Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: This is bad – very bad

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 26 Jul 2017 09:13:49 +1200

I guess the Police have to really want to help, or even follow up adequately:
"Had we not had higher priority incidents to attend at the time we would have gone there, but I am telling you now, the action would not have been to arrest them as the penalty…

andin

Wed, 26 Jul 2017 09:07:45 +1200

They(whoever) has carefully worded the press release to make themselves look blameless and this is an unwelcome intrusion of the wider 'world' into their part of the 'world'. Its a cunning plan that feeds their feelings of innocence with outrage at individuals who show a lack of perception of themselves…

Simon Lyall

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 22:13:48 +1200

Heart of the City just a press release around businesses...apparently, their solution is to eradicate homelessness by largely increasing security.

What do you think they should should have said? They have inner-city businesses complaining, what should they do?

Rich of Observationz

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:27:53 +1200

Maybe they could help by not having their fraudulent managers taking up the scarce resources of the justice system.

andin

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:08:00 +1200

LOCK UP THE POOR!

Chris Peel

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 13:56:50 +1200

Heart of the City just a press release around businesses...apparently, their solution is to eradicate homelessness by largely increasing security. Pretty awful release in my view. Great use of my ratepayer money!

Russell Brown

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 10:07:53 +1200

I've written a comment piece for RNZ: No easy fix for synthetic cannabis health emergency

andin

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 21:02:14 +1200

says Bill English;

Well I’m sure his mouth was moving and words were coming out. Tho the uninformed drivel is worse than non-sensical. Just because the substance is sprayed on green vegetable matter, so smoking it becomes the method of ingestion, doesnt make it ‘synthetic cannabis’.
And his mantra of…

Katharine Moody

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 20:26:28 +1200

Not my problem,nothing I need to do, says Bill English;

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11894561&ref=NZH_fb

WH

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 16:42:55 +1200

If it helps, I think I agree that there is no point imposing criminal penalties on those found with recreational quantities of illegal drugs (although I might support fines, confiscation and compulsory treatment orders). Similarly, measures that prevent dependent users from obtaining help are probably doing more harm than good.

WH

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 16:17:37 +1200

You know, I think many recreational drug users are quite focused on reducing suffering. [...] I think the cannabimimetics are a really difficult case. Ideally, no one should take them. They’re bad drugs, which makes regulation challenging.

Okay. I agree that this is ultimately about health and wellbeing and I…

andin

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 15:42:43 +1200

US CDC figures state that 500,000 people have died using prescription painkillers, opioids and heroin over the last fifteen years. Facilitating the use of such substances is not going to reduce harm

Not sure what your point is, but that paragraph seems contradictory

Russell Brown

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 14:52:56 +1200

Recreational drug users sometimes leave the impression that they don’t really care whether reform results in an increase in suffering or not.

You know, I think many recreational drug users are quite focused on reducing suffering.

I think the cannabimimetics are a a really difficult case. Ideally, no one should…

WH

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 13:15:24 +1200

So legalising potentially dangerous and addictive substances might reduce some harm but sweep some of it under the carpet.

Recreational drug users sometimes leave the impression that they don't really care whether reform results in an increase in suffering or not.

US CDC figures state that 500,000 people have died…

Caleb D'Anvers

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 04:33:37 +1200

There are similar issues at the moment in the UK, with some unsurprising parallels:
Police in Manchester battling an epidemic of the use of spice attended nearly 60 incidents related to the drug in the city centre in one weekend….

[…]

Phil Spurgeon, a city centre inspector with Greater Manchester…

TracyMac

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 02:05:26 +1200

A quick note on one of my pet peeves: can we please stop with the "50 times stronger than opium" meme?

Maybe by mass, yes, but no-one takes 5-10mgs of fentanyl – it's in the microgram range of dosage.

Typical oral doses are around the same as a shot of…

nzlemming

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 23:50:41 +1200

religious upbringing by any chance?

Or film buff

nzlemming

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 23:49:23 +1200

religious upbringing by any chance?

Didn't we all?

