Category Archives: Jihad on Drugs™
The National government is criminally insane
Yesterday’s post was about a Cosmic Corner brand of fake cannabis. Back in July 2011, Juicy Puff was suddenly ordered off the shelves by the government and temporarily removed from sale after it was found to be contaminated with phenazepam.
Here’s what Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne had to say at the time. (Emphasis mine.)
DRUG REFORM ON THE WAY
Associate Minister Peter Dunne today said finding phenazepam in a second product within a week reinforced the problem of suppliers being able to put unregulated drugs on the market.
“The people in this industry are generally not trustworthy or reliable,” he said.
“They are fast-buck merchants who, on the one hand claim to be offering a legal and safe alternative to illicit drugs, then throw their hands in the air and say they do not know what is in their products when our testing catches them out.
“They cannot have it both ways.”
Dunne said restrictions that would curb the marketing and advertising of synthetic cannabis products were just weeks away, and would be made through amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act.
“In the longer term the solution we are looking at is reversing the onus of proof and making the manufacturers and suppliers prove their products are safe before they get anywhere near the market.
Currently, authorities have to prove such products were unsafe before they could be taken off the market. “We are doing that successfully, but it is not an ideal process. It is cart before horse and the restrictions that will come in the next few weeks are an important step in addressing these issues.”
The following month, in August 2011, Parliament voted to pass the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act (No 2) 2011. This amendment enabled Peter Dunne to start issuing temporary drug bans called Temporary Class Drug Notices.
Remember how Peter Dunne sold us the follow-up Psychoactive Substances Act?
Here‘s what he told the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs when he took the world stage in Vienna, Austria earlier in 2013. (Emphasis mine.)
While we have placed more than 30 synthetic cannabis-like substances under temporary bans, but we are aware that there are potentially hundreds more that could replace them.
Last month, the New Zealand Government introduced new legislation into our Parliament that will end the game of catch-up once and for all.
We are going to reverse the onus of proof so the manufacturers of these products have to prove they are safe before they can bring them on to the market.
He said the same thing in 2012. It’s what he’s said all along, time and again. In his capacity as a Cabinet minister. On behalf of the New Zealand government. (Emphasis mine. Click the banner below for the official statement from the Beehive.)
As promised, we are reversing the onus of proof. If they cannot prove that a product is safe, then it is not going anywhere near the marketplace
None of these products will come to market if they have not been proven safe.
I think I’ve said enough to establish beyond reasonable doubt that Peter Dunne, the National government’s Associate Minister of Health, promised us this on behalf of the current National government.
Would you feel happy purchasing and consuming a product that had been proven safe? Many of you will answer, yes. What reason do you have to think the products now on the market are safe? Well, none of the products now on the market would be on the market if they hadn’t been proven safe, right? The National government promised us that that simply wouldn’t happen.
But the government has broken its promise. None of the products now on the market have been proven safe. None of the products now on the market has been tested. They are only now being tested. On you, the consumer. And some of the products the government approved for sale have since been proven unsafe.
Is it morally right to test untested drugs on people after promising them that they’ve already been tested and proven safe? Is it morally right to test untested drugs on people after first having obtained their misinformed consent? It’s certainly not legal.
Here’s Section 10 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.
Right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation
Every person has the right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without that person’s consent.
The National government is in breach of the Act. Someone should take these conscienceless psychopaths to court. They’re criminally insane.
What’s the damage? Kidney failure is the damage. A government approved product called Kryptonite has caused some test subjects to experience
Kryptonite: Kidney failure, hallucinations, vomiting, chest pains.
This according to the Dominion Post.
Back when it was still on the official records, and approved for sale from approved outlets, this is what the MoH told us about Kryptonite.
Product name Psychoactive substance(s) Quantity Company name Physical address Status Interim product approval number Kryptonite Red SGT-7 25mg per gram Lightyears Ahead Limited Unit 4/24, Airborne Road, Albany, Auckland Under consideration P0058 Kryptonite Green SGT-19 40mg per gram Lightyears Ahead Limited Unit 4/24, Airborne Road, Albany, Auckland Under consideration P0059
What are SGT-7 and SGT-19? The Ministry of Health has never told us, and neither have the manufacturers or suppliers, even though Section 58 the Psychoactive Substances Act says
Restrictions and requirements relating to labelling of approved products
…
(2) A label for an approved product must include the following information in a prominent position on the label:
(a) a list of the active ingredients of the product and the appropriate quantity of each active ingredient;
But the Ministry of Health has let slip (here) that SGT-7 is
ADB-CHICA
and SGT-19 is
4-fluoro-AM2201
So now you know. No, wait …
You’ve never previously heard of ADB-CHICA or 4-fluoro-AM2201, right? Well, neither have I, and neither has Google. We still don’t know WTF-7 and WTF-19 they are.
Suppose that someone other than the manufacturers and the Ministry of Obfuscation knew the chemical identities (structures) of these substances? Could they have reasonably guessed that they would cause serious adverse effects such as kidney failure? Well, it’s reasonable to think so. Indeed, I sounded the alarm here a few months ago.
