Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: What would a harm reduction strategy look like now?

James George

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:21:49 +1200

"harm reduction' is so 1980's. It takes me back to the good old days when Bob Hawke and co used to fund injecting drug users conferences at the Melbourne Sheraton – complete with in house dealer.

These cliches mask the huge intrusion upon human rights that criminalisation of people's right…

Russell Brown

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 18:33:37 +1200

None of this is to say we should have an unregulated market. Freedom to use does not require an unfettered freedom of access to purchase, we need to be sensible about distribution and promotion.

For the same reason that the British parliament passed the Adulteration of Tea Act in 1776.…

Russell Brown

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 18:27:25 +1200

We need to talk about promoting safety not “harm reduction”.

I think the message settled on "harm reduction" as a consequence of the recognition that there is no perfect safety. Indeed, it's a good thing that the legislation says "a low risk of harm" rather than "safe". Even caffeine isn't…

mark taslov

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 13:51:07 +1200

I guess another question would be:

None of this is to say we should have an unregulated market. Freedom to use does not require an unfettered freedom of access to purchase, we need to be sensible about distribution and promotion. The nicotine model of availability in every dairy/supermarket/service station is…

mark taslov

Fri, 17 Apr 2015 14:56:43 +1200

The first thing we need to do is to stop using the language of prohibition. To speak of “harm reduction” is to be colonised in the head by the War on Drugs.

Great suggestions Mikaere. I’m not politically minded enough to discredit the process you outlined. From my limited perspective…

Mikaere Curtis

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:17:29 +1200

Indeed the framing of the question begs what I see as half the problem.
Very true. The first thing we need to do is to stop using the language of prohibition. To speak of “harm reduction” is to be colonised in the head by the War on Drugs. Nobody talks…

BenWilson

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 17:06:39 +1200

You can fix this two ways. One is the Sue Bradford section 59 approach, which is to use an elite consensus to ram a change down peoples throats, or you can work with the government and the medical profession to lay the groundwork for the publics acceptance of the need…

Tom Semmens

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:40:32 +1200

why is it that the media in general [&the political class] are unable to have an honest indepth cost/benefit discourse about drug policy

I think you'll find that amongst the elites in the media and political class there is (in private) a general appetite for sane drug reform. But the police,…

david westcot

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:02:30 +1200

why is it that the media in general [&the political class] are unable to have an honest indepth cost/benefit discourse about drug policy – we know – talking actual evidence here – that psychoactives like weed ,pure MDMA ,psilocybin & mescaline are far less dangerous than alchohol. What a pitiful state of…

Murray Hewitt

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:15:25 +1200

Only a quarter of people who submitted their purchases for testing actually had what they thought they had.

Anecdotally, I would assume close to 100% of my dak-smoking friends are actually smoking dak.

Rae Sott

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:17:07 +1200

The audience they play to is the same one that is baying for the blood of the two Australians in Bali, who will never even try to consider that drugs should possibly be considered a medical rather than a legal issue.
The human race has sought out mind altering substances…

Russell Brown

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:53:31 +1200

One small blessing of the Psychoactive Substances Act is in its penalty provisions.

Possession remains illegal, but incurs only a $500 "infringement fee". (Labour's Iain Lees-Galloway unsuccessfully argued for a zero penalty.) Even possession of large quantities for supply incurs a maximum two years imprisonment.

By contrast, drugs listed under…

Tom Semmens

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:06:36 +1200

I think it's about time to face the fact that the psychoactive substances act is a complete failure, except in one sense. I have always held that the act was never supposed to work, and the regulatory regime was simply a chimera designed to allow bulk banning of legal highs…

BenWilson

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:04:57 +1200

It would help, even with retail testing kits.

What kind of things can they test for? I guess you're meaning this for illegal drugs. Legal drugs should have been tested in the factory and list the ingredients on the packaging, like they do in the chemist, and in foods.

In…

Russell Brown

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:28:41 +1200

Should partygoers be able to safely test their pills before popping them?

Well that’s a bit impractical unless we’re talking about giving them all chemistry degrees and access to testing kit suites.

I mean testing services at dance parties and festivals. It would help, even with retail testing kits.

Russell Brown

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:26:39 +1200

Legislative approval of these other substances, and calling them “legal highs”, looked like cynical profiteering, at the expense of cannabis users, by everyone involved. That they were subsequently, effectively banned has only made matters worse, as you rightly pointed out on The Nation, Russell.

It's important to recognise what actually…

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:15:06 +1200

It’s less harmful than any of the chemical substitutes, and the ‘fatal’ dose has been estimated at about 30 kilos… from a height of ten metres.

I'm pretty sure I'd survive being hit by 30 kilos of cannabis even from 10m. I'd raise my hands into Hallelujah position and let…

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:06:32 +1200

And I've yet to see/read a single good report about synthetics. As drugs go, they're down there at the evil end of the bucket.

Well you don't tend to get news about people not having some terrible thing happen to them on synthetic cannabis. You don't get interviews of Peter…

BenWilson

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:50:06 +1200

what would a harm reduction strategy look like now? Not in five or 10 years, but now?

What actions would a harm reduction approach prescribe?

Can I clarify the parameters of the question? Are you talking about a strategy that the government could follow right now, given that they had…

Alfie

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 18:12:43 +1200

Any national drug strategy which doesn't include legal cannabis is a waste of time and doomed to fail.
Hear hear!

Matt Bowden's optimistically named 'drug safety testing' site sounds like there might be even an element of public good involved. But that's not necessarily the reality.

Coincidentally we ran into…

william blake

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 16:39:52 +1200

http://psychoactives.health.govt.nz/industry/how-get-product-approved

Alcohol products certainly wouldn't get approval under the testing regime.

Sandy Mulqueen

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:50:38 +1200

The best harm reduction strategy has to start with legalising cannabis. Ignoring this truth has caused most of our problems.
Education programs have to be evidence based to be credible and trusted. If the truth about cannabis isn't told, all other information becomes suspect.
The continued prohibition of well-researched and…

Mark Lloyd

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:43:43 +1200

I simply wanted to smash the TV screen I was that frustrated at Lisa's constant attempts at putting words into Matt's mouth.

Shocking performance IMHO

Aint particularly a massive fan of Matt but why ridicule someone that is actually trying to find an answer to the problem and seems on…

bob daktari

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:30:38 +1200

It all comes down to education – reduce the harm before it happens

Some open, honest and credible literature that clearly points out in lay terms what a user can experience from the substances they choose to take, plus the pros and cons of the substance in question

Training for…

Ross Bell

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:11:28 +1200

In this paper, the author, Toby Seddon, argues we should embrace those online markets and include them as part of a overall new way of agile regulations (I paraphrase).

I think these sites are really quite useful ( as you've written about recently too, Russell), and should…

Public Address

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:11:28 +1200

Discussion from blog post.