Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to Brent Jackson,
Like alcohol then …
More addictive, more severe effects on both physical and mental health from sustained use. You can drink every day for decades. You can’t smoke meth every day for decades without serious consequences.
This is not to dismiss the huge social harms of alcohol abuse, of course.
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Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
urther, the main pharmacological problem with methamphetamine is that, unlike most drugs (which burn when heated) it’s smokable. Which gives a faster rush and more of a psychological problem. People (Hitler, pilots, schoolkids with ADHD) who confine themselves to ingestion or snorting have fewer problems witb it.
Yes, I cover that in the episode. I'm surprised more isn't made of it in drug treatment circles. The step-change when it became a glass pipe drug was the start of the real problems.
The real problem, however, is that there are a lot of desperate, screwed up people around, who’ve often been socialised into violence.
I had a couple of friends lose the plot with meth, neither of them were violent. But they definitely had a problem, to the extent that I actually had to ask them not to come around any more.
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Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to andin,
Could stay up all night drinking and never feel drunk, never felt violent tho and never wanted to go out, was quite happy where I was especially if at home. And that was my experience with it, which is in the past now.
Yeah, and there are plenty of people like you. But the overall rate and nature of problematic use is a real showstopper.
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Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to Farmer Green,
A drug is not evil: even methamphetamine has a very limited useful role in medicine.
Yes, I make that point in the episode: it's a chemical, no more innately evil than salt or water.
Its medical use is, as you say, very limited now, largely because it's more neurotoxic than comparable amphetamines.
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Hard News: Do e-bikes ease traffic…, in reply to Moz,
One things that helps a lot in Sydney is lifts at railway stations. They put them in officially for wheelchair accessibility, but they work well for bikes that are too heavy to carry up stairs. It makes mixed-mode travel much more practical, if it’s raining, or late at night, you just jump on the train.
Ah, that does sound handy.
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Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode, in reply to Mark Graham,
The way it was reported on RNZ this morning made me think West Akl police are not going to prosecute low level dealing and use but I missed the offer of treatment.
I think they overcooked the angle a little – what Stan Brown said was that they don’t necessarily prosecute small-time supply. I’m impressed by their willingness to have a relationship with these people, rather than just throwing them to the courts. There’s also the very practical dimension of the time and resources such prosecutions use up.
I note in the episode that what this all leans toward is the decriminalisation through which Portugal turned around its terrible heroin problem. But you’re not going to get that at a legislative level – because politicians have to say that drugs are bad and the law will never change – so you’ll left with other parts of the system doing their best.
Russ – how do you think this changes the perception of meth? I always saw it as one of the truly evil drugs (never used, never exposed to it) with a genuine probability of addiction.
Doesn’t a softening of approach demonstrate yet again the folly of a ‘Reefer Madness’-type demonisation of a recreational drug and therefore undermine any attempt at control as people realise they’re being lied to again?
I don’t think so. It’s a matter of doing what makes sense. Even describing it as “softening” frames it in an unhelpful way. It’s not about being hard or soft, but about doing the right thing.
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Hard News: Do e-bikes ease traffic…, in reply to Eediot,
Despite my reluctance to support a sponsored post I did click the link but got a 401
Fixed now. The page moved.
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Hard News: From Zero: Drugs and popular culture, in reply to Grant McDougall,
This is pretty good, too:
Oh, true! I forgot all about that!
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Dennis Frank,
“When Clinton became secretary of state, the foundation signed an agreement with the White House to disclose all of its contributors. It didn’t follow through.” So top democrats can’t even honour the agreements they sign with each other. No wonder voters think they can’t be trusted to run the country.
And this just in ...
A Ukrainian steel magnate, Victor Pinchuk, paid $150,000 to Donald Trump’s charity to book the then-presidential candidate to speak via satellite at a conference held in Kiev in the early days of the presidential campaign.
“Victor is a very, very special man. A special entrepreneur,” Trump told the gathering.
In September 2015, when Pinchuk paid the money to Trump’s charitable foundation, the Ukrainian billionaire was also one of the largest donors to the Clinton Foundation. The payment to the Trump Foundation went undisclosed until this week, when it surfaced on newly-filed tax records for Donald Trump’s charitable foundation, raising alarms from some of the Clintons' most vocal critics.
“I think it is troubling,” said Peter Schweizer, author of the book Clinton Cash, which documented the blending of the Clinton’s charitable and political interests. “He’s somebody that donated to the Clinton Foundation, and this is a problem…I think there's no other way to read it other than they are hoping to get some favor in return.”
I think it's fair to say that the Clinton Foundation did at least save millions of lives and does now publish a donor list.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Rich Lock,
My point is that while it might be superficially and in theory an extremely attractive proposition to set some sort of eligibility test for voting, and exclude those deemed incompetent by way of stupidity and/or ignorance, in practice it’s hugely dubious.
It certainly is.
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