The compound on the left is AB-005 which has interim approval. The compound on the right is XLR-11 which was banned as from 13 July 2012 by Peter Dunne. They are structurally similar. They are analogues.
The problem here is that XLR-11 has been linked to acute kidney injury in some users. Now the Ministry of “Health” has seen fit to approve an analogue of a suspected kidney toxin for human use. But it’s legal so it must be safe, right? Yeah right.
But it turns out there’s a problem in my reasoning. You see, we can take an educated guess that analogues of known nephrotoxins are quite likely unsafe. But we don’t know which structural similarities count. Some wise heads in the online drug-using community have suggested that the culprit is not the backbone of the XLR-11 molecule (i.e., the ring structures) but the fluoropentyl side-chain. And there’s at least three products with interim approval that contain a fluoropentyl side-chain, viz., 5F-PB-22, (S)-N-(1-amino-3, 3dimethyl-1-oxobutan-2-yl)-1-(5-fluoropentyl-1H-indole-3-carboxamide and 1-(5-fluoropentyl)-3-(4-fluoro-1-naphthoyl)indole.
However, in the event it’s none of the suspects above that have so far caused kidney failure in some users. It’s one or both of ADB-CHICA or 4-fluoro-AM2201. And what this means is that we cannot make a reasonable educated guess as to which synthetic cannabinoids are possible nephrotoxins. They’re all suspect.
The National government is conducting medical experiments on New Zealand citizens without their informed consent. Really, they’re only one step away from the Tuskagee syphilis experiment and two steps away from the Nazi human experimentation of Josef Mengele.
Never again!
The National government is criminally insane. And must be stopped.
Ministry of Dissimulation
Dissimulation is the truth and nothing but the truth. But it’s not the whole truth.
Dissimulation is a form of deception in which one conceals the truth. It consists of concealing the truth, or in the case of half-truths, concealing parts of the truth, like inconvenient or secret information. Dissimulation differs from simulation, in which one exhibits false information.
Now there’s nothing wrong with forgetting to mention key facts. But there’s something very wrong with intentionally omitting to mention them for one’s own nefarious purposes. That’s dishonesty.
Remember Juicy Puff?
It is, or was, a Cosmic Corner brand of fake cannabis. It has an interesting history. Back in July 2011 it was suddenly ordered off the shelves by the government and removed from sale .
A company ordered by the Ministry of health today to remove a legal alternative to cannabis says it had no idea it contained a prescription drug.
Director-general of health Kevin Woods ordered Cosmic Corner Limited today not to sell Juicy Puff Super Strength because it contained a benzodiazepine called phenazepam.
The same medicine was found in Kronic Pineapple Express ordered off the shelves by the government on Thursday.
Dr Woods said phenazepam could only be legally supplied when prescribed by a doctor or other prescriber.
It was not available in New Zealand and used only in one country for the short-term treatment of anxiety and as an anticonvulsant.
Phenazepam is an obscure benzodiazapine. So obscure, in fact, that many countries have not gotten around to making it illegal. So it is readily available online from legal high suppliers. The same suppliers who supply the synthetic cannabinoid(s) that are the active ingredients in fake cannabis products such as Juicy Puff!
However, the company said it was only a retailer of the product and did not manufacture or import the product.
Company spokesman, Mark Carswell said Juicy Puff Super Strength was one synthetic cannabinoid blend out of the fifteen sold by Cosmic to have been contaminated by a small amount, 240 parts per million, of the prescription medicine phenazepam.
The product had been purchased in good faith from an Auckland firm, London Underground, he said.
“Juicy Puff Super Strength is not intended to contain phenazepam, and Cosmic was not aware that it contained phenazepam.”
Cosmic would cooperate with the Ministry of Health to ensure a safe and efficient recall, Mr Carswell said.
People should return all unused Juicy Puff Super Strength product to any Cosmic store and they would be given a store credit.
Industry leaders would meet on Monday to consider a code of practice incorporating a testing standards to ensure materials were screened for contaminants.
It was a clear case of contamination. (Warning: May contain traces of nuts phenazepam.)
Of course, Juicy Puff was soon back on the shelves. Minus the phenazepam. Also, I expect its active ingredient(s) changed from time to time over the next couple of years, each time Peter Dunne banned its active ingredient(s) at the time with a Temporary Class Drug Notice.
Does Duncan Garner remember Juicy Puff?!
If the existence of idiots who ignore simple instructions, well-intentioned advice and plain old common sense is a sufficient reason to ban a psychoactive product, then Garner made a convincing case! Perhaps that was his intent. Duncan Garner is a prohibitionist. Whereas spokesman for the legal highs industry, Grant Hall, also smoked the product on camera at Radio Live. Recreationally. No worries.
That was back in May this year. By that time, and since, the active ingredient in Juicy Puff was, and has been, AB-FUBINACA.
Do I remember Juicy Puff?
I certainly do. It was one of my favourite fake cannabis brands. AB-FUBINACA is one of the best synthetic cannabinoids out there. It’s very trippy. You only need ONE toke of the stuff and you’re stoned as! (Someone should have told Duncan Garner.) In my experience, another couple of tokes will get you a bit more stoned, but after that don’t bother. The effects of the drug seem to have a ceiling. Also, tolerance builds very rapidly. And it leaves a truly disgusting chemical taste in your mouth. For flavour, the naturally occurring terpenes in cannabis can’t be beat. In fact, smoking herbal cannabis is a better, safer experience in all respects.