Sacha

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 22:17:13 +1200

religious upbringing by any chance?

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 21:51:48 +1200

These chemicals are full agonists for the THC receptor
The agonists and the ecstasy...
– I just assume the bad reactions are 'merely' parts of the sufferer's brain or body dying.

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 21:46:39 +1200

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/94983799/what-is-the-drug-thats-killed-seven-in-auckland

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 20:52:30 +1200

From a Facebook friend earlier:

I rang a ambulance for a homeless dude on Queen St the other day. He was so out of it – it was frightening. He came round where he could walk after about 15 mins and I cancelled the ambulance but he couldn't understand anything…

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 20:51:45 +1200

Meanwhile, possibly not relevant to this but still worth putting out there: Dancesafe now has Fentanyl testing strips available.

Someone told me earlier that the only purported drug fentanyl hasn't show up in in Canada is actual cannabis. I'm glad there's some sort of test if it happens here.

tatjna

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 20:45:47 +1200

None of the testing methods available to the general public can reliably detect synthetic cannabinoids. FTIR is unlikely to be able to detect Fentanyl either. It's also unlikely NMR could. For this, we need GC-MS.

I think 7 deaths is enough to warrant demanding this be addressed – people need…

Neil

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:45:13 +1200

I'm not suggesting it's an informed choice, there's people out their creating stuff that draws people in.

andin

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:33:42 +1200

I dont think "prefer" is the right descriptor.

Neil

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:15:45 +1200

It’s more likely to be something like fly spray than fentanyl.

But what ever it is it is as you say a different hit to weed and some prefer it.

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 18:18:14 +1200

I’m not so sure, do we have any research around this ?

These chemicals are full agonists for the THC receptor and at that level something completely different starts going on. Extreme and unpredictable reactions, rapidly-developing dependence.

Because of the way it played out, the least harmful ones, first on…

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 18:07:48 +1200

A useful new Science Media Centre backgrounder, with comments from Dr Paul Quigley.

andin

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:57:16 +1200

Getting wasted when your life is pretty tough is a time-honoured response to unmitigable adversity.
And time and time again a platform for those who like to...the M word.

I think I got the scientists in trouble
Did they end up on the streets doing that " time-honoured response"?

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:46:35 +1200

I wrote two years ago about this.

The reports from ESR fly in the face of a recent assurance from Associate 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.

ESR’s results say…

Mikaere Curtis

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:39:04 +1200

It would, although we’re long past the point of these drugs really being used as a cannabis substitute. They’re much stronger and weirder than that.

I'm not so sure, do we have any research around this ? Getting wasted when your life is pretty tough is a time-honoured response to…

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:35:16 +1200

Customs, police, ESR, I’m looking at you. You all have the technology to do this, and the power to say “Actually saving lives is more important that moralising about what we do and don’t condone.”

They absolutely do. I've talked to ESR scientists about it. Even if they don't have…

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:26:23 +1200

It would seem altogether simpler and safer for people be able to grow their own actual cannabis, no?

It would, although we’re long past the point of these drugs really being used as a cannabis substitute. They’re much stronger and weirder than that.

Someone who works with street people told…

Shaun Lott

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:15:58 +1200

It would seem altogether simpler and safer for people be able to grow their own actual cannabis, no?

andin

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:02:53 +1200

moralising
The No. 1 pastime for those who don't want to do anything.
Plus they think it makes them look important and concerned without doing anything.
A win/win in their echo chamber.

tatjna

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:21:00 +1200

Oh ffs when are the people with access to the technology to identify this stuff properly going to stop faffing about wringing their hands about ‘sending the wrong message’ and start testing, identifying and telling people what is out there?

Customs, police, ESR, I’m looking at you. You all have…

Russell Brown

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:32:50 +1200

Vice has a story up quoting Ross Bell.

Bell calls the New Zealand black market right now a “very, very dangerous place” and says drug users deserve all the information out there in order to make informed choices. “What you see when you give people factual information about what’s in…

Public Address

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:32:49 +1200

Discussion from blog post.