about drug reform….consideration MUST be given to the children of drug users…the innocents.

Extremely important. I have to admit that I'm a very anti-alcohol person – simply because of the level of violence that I perceive to be attributed to its effects. I do wonder…

Joe Wylie

Mon, 11 May 2015 10:02:49 +1200

Don’t knock the cask!
Yeah right. Seen from the air in a sunny day, the reflected glitter from inflated cheap plonk casks along the riverbeds around Alice Springs is an unforgettable sight. The wretched things even lodge high in the branches of trees where the floods carry them.

Russell Brown

Mon, 11 May 2015 09:30:45 +1200

It’s complicated.

It is. Washington State pot czar Mark Kleiman from a story I wrote last year, on cannabis and driving:

“Nobody wants to say it out loud, but I think it probably needs a good leaving alone,” says Kleiman.

“Here’s the problem: it’s clear that being stoned decreases your…

linger

Mon, 11 May 2015 09:28:21 +1200

So basically, the test measures whether there was any consumption at all over an indefinite time period, and not whether the individual is currently functionally impaired – i.e., the test purpose itself is not at all parallel to the alcohol test, and reflects the focus on criminality rather than safety.

Russell Brown

Mon, 11 May 2015 09:25:30 +1200

Almost certainly. Campbell Live ran numerous interviews with synthetic users, and all of them said they’d prefer to smoke the real thing, if not for the illegality and drug testing.

I've also seen users quoted saying that natural cannabis doesn't do it for them any more.

Rosemary McDonald

Mon, 11 May 2015 09:25:21 +1200

Over the years, anti-drug propaganda has portrayed dope smokers as evil fiends, hiding out in darkened rooms in some numbed state of nirvana.

Not necessarily....and most would have no problem with cannabis users sitting in a dark room relaxing and contemplating their place in the universe. Fill your boots.

The…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 11 May 2015 09:01:49 +1200

Don't knock the cask!

Alfie

Mon, 11 May 2015 08:34:14 +1200

It's complicated. The active ingredient in cannabis is THC, but urine tests measure THC-COOH — a metabolite of THC. That's produced as the liver breaks down THC and it stays in the body for a much longer period. Long after the effect of the drug has worn off, measurable traces…

Katharine Moody

Sun, 10 May 2015 19:54:51 +1200

Almost certainly. Campbell Live ran numerous interviews with synthetic users, and all of them said they’d prefer to smoke the real thing, if not for the illegality and drug testing.

So, if we legalise the plant, do we also have to amend drug testing practices? What I'm wondering is, can…

Alfie

Sun, 10 May 2015 12:18:38 +1200

My worry is – if we don’t legalise the plant soon – plant users who would prefer not to, might find themselves moving to synthetics because the present producers stop producing the plant (given cultivation is more difficult/higher cost than synthetic formulation).

That won't happen... for the same reason that…

Katharine Moody

Sat, 09 May 2015 18:18:58 +1200

I thought the initial interest/development of the synthetic product wasn’t so much because it was legal, but rather because it was thought to be undetectable in workplace drug tests.. And I also thought the type of high produced between the two was quite different as well.

So, for someone that…

BenWilson

Thu, 07 May 2015 17:39:45 +1200

Ironically I think we would probably see a lot less of the super powerful strains that have been bred. Their very existence is a function of the illegality of the substance. You get more $ per gram for stronger stuff. But if the quantity in your possession carries no consequences…

BenWilson

Thu, 07 May 2015 17:31:51 +1200

If it's commercially grown it would probably be profitable to sell it at about the same cost per weight as something like chili. So at between a thousandth and a ten thousandth of the current cost, depending on quality, freshness etc. The basic substance would cease being valuable, and value…

Moz

Thu, 07 May 2015 17:03:54 +1200

There wouldn’t need to be any off season drought period even if it were grown entirely out of doors. The stuff can be stored for very long periods

And using the example of basically everything you can buy in a supermarket, commercial growers would have incentives to breed for long…

BenWilson

Thu, 07 May 2015 13:43:23 +1200

We are talking about a plant that gets to 2m tall after all. The yield he was talking about was only the flower buds. The leafy mass is also pretty substantial.

BenWilson

Thu, 07 May 2015 13:38:50 +1200

There wouldn’t need to be any off season drought period even if it were grown entirely out of doors. The stuff can be stored for very long periods, if the smallest effort is made to dry it out and store it properly.