Cannabis can get you through times of no money better than money can get you through times of no cannabis. But in times of no cannabis, I’ve sometimes gone into Cosmic Corner and scored myself some Juicy Puff. But last time I went to buy some Juicy Puff at Cosmic Corner it wasn’t there. I asked Cosmic Corner where it had gone, but they were unforthcoming with any information other than confirming that it had gone.
Does the Ministry of Health remember Juicy Puff?
I figured that if it had been banned, the Ministry of Health would have notified us of the fact on their Interim product approvals web page.
In the past, when products given interim approval have subsequently had their interim approvals revoked, they’ve been *cut* from the page section headed Interim product approvals and *pasted* into the page section below headed Interim product approvals refused and revoked. Minus the information about the identity of the now banned active ingredient and its quantity. Why would the MoH delete that information?
But this time, it’s worse. Juicy Puff has altogether *disappeared* from the MoH web page. It’s not just that the Ministry has acted to conceal the identity of the active ingredient in Juicy Puff and its quantity. They’ve acted to conceal the fact that Juicy Puff ever existed!
Do you think I’m being paranoid? Well, recently I’ve been worrying a lot that I’m being paranoid. I figure that means that either I’m paranoid or I have an anxiety disorder. Either way, I’m not a well man. But I digress.
It came to my attention recently that Juicy Puff has, in fact, been banned or discontinued. Well, it has according to the Dominion Post, and here’s why.
Juicy Puff: Unconsciousness, seizures.
I think I know why Juicy Puff is gone from the official records. Back when it was still on the official records, and available to buy from Cosmic Corner, this is what the MoH told us about Juicy Puff.
Product name Psychoactive substance(s) Quantity Company name Physical address Status Interim product approval number Juicy Puff AB-FUBINACA 30mg per gm Cosmic Corner Limited 26-28 Essex Street, Christchurch 8006 Under consideration P0035
This is what the MoH tells us now about nine other products still on the market.
Product name Psychoactive substance(s) Quantity Company name Physical address Status Interim product approval number Apocalypse AB-Fubinaca 100mg/g Eversons International Ltd 5 Fitzroy Place, Christchurch Licence issued P0005 Outbreak AB-Fubinaca 100mg/g Eversons International Ltd 5 Fitzroy Place, Christchurch Licence issued P0006 illusion Peak AB-FUBINACA 40mg per gm Platinum Marketing Limited c/o Shieff Angland, P O Box 2180, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140 Licence issued P0026 Amsterdam Havana Special AB-FUBINACA 35mg per gm Platinum Marketing Limited c/o Shieff Angland, P O Box 2180, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140 Licence issued P0028 Blueberry Crush AB-FUBINACA 35mg per gm Platinum Marketing Limited c/o Shieff Angland, P O Box 2180, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140 Licence issued P0031 Tai High Bubble Berry AB-FUBINACA 45mg per gm Herbal Exports Limited P O Box 305062, Triton Plaza, Auckland 0757 Licence issued P0044 Master Kush AB-FUBINACA 45mg per gm Herbal Exports Limited P O Box 305062, Triton Plaza, Auckland 0757 Licence issued P0046 Lemon Grass AB-FUBINACA 40mg per gm Orbital Distribution Ltd 8 Cranwell St, Henderson, Auckland Licence issued P0051 Choco Haze AB-FUBINACA 40mg per gm Orbital Distribution Ltd 8 Cranwell St, Henderson, Auckland Licence issued P0052
Yes, that’s right. ALL contain the active ingredient AB-FUBINACA. All contain the active ingredient in amounts per gram GREATER than the amount per gram contained in Juicy Puff.
I put it to you that the Ministry of Dissimulation doesn’t want us to know that NINE products whose approval they haven’t revoked contain the very same ingredient—that purportedly causes UNCONSCIOUSNESS and SEIZURES—in amounts per gram greater than the one product whose approval has gone.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” (NIV)
See also Ministry of Stupid.
LEAP NZ Law Enforcement against Prohibition. New Zealand.
Hat tip… Dakta Green
Ross Meurant: The case for decriminalisation.
What simply does not work is the system of severe penalties for producing, transhipping and selling substances deemed illegal.
During my first four years as a National MP I initiated four policy papers, three of which were ultimately embraced as party policy.
But the fourth, to legalise drugs, failed miserably.
By the time I articulated my views on this subject in my second book, The Beat to the Beehive, I had wimped out under internal National Party pressure and merely articulated a case to study, in depth, the consequences of legalising cannabis, and to consider changes in that direction.
Privately I argued all dope should be decriminalised and now, 10 years later, I believe the evidence I gathered is as valid as ever. My case in 1990 was based on research done during my last few years in the police. As an inspector and university student I had high-level access to police data and an academic interest in drug crime.
