I sense an impending ban on the so-called “legal highs”. Get stockpiling, synthapeeps!
‘Cuz if you don’t stock up now, you’ll be kicking your wicked habits sooner rather than later!
The witch burning anti-synthetics brigade has gone into overdrive!
Someone pressed the moral panic button!
Seventeen-year-old Jesse Murray is the face of synthetic high addiction!
He’s an engaging, bright, polite young man, who is horribly addicted to synthetic cannabis!
Legal high habit takes teen to rock bottom
Each morning, 17-year-old Jesse Murray wakes on his cardboard mattress in Christchurch’s hidden haunts and walks the streets, spitting into a white, bloodstained tissue before arriving at his destination.
His days are dictated by the opening and closing hours of the nearest legal high shop.
If he has the money, he will hand over anything between $25 and $80 a day – money he has begged for.
Despite it being illegal for him to purchase the drug because of his age, sometimes, out of sympathy, the storekeepers give it to him for free.
Watch this interview by Campbell Live reporter Jendy Harper and tell me that young Jesse Murray doesn’t have a great acting career ahead of him … if he can stay off the synthacrack!
But srsly. The unfortunate fact is that Jesse’s experience isn’t uncommon. (“Each time he tried to quit he began to vomit blood and convulse.”) Here’s a story left in the comments section on the 3 News website. It’s typical of many that I’ve read or heard.
Coming off synthetic cannabis is by far harder than coming off others drugs such as weed or P. Well in my experience any way. I had smoked weed for years. Done P too ! Quite often all together. Then once all that got to hard to find I started smoking synthetic. Worst mistake I every made. I got hooked fast. I was rolling joints to smoke at work. Walking down to Cosmic corner in my lunch break. I couldn’t stop. If I did I would get hot flushes, rage would fill me and I’d explode. One day I realised I couldn’t continue and locked myself in my bathroom for a week while coming off the stuff. It was literally the worst week of my life. I’ve never suffered such horrible symptoms before. I fear for those who still smoke the stuff.
This is a PR disaster for both the legal highs industry and those promoting the Psychoactive Substances Act as the pathway to sensible drug law reform. It was an error of judgement on the part of us drug law reformers not to speak out against the legal highs industry taking up the government’s offer to allow the ongoing sale of existing products for the duration of an extended interim period. We should have recognised that leaving 15 novel, untested synthetic cannabinoids on the market was an unacceptable risk.
The industry now looks to be shut down, if not by this government before the election, then by the next coalition government after the election. Winston Peters looks set to be “kingmaker” once again, and his NZ First Party has already jumped on the banwagon.
There is one remaining opportunity for the legal highs industry to reclaim the moral high ground and that opportunity is now. Voluntarily recall all your products! Before Peter Dunne cracks under the cognitive dissonance and bans all the substances.
to attach itself to cannabis law reform like some long-lost baby brother is the sort of desperate parasitism one expects of a mentality on its way out.
Legal highs: wtf were we thinking?
It was very interesting listening to the two National party MP and Two Labour MPs at the Legal high protests in Hamilton last week.
They all expressed a personal dislike for Legal highs and a desire for them to ‘disappear’ yet none of them backed away from saying the PSA was the best policy, or that total prohibition was the Answer.
They defended the PSA.
Quite an amazing pragmatic appreciation…. which went down like a lead balloon with the lynch mob…. and I give these MP’s Due credit for their honesty on the Day.
Only John Banks opposed the Bill.
I don’t see Labour repealing it.
There will probably be newbies standing who will attempt to ride the phobia wave into Parliament, and no doubt some of the Status quo… like Peters will no doubt think it is expedient for them to reverse their earlier support, yet I think you are mistaken of you think the PSA is going anywhere.
They say it is ‘working’ because it passes the buck to local council to restrict distribution,… relieving *them* of the political hot potato, and they say it is proving successful…. because it is drastically slashing the number of products available…. and because now the have a ready made system to ‘deal’ with new substances as they arrive.
Legal highs need to be taken off the shelves. The product is harmful at best and serves no purpose in the community. Biggest problem is the fact that there is no middle ground. You either smoke it consistently or you don’t. If you find yourself among the people that smoke it then the rapid onset of harm this drug causes (inconsistently from person to person) will literally fuck you up. Its inconsistency will make any short term medical study pointless, so suggesting that some how a responsible medical professional, is expected to test the drugs and somehow provide assurance that its safe is another joke.
Secondly, all i have seen in the media is how kids are effected. well that’s another fucking joke because i know of multiple 75+ year olds that spend their pensions on that shit religiously, not to mention the bulk of my pairs, aged between 25 – 35 that are working professionals that actually have real money to spend, wasting upwards of $300 a week on legals and their symptoms are far worse than 17 year old Jessie, yet they are too embarrassed to seek medical advice.
In summary, how can you be sure that you are really in control of your own actions? I have done things WAY out of my own character to get legal highs, fueled by a constant inner physical dependency that governed my every thought. But at the time, thinking i was well within the “limits” of my moral behavior. I was risking prison for a fix. Do we really want a product on the shelves that has the potential to render otherwise upstanding members of the community, into thieving mindless zombies?
fuck the prohibition debate, there are more important issues than pondering the possible problems that we face if we ban it.
Well, I think it is blown out of proportion, it’s like this with every new kind of “easily addictive activity”. It’s all about control, not total ban. Same with using this stuff, if you can moderate yourself whilst smoking these kind of substances you should seek medical help or at least help from your friends or family. It’s all about the will. I’ve been using this “synthcrack” on and off for the last two years. I have noticed no adverse side effects, which I would not get from smoking regular weed, cigarettes and consuming alcohol. In fact, if you use it moderately, you can quit anytime you want with only one night of restless sleep, still more than 5 hours every time in my case. And reduced appetite for a day or day and a half. And when I stop smoking the bud, I have troubles sleeping for at least three days, although appetite loss is not apparent. I have been smoking weed for 8 years, with the longest break of maybe 3 week time, before I found synths.