Furthermore a single plant per annum is enough…

Craig Young

Thu, 07 May 2015 09:14:39 +1200

Exactly. P/crystal meth is far more lucrative for criminal enterprises and easy to manufacture. I tend to be a reformist rather an abolitionist when it comes to drug policy reform because while potheads are annoying obsessive single-issue drones, I have little problem with them lighting up as long as they…

Russell Brown

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:56:12 +1200

Anecdotal evidence would lead me to proffer that the increase in penalties for cultivating marijuana (taking growers’ homes etc) is leading gangs to make P instead because the profits are so much higher. Great work PC Plod.

The purge on Switched On Gardener seems to have been a factor too.…

Russell Brown

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:54:34 +1200

I suspect a similar ideas was used as part of the justification for implementing the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. Though I applaud the maturity of the intent, the problem of shady characters controlling “the game” remains, though at least the possibility exists of legitimate operators

Most sex work now is…

Andre

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:52:34 +1200

Anecdotal evidence would lead me to proffer that the increase in penalties for cultivating marijuana (taking growers' homes etc) is leading gangs to make P instead because the profits are so much higher. Great work PC Plod.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:44:14 +1200

a frayed knot...
they could turn it into rope.
Rope addiction is a brutal thing,
when people reach the end of their tether...
Show me to the bell rope...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgpFx5jnXdc
and do the strand!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFD1kXsIu14

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:28:21 +1200

and you'd probably end up with mellower prisons as well! –

In my past ,on visits to Rangipo, the saying went, " a stoned prison is a good prison" and that was from the screws point of view.

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:20:36 +1200

I think taking the commerce out of ganja growing would take the criminality out of it as well.

There would still be a market, just like there is in garden vegetables. But it would certainly help with the criminality part.

I've been privileged to do my own study with regards…

jon_knox

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:02:25 +1200

There would still be a market, just like there is in garden vegetables. But it would certainly help with the criminality part.

Russell has hit the nail on the head. Help, not "entirely eliminate" the criminality part. I suspect a similar ideas was used as part of the justification for…

Sofie Bribiesca

Wed, 06 May 2015 20:02:09 +1200

Unpacking this a bit, the weed drought

Drought? We have a drought? ;)

Russell Brown

Wed, 06 May 2015 19:33:18 +1200

I think taking the commerce out of ganja growing would take the criminality out of it as well.

There would still be a market, just like there is in garden vegetables. But it would certainly help with the criminality part.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 06 May 2015 19:23:29 +1200

pot luck…
I think taking the commerce out of ganja growing would take the criminality out of it as well.
Could be an uptick in community garden volunteers…
Hell, thinking (briefly) about it they should get prisoners to grow it, they already have the security infrastructure in place, and you'd…

Steve Barnes

Wed, 06 May 2015 19:10:05 +1200

a recent assurance from Association (sic) Health Minister Peter Dunne that police had told him there was only a "comparatively small" underground market, trading in products stockpiled from the old legal regime.
I think the whole point of an "Underground Market" is that it is "Underground" so the Police don't…

Alfie

Wed, 06 May 2015 18:58:25 +1200

I think taking the commerce out of ganja growing would take the criminality out of it as well.
Agreed. In retrospect, iheriting America's drug laws wasn't such a good idea. (But not quite as dumb as New Zealand signing a one-sided TPPA that's binding forever).

Allowing individuals to grow a…

william blake

Wed, 06 May 2015 14:51:28 +1200

Alfie,, it just seems easier to treat growing a plant as a seasonal activity, using hydro and grow lights seems a bit commercial, like forced tomatoes in greenhouses. I think taking the commerce out of ganja growing would take the criminality out of it as well.

Russell Brown

Wed, 06 May 2015 11:51:50 +1200

To me the whole process of the government selecting ‘good’ legal highs and allowing them to be sold in retail outlets is fundamentally flawed. The bottom line is that these are all chemicals designed to mimic the real thing. And the latter is less harmful by a country mile.

But…

Alfie

Wed, 06 May 2015 11:39:57 +1200

People wanting to get high should be allowed to grow their own crops and straighten up out of season, if they want to smoke balefulls at a time.
As most crops are grown indoors these days, the concept of a "season" as such is a little outdated.

Dunne wouldn't know…

Russell Brown

Wed, 06 May 2015 11:17:06 +1200

And ‘faster, cheaper, less risky’ really means more profitable, just like the bootleggers selling a pint of whisky for more profit than a pint of beer. Less risky for a pot grower/ dealer but more risk to the user by ingesting dubious and untested chemicals.

Yes, that was my point.…

william blake

Wed, 06 May 2015 11:09:48 +1200

NORML has suggested that the New Zealand “weed drought” in the early part of the year could be a consequence of criminal operations moving from natural cannabis production to the faster, cheaper and less risky business of synthetics – much in the way that the supply of distilled spirits rocketed…

Public Address

Wed, 06 May 2015 11:09:48 +1200

Discussion from blog post.