The research suggested that perhaps 50 per cent of all crime in New Zealand was drug related. The data – which I collected in the Auckland police cells and extrapolated as a hypothesis across the country – covered arrests for importing; supply; possession for supply; thefts, burglaries and robberies for drugs or money to buy drugs. Possession for self-use brought up the rear.
It was obvious that a high percentage of serious crime – such as bank robberies, kidnappings and serious assaults – had a drug-related theme.
Gangs needed ready cash to make down-payments on large imported caches, addicts needed cash to feed their habits. Then there was gang warfare over territorial distribution rights and retribution over payments not made.
It occurred to me that the police workload might be reduced substantially if the drugs people fought over, killed for, and died protecting, were dispensed through government-licensed outlets – just like alcohol.
It would be possible to establish the names of all who entered government-licensed stores to make legal purchase of substances we presently deem illegal.
This record of “users”, those who used hard drugs such as heroin, could be placed on a register for treatment and counselling from health professionals.
Drug addiction, like alcoholism, is a sickness. It should not be treated as a crime – although penalties for abuse in a public place would be part of the armoury of the state to protect other citizens from those who took drugs lawfully but caused a nuisance. This is what happens now with alcohol.
The question of young people being vulnerable is no more potent a concern with drugs than with alcohol.
Alcohol has an impact on perhaps 75 per cent of crime, and much road carnage. It is not good for your health, nor does it have spin-off benefits for the community.
Yet we as a society tolerate continued advertising of alcohol as a desirable cultural characteristic – and why? I suggest it is the power of the brewery lobby and the recognition that prohibition simply won’t work.
The best way to control alcohol use by young people is not to make it unobtainable but to impose draconian penalties for misuse, particularly where the effects of misuse are manifest in a public place or impact adversely on others.
Zero tolerance with drink-driving for people under 28 is my start point. Overnight in a police cell for street drunkenness is another bottom line.
The rationale being: abuse of a substance lawfully available is where the penalties should fall and not on supply or possession, which effectively stimulates a black market and underworld.
This same rationale I suggest could be applied to drug use.
What simply does not work is the system of severe penalties for producing, transhipping and selling substances deemed illegal. Whether it be the death penalty, life imprisonment or examples of many past and present profile cases where mere “mules” let alone people higher up the supply chain are imprisoned in foreign jails with terrifying reputations.
All these and other attempts to prohibit possession and use of drugs through a punitive approach to the supply line have failed.
Instead, the policy has spawned drug barons with the wealth to own private armies which deliver terror to the doorsteps of politicians, judges and police and by this corruption govern entire states de facto.
At the same time, the impact of the drug trade on the world economy is massive.
Recently, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged that the international war on drugs had failed.
Others suggested that the international community (a euphemism for “someone else – not me”) revisit the question of legalisation.
It is my contention that the pain to society of trying to protect a minority from themselves is disproportionate to the benefits to society.
* Ross Meurant is a former MP and drug squad detective.
Un-ask-able questions… Police Brutality: When should you shoot a Cop?
This video not only highlights the blatant criminality of police violence agianst protesters, party goers, etc, but also reminds me of the Cannibals case of Jan Molenaar who fired on New Zealand Police officers executing a ‘routine’ cannabis search warrant at his house at 41 Chaucer Road, killing Senior Constable Len Snee and seriously injuring Senior Constables Bruce Miller and Grant Diver. A neighbour attempting to assist the police was also shot. Read about that >>>here<<<
I was thinking that Pot smokers and their friends, neighbours, and families have become so submissive of peaceful people being violently fucked over by police under the pretence of the 'war on drugs', that we are shocked when One man chooses to defend his own liberty from a corrupt Political tyranny.
Now I am not saying pot smokers should start shooting.
I believe in passive resistance.
Yet lets not confuse who is in the wrong and who is perpetrating violence against whom!
Just by posting this to our site brings the fear of being tagged as 'an extremist' invites the intrusive Evil eye... and phobia of Tyrannical retributions... yet tyranny prevails when good people through terror...say nothing.
I'm a fan of Peaceful activists like Socrates, Jesus, St Paul, Martin Luther King, Gandhi ...Oh wait.... they all got Whacked.
:-(
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Christian Libertarian.
Read more… Police Brutality in ‘God’s Own’
Filthy Bastards: “It was an Accident”. Kim Dotcom Raid.
Prohibition works
Cui bono.
Follow the money.
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (KJV)
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (KJV)
“Prohibition doesn’t work.” You’ve heard it before. I’ve said it before. (See here and here, e.g.) You’ve probably said it before, too. It’s any libertarian and/or drug law reformer’s mantra.
Prohibition doesn’t work. If it did, there wouldn’t be 400,000 New Zealanders who currently use cannabis, and people like Smith to supply. Prohibition has not reduced demand or illegal supply of cannabis. Only a sensible drug policy, such as that promoted by the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, can do that.
Vote ALCP – End the War on Drugs™.
But I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the claim that Prohibition doesn’t work.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Now think for a moment about that. Prohibition doesn’t work… OK. So, what would it be like if Prohibition did work? What’s Prohibition supposed to achieve? What’s Prohibition for? Prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Now, ask yourself, why on earth would you want to do that? Is it any of your business if people are taking drugs? How are you going to stop them?
