Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: What does the wastewater testing for drug use actually show?

Ross Mason

Fri, 03 May 2019 22:54:20 +1200

Steve Crawford
Yes. It had an astronomically bad smell. :-)

Craig Young

Fri, 03 May 2019 17:10:10 +1200

MDMA's just asking to be reclassified. It can be handled safely with proper harm minimisation and risk reduction.

Russell Brown

Fri, 03 May 2019 13:41:47 +1200

Reminds me, what’s the status of therapeutic MDMA as an option for treatment of trauma? I seem to recall clinical trials on the subject.

In New Zealand? Researchers at Auckland and Otago Universities announced they would be expanding a study of the use of MDMA to treat tinnitus a couple…

Craig Young

Fri, 03 May 2019 13:07:05 +1200

Reminds me, what's the status of therapeutic MDMA as an option for treatment of trauma? I seem to recall clinical trials on the subject. If it yielded positive results, I think therapuetic MDMA is the next destigmatisation cause for drug policy activists.

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 03 May 2019 06:50:11 +1200

full of clever cookies.
There's always been a 'home-bake' problem...
;- )

dave stewart

Thu, 02 May 2019 23:43:42 +1200

Do some tests, crunch some numbers, out pops a result ...

Assuming:
4 million population.
200 kg wastewater generated per person per day (1 litre = 1 kg for water).
20 kg meth toxin in the national weekly wastewater (scaling 80% to 100% of population).

We then have 0.000005 kg…

Michael Homer

Thu, 02 May 2019 19:52:13 +1200

the catchment area for Moa Point includes not just the entire Wellington CBD, the universities, and the hospital, but also the south coast from Island Bay eastwardsI believe it’s the whole city except Karori and the far northern suburbs, which I think is also what that map shows (and also…

linger

Thu, 02 May 2019 18:22:29 +1200

Absolutely; from that figure, we can only extrapolate more generally to the population, not more specifically to any smaller subset of users.

(On which note: the catchment area for Moa Point includes not just the entire Wellington CBD, the universities, and the hospital, but also the south coast from Island…

BenWilson

Thu, 02 May 2019 15:02:26 +1200

that subset has a total consumption of 16kg a week

Without knowing anything about how many people are using that, it's hard to figure out whether this is a lot or not very much at all. I expect mean use is a somewhat misleading statistic anyway, since it would be…

Russell Brown

Thu, 02 May 2019 14:40:53 +1200

What percentage traces of Viagra© and other prescription drugs and hormones were also present?

They can only report what they test for ...

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 02 May 2019 11:57:04 +1200

They're literally taking the piss...
What percentage traces of Viagra© and other prescription drugs and hormones were also present?
Will no one think of the fish!?
The bottom-feeders?
The nibblers and bloaters...
now become shoal-gazers!

Ross Mason

Wed, 01 May 2019 22:20:31 +1200

It's just a hop and a skip to track the sewer to source. Where does the ownership of my sewer change to Council? Could the inspectors track each outlet? Are there rules in that space? Drug usage by suburb? Street?

andin

Wed, 01 May 2019 16:57:34 +1200

$466 and $583 per ounce.

Queenstown prices eh! Only tourists can afford that, tho I have heard of $700 oz's on Waiheke Is. The hippie days long gone.

Apparently 80% of New Zealanders are using meth.
And thats just to get thru the work week. hahahahahahahahahaha
The straighties must be…

Francisco Blaha

Wed, 01 May 2019 16:50:48 +1200

"people hoovering up the last of their coke before getting on a plane"

Mhh... not the best of the ideas... as anyone that flies a lot in Latin American regional and domestic airlines may be able to attest

Sacha

Wed, 01 May 2019 16:50:35 +1200

Apparently 80% of New Zealanders are using meth.

and they are bathing in it, at that quantity.

linger

Wed, 01 May 2019 16:10:21 +1200

In really mindblowingly huge quantities, too, if taken literally.

(“This is your news. This is your news on drugs. Any questions?”)

There is, at least, a more accurate rendition two paragraphs up, though: i.e., the data covers a total of 80% of the population, and that subset has a total…

Russell Brown

Wed, 01 May 2019 15:50:59 +1200

Oh. Dear. From Martin van Beynen's report in The Press. Apparently 80% of New Zealanders are using meth.

Richard Stewart

Wed, 01 May 2019 13:54:52 +1200

Yes, media accuracy is often absent when it comes to drugs.

Like the report in Stuff yesterday about the French tourists caught with a large amount of Cannabis in their car:

"Police went to the scene and found the two men and 2.43kg of cannabis in one ounce bags.
The…

Russell Brown

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:47:58 +1200

Shame that alcohol is metabolised into sugar and in turn stored as stomach fat, they'll have to rely on the official sales figures to work out how much is drunk, instead of sniffing about in people's poo.

Shame it was deliberately left out of the Drug Harm Index, along with…

tussock

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:43:12 +1200

Almost like if we just regulated everything, we'd know how much was used.…

Russell Brown

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:27:55 +1200

Feedback from Know Your Stuff ...

As suspected, no, Alpha-PVP is not a big issue. It was found in one of 445 samples in the 2017-18 season and was one of 29 cathinones detected. They found n-ethyl pentylone far more often.

Their guess is that Alpha-PVP was the scary and…

Russell Brown

Wed, 01 May 2019 12:23:39 +1200

Yet brace yourself for most media leading with the angle that drugs are harm.

They all pose some harm, but I think running it through our Drug Harm Index doesn't tell us anything very useful. It's more a way of justifying budgets.

Sacha

Wed, 01 May 2019 11:44:08 +1200

it's not really a meaningful thing to report

Yet brace yourself for most media leading with the angle that drugs are harm.

linger

Wed, 01 May 2019 11:37:33 +1200

N.B. Moa Point is the site of one of Wellington’s main sewage outfalls: those figures are just as likely to cover the CBD as anything happening in Miramar.

Russell Brown

Wed, 01 May 2019 11:07:53 +1200

Some other data: a ranking of countries by past-year incidence of cannabis use.

New Zealand is ranked ninth, just ahead of ... Greenland?

Public Address

Wed, 01 May 2019 11:07:53 +1200

Discussion from blog post.