What’s Prohibition for? The official line is that prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Prohibition manifestly doesn’t do that! That’s why I’m sticking to the official line when I give election speeches. Prohibition doesn’t work!
But what is Prohibition really for? We can find the answer to that by asking what an adaptationist evolutionary biologist would ask when trying to determine the biological function of a phenotypic trait. What has Prohibition done in the past that best explains why we still have it?
Prohibition is for protecting vested interests. Prohibition works.
Prohibition’s time is up. It’s throw a spanner o’clock.
Forbes: Everything You’ve Heard About Crack And Meth Is Wrong
By Jacob Sullum
Growing familiarity with marijuana has been accompanied by growing support for legalization because people discovered through personal experience that the government was lying to them about the drug’s hazards. But it is easier to demonize less popular drugs such as crack cocaine and methamphetamine, which in the public mind are still linked, as marijuana once was, with addiction, madness, and violence. Any attempt to question the use of force in dealing with these drugs therefore must begin by separating reality from horror stories.
That is where Carl Hart comes in. Hart, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Columbia who grew up in one of Miami’s rougher neighborhoods, has done bold, path-breaking research that challenges widely accepted beliefs about crack and meth. In his inspiring and fascinating new memoir High Price, he describes both how he overcame his early disadvantages to secure a tenured position at an Ivy League university and how he came to question everything he thought he knew about drugs as he learned to think critically about the issue.
Before he became a scientist, Hart believed that people who use crack generally get hooked on it and thereby lose control of their behavior. But when he looked at the data on patterns of drug use as an academic, he could plainly see that only a small minority of people who try crack become heavy users. “Even at the peak [of] widespread use,” he writes, “only 10–20 percent of crack cocaine users became addicted.” According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, just 3 percent of Americans who have tried this reputedly irresistible and inescapable drug have smoked it in the last month.
Contrary to what anti-drug ads claim, Hart observes, addiction “is not an equal-opportunity disorder.” He notes that even rats, whose voracious consumption of cocaine in certain contrived conditions supposedly shows how powerfully addictive that drug is, tend to use it in moderation when they have other options, such as food, sex, or an interesting environment to explore.
Crack “gained the popularity that it did in the hood…because there weren’t that many other affordable sources of pleasure and purpose,” Hart writes. “And that was why, despite years of media-hyped predictions that crack’s expansion across classes was imminent, it never ‘ravaged’ the suburbs.”
Furthermore, Hart’s own research with heavy crack smokers found that, in contrast with the stereotypical addict who cannot help but immediately consume whatever crack is available, they frequently rejected the drug in favor of small cash payments or vouchers. He got similar results with meth snorters, even though he deliberately recruited frequent consumers who had no interest in stopping. These findings underline a crucial truth that Hart emphasizes: “The effects of drugs on human behavior and physiology are determined by a complex interaction between the individual drug user and her or his environment.”
Hart debunks various other misconceptions about crack and meth. He notes that the vast majority of violence attributed to crack grew out of black-market disputes, as opposed to the drug’s pharmacological effects. His studies found that cocaine and methamphetamine do increase heart rate and blood pressure, but the effect of typical doses is not dangerous in otherwise healthy people. He argues that research linking meth to brain damage confuses correlation with causation and fails to show that meth users’ cognitive capabilities are outside the normal range. And in case you were wondering, “There is no empirical evidence to support the claim that methamphetamine causes one to become physically unattractive.”
Read more >>>here<<<
*********
Well Shucks!
Do you really think that Bigotry, Paranoia, and Tyranny has been propagating lies about how bad drugs like Meth are to maintain public support for their persecution and grievous oppression of an unpopular minority of Citizens????
Well DRRRRR! OF COURSE THE NASTY BASTARDS HAVE BEEN!
That’s how evil powers justify violating such principles as our personal sovereignty and property rights over our own bodies and our right to peacefully pursue our own happiness… at our own expense.
I salute Carl Hart for his bravery in presenting his observations which challenge the popular prejudices and delusions of the Status quo, and Forbes for running this story.
Evil prevails when good men do nothing.
We need to expose the war on Drugs for the Brutal tyranny and injustice that it is and empty our prisons of innocent people, and remove such revenues streams from the vicious Drug Cartels and gangs… exactly as ending Alcohol prohibition achieved.
Read my blog post >>> The New Jews… Meth Users.
and >>> New Prohibitions. How our Police and Government work for Criminal Gangs.
and >>> Drug users fill New Zealand jails
And >>> What you should know about Drug Prohibition.
And >>> The Child Casualties of the Jihad on Drugs.
And >>> Prohibition is a Bad trip!
And >>> A Transitional Drug Policy
Update: 13-10-14 …
METH HEAD ALERT: Report statest that Hitler used crystal meth
Banning legal highs ‘not core council business’
This is a recent press release from New Zealand’s #1 libertarian.
Banning legal highs ‘not core council business’
“There have been intermittent calls for further government crackdowns on the legal high industry by those involved in local body politics, most recently from the Team Manurewa organisation, who believe New Zealand should emulate steps taken in New South Wales to ban all psychoactive substances. In the interests of harm minimisation, individual freedom and small local government, these calls should be ignored by Auckland Council,” says Stephen Berry.
Berry is right. Crackdowns on the legal high industry are outside the mandate of local government. They’re outside the mandate of national government, too.
“This year the National Government passed pragmatic legislation aimed at maintaining some standards of safety in psychoactive substances. While I have long been on public record as opposing the unrealistic and hypocritical threshold involved in proving a substance to be safe, and continue to maintain that position, I concede that the law did at least set up a framework for these substances to continue to be sold without resorting to the ineffective club of total prohibition.”
It’s a bold concession. This is the same law I have elsewhere described as pure evil. But Berry is right, again. One good thing the Psychoactive Substances Act has done is set up a regulatory framework for the sale and purchase of psychoactive substances.
Actually, it hasn’t. The Act delegates the task of setting up a regulatory framework for the sale and purchase of psychoactive substances to the Ministry of Health, a task that has yet to see completion. While we wait, we have interim product approvals of untested research chemicals. Hopefully, this situation doesn’t contribute to the larger “die while you wait” public health system. (In the event of sudden death, call the National Poisons Centre.)
Actually, it’s not a good thing, either. It’s the lesser evil. A regulatory framework is the best we libertarians can expect. But does it have to be this one, implemented by the Ministry of Stupid? (I’d sooner have one from Colorado, Washington, or even Uruguay. $1 per gram!)
Stephen Berry recognises that some nasty substances have resulted from the legal high industry but claims this is the result of prohibition rather than the legal high industry itself. “New Zealand previously had some relatively safe recreational legal substances in the form of benzyl piperazine and the ingredients in the very earliest forms of cannabis substitutes. Unfortunately a combination of a small number of cases of irresponsible use, coupled with nosey neighbourhood crusaders and a scandal driven media eventually resulted in their ban. As time has gone on, activist pressure has resulted in more products being banned and what has replaced them has often been filthier, nastier and more harmful. Many of the synthetic cannabis products on the market prior to the new laws were harmful because of prohibition rather than because of a lack of it. Indeed there is a strong case for the claim that if relatively benign genuine cannabis were legal, the market for synthetic alternatives would disappear.”
Berry is right that some nasty substances (causing all of the harms listed on the protest placard pictured above) have resulted from the legal high industry and right, again, that this is the result of prohibition rather than the legal high industry itself. As he goes on to illustrate.
I’ve said before that the legal highs industry is caught between a rock and a hard place. Indeed, it is. Thanks to the past prohibitionist policies of the New Zealand government, the only substances the legal highs industry can offer consumers are novel, untested research chemicals about which we as yet know next to nothing. Bring back BZP! And legalise cannabis.
Should the legal highs industry offer consumers novel, untested research chemicals about which we as yet know next to nothing? Because, legally, now they can. ‘Because it was there’ was the reason George Mallory gave for climbing Mount Everest. He disappeared in 1924 attempting to reach the summit. Is ‘because we can’ a good enough reason for the legal highs industry to peddle potentially dangerous drugs? K2 takes you higher.
“The crusaders for bans on new liquor stores, gambling venues and legal high retailers are usually driven by a wowserish desire to ensure the lives of everyone else are as miserable as their own. They’re convinced that their idea of how one should live their day to day life is so superior that everyone else should be forced to adopt it.” Manurewa Action Local Board member Simeon Brown is a prime example of moral crusaders who value personal prejudice over logic. “Mr. Brown advocates the Manurewa Local Board ban sales of legal highs in their board area even if they are proven completely safe. That position is ridiculously totalitarian.”
It’s not pleasant accepting the fact that there are shades of totalitarianism. Nonetheless, evidence-based policy premised on harm minimisation is a much lesser evil than the ridiculously totalitarian position of the likes of killjoy Brown. We’ve had more than enough of the latter and not nearly enough of the former. In fact, none. We’ve yet to see the implementation of any significant evidence-based policy premised on harm minimisation in New Zealand.
Mr. Berry believes the concepts of individual choice and personal responsibility are far better than any prohibitionist approach to the various vices hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders choose to enjoy. “Our country does not have issues with alcohol because of its availability. Issues with alcohol are the result of a culture that promotes excess and individuals that do not take responsibility for their own behaviour. No amount of new laws and regulations will make a dent in this. It is for individuals to willingly change their own behaviour, not politicians to implement more and more bans. One only needs look at the result of US alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and the result of widespread drug prohibition today to see that more laws will not only be ineffective but actually exacerbate the problems associated with enjoying vice.”
Change comes from within.
“Preventing new liquor stores does not prevent the supply of alcohol, nor dent the profitability of its sale. What it does do is entrench the existing operators and maintain their profits. Were the market allowed to decide how many alcohol retailers are appropriate, the sales of the product would be spread amongst a greater number of players in a more crowded market resulting in liquor retailing actually being less profitable than it is under the current regime.”
Berry identifies some of the less immediate outcomes observable by viewing council crackdowns on the liquor industry through the lens of the Law of Unintended Consequences. These less immediate outcomes—crony capitalism and a lucrative liquor industry—are among the costs overlooked by the authors of overzealous drug policy
“The Government has put in place regulations to deal with alcohol and legal highs at a national level and those regulations are more than enough. Local government should not be getting more involved. Councils and local bodies already tax, spend and borrow far too much. The last thing they should be doing is getting involved in the personal lives of individuals as well.”
More than enough is too much.
Stephen Berry was the Affordable Auckland candidate for Auckland Mayor in the 2013 local body elections. He finished in third place receiving 13,560 votes. Affordable Auckland’s five core policies did not include how legal high regulation should be approached and the party membership includes a range of views.
Fucked by major burns
[Reprised from beNZylpiperazine, April 2006.]
What do Niki Lauda, Hot Lips Houlihan and, now, a growing number of clandestine lab technicians have in common?
Drug cooks with acute burns from P lab explosions are bumping other patients off surgery waiting lists and costing taxpayers millions of dollars, says the Sunday Star Times.
“A 70 per cent burn takes five months of treatment and will cost $700,000 to treat,” says Waikato Hospital clinical director of plastic surgery and burns, Chris McEwan. “Its impact on our ability to manage the rest of our patient load is absolutely significant. It may delay the treatment of other patients by a considerable length of time.”
The public health system is in enough financial trouble already, without this. So what’s the government to do? We need go no further than the government’s National Drug Policy to find the obvious answer.
The National Drug Policy aims to improve the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders by encouraging the development of strategies and programmes which prevent and reduce drug-related harm.
Harm minimisation is where it’s at. How can we reduce the number of scorched P cooks presenting at A & E departments around the country? The approach that’s been tried, and has manifestly failed, is to criminalise the manufacture of methamphetamine and to provide harsh penalties for offenders. But does a threat of a long jail sentence really provide a deterrent to those who are otherwise prepared to risk lifelong disfigurement? Nope. The retail price of methamphetamine, massively inflated under prohibition, promises huge profits to the uncaught and unscathed. And does cramming our overcrowded prisons full of amateur chemists do anything to reduce the availability of P? Nope. The retail price of methamphetamine, massively inflated under prohibition, promises huge profits to the uncaught and unscathed, and the removal of one manufacturer from the market merely provides a business opportunity for another.
So what is the answer? I suggest something along the lines of needle exchanges for opiate users, like this one in Invercargill. Better still, we could follow the “shooting gallery” model adopted in New South Wales.
At a minimum, the government should provide free protective clothing and safety apparatus (and, of course, immunity from prosecution) to those who can prove their clandestine intent and P cooking credentials. This simple measure would, I’m sure, significantly reduce the burden on the public health system of victims of P lab explosions. Of course, to be effective, such safety gear must be used properly. I envisage that the government would also fund some training in proper laboratory procedure.
Although it would certainly cost a great deal more, ideally the government should set up centres in all P-ravaged communities where P cooks can take their dangerous chemicals and drug precursors and go about their business of manufacturing methamphetamine under the watchful supervision of qualified professionals.
A plea for BLTC
My speech to the Libertarianz Party Tenth Birthday Conference in July 2006.
arguably, the greatest harm caused by the War on Drugs has been to stifle research into new and better and safer recreational drugs.
Here‘s a summary as live blogged by Peter Cresswell.
Here are my speech notes. Neolithic Technology …
Fellow libertarians …
Let’s go back in time. Lindsay took us back 10 years. Let’s go back 10,000 years to the beginning of the Neolithic era, also known as the late Stone Age. The Neolithic is when humans quit the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and took up farming.
Technologically, we have come a long way since the start of the late Stone Age, 10,000 years ago.
In terms of materials and manufacturing technology, there was a good reason it was called the Stone Age, although some scholars have suggested renaming the era the Wood Age. Pretty much everything was made out of wood, or stone, or crude pottery. The potters wheel and kiln had yet to be invented. Today we have a huge choice of materials to work with from metals, thru plastics to carbon nanotubes. Technologically, we have come a long way since the Stone Age.
What about weapons technology? Stone Age fighters had maces and axes and other varieties of rocks for bashing people attached to wooden handles. They had the bow and arrow, and the sling. Today, we have handguns, tasers, cruise missiles and anthrax. Technologically, we have come a long way since the Stone Age.
Transport technology. In the Stone Age, it was Shank’s pony all the way. There were no roads in the Stone Age. The oldest so-called road dates from 3806 or 3807 BC. It was in fact a walkway over a peat bog in Somerset, England. Although Neolithic people had domesticated the horse, they hadn’t learn to ride it. They hadn’t invented the wheel. (But they had rollers.) Today we have motor cars, mag-lev trains, space rockets and the Segway. Technologically, we have come a long way since the Stone Age.
Communication technology. Strictly word of mouth. No alphabet, no writing, no printing presses, no telecommunications. No smoke signals, no carrier pigeons. Today we have the World Wide Web.
We have, indeed, come a long way since the dawn of the Neolithic. But there’s one area in which we hardly seem to have progressed at all. That’s in the technology of recreational mood alteration.
At the start of the late Stone Age, a newly discovered drug was rapidly gaining popularity, viz. alcohol. We know this because archeologists have unearthed late Stone Age beer jugs.
Alcohol, like all Stone Age technology, is most charitably characterised as “crude but effective”.
But, I put it to you that alcohol is more crude than effective.
Alcohol produces disinhibition and facilitates social interactions. It eases pain and anxiety and aids relaxation. It is indispensible for the Libertarianz leadership selection process. Best of all, it causes euphoria.
But it has a huge range of unwanted side effects.
A blood alcohol concentration of 0.1 grams of alcohol per deciliter causes slurred speech, and impaired ability to perform complex tasks, such as driving.
Higher doses, such as 0.3 BAC (blood alcohol concentration) cause confusion and impaired ability to perform simple tasks such as walking.
0.4 BAC causes stupor, 0.5 BAC causes coma, and 0.6 BAC causes respiratory failure and death.
Ever wondered why you feel so shitty the day after a good night of hard drinking? Why you feel like you’ve been poisoned? It’s because you have been poisoned. Not by alcohol, but by acetaldehyde which is what alcohol dehydrogenase converts alcohol to in the liver. The dangerous acetaldehyde is quickly converted to harmless acetate by another enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase.
Unfortunately, if we overdose on alcohol, we can overload the body’s enzyme systems, flooding the bloodstream with toxic acetaldehyde and highly dangerous oxidative breakdown products called free radicals… resulting in an increased risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease, premature skin wrinkling, cataracts, liver damage, brain damage…
20 years ago, I read this book, Life Extension, by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, in which they describe how to minimise the harmful effects of using alcohol by taking various nutrients and antioxidants.
A passage which jumped out of the page and stuck in my mind ever since is this one,
“An ideal solution to the alcohol problem would be to develop new recreational drugs which provide the desired alcohol high without the damaging side effects. There is, in fact, such a drug. It was invented by Alexander Shulgin, synthesized, and tested in humans (test subjects couldn’t distinguish between the drug and a few martinis).”
Shulgin is famous for having synthesised, and tested (on himself) literally hundreds of novel psychoactive drugs, principally drugs in the tryptamine and phenethylamine families of chemicals. His most famous work is called PIHKAL or Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved.
Shulgin, of course, self-tested his proposed alcohol substitute.
he described a “mild, pleasant intoxication.” It produced “free-flowing feelings” that he likened to “the second martini.” Believing he had indeed found a synthetic alternative to alcohol, Shulgin brought it to parties, holding up a little baggie of white powder he called “a low-calorie martini.” Testing among his research group, however, revealed the full range of warmth and euphoria of the [new] high… it evoked in most people feelings of empathy and self-acceptance …
[Shulgin’s test subjects] lovingly nicknamed the new compound “empathy” and thought of it as “penicillin for the soul.”
What is this drug, and what happened to it? I’m sure you can guess what happened to it. In New Zealand, it was made Class B in 1986.
My speech notes were a bit sketchy in places … that was methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
In the last few years it has been gaining popularity as a “recreational” drug offering a pleasant, alcohol-like, hangover-free “high” with potent prosexual effects (5). Most users find that GHB induces a pleasant state of relaxation and tranquility. GHB induces “remarkable hypotonia” (muscle relaxation) (1). Frequent effects are placidity, sensuality, mild euphoria, and a tendency to verbalize. Anxieties and inhibitions tend to dissolve into a feeling of emotional warmth, well-being, and pleasant drowsiness. The “morning after” effects of GHB lack the unpleasant or debilitating characteristics associated with alcohol and other relaxation-oriented drugs (3).
Over the years, numerous researchers have extensively studied GHB’s effects. It is has come to be used in Europe as a general anesthetic, a treatment for insomnia and narcolepsy (a daytime sleeping disorder), an aid to childbirth (increasing strength of contractions, decreasing pain, and increasing dilation of the cervix), and a treatment for alcoholism and alcohol withdrawal syndrome (5).
GHB has been called “almost an ideal sleep inducing substance” (3). Small doses produce relaxation, tranquility and drowsiness, which make it extremely easy to fall asleep naturally. Higher doses increase the drowsiness effect and decrease the time it takes to fall asleep. A sufficiently large dose of GHB will induce sudden sleep within five to ten minutes (3). The most remarkable facet of GHB-induced sleep is its physiological resemblance to normal sleep…
That was gamma-hydroxybutyrate. I talked it up. Some people like it. I don’t and I don’t recommend it. A somewhat larger than sufficiently large dose of GHB will induce coma within five to ten minutes …
New Zealand has had a National Drug Policy since 1998. The policy sets out the government’s policy and legislative intentions for tobacco, alcohol, illicit and other drugs.
Recently I attended a consultation meeting organised by the MOH, where I put forward a libertarian viewpoint, and put in a written submission for the second National Drug Policy, which is the Government’s 5-year-plan for 2006 to 2011.
New Zealand’s National Drug Policy has an overarching goal:
To prevent and reduce the health, social and economic harms that are linked to tobacco, alcohol, illicit and other drug use.
My view is that, if we want to influence drug policies, we must engage with this fundamental goal, and we can do so in a limited way.
The overarching goal of the Policy, to prevent and reduce the harms that are linked to drug use, is a noble one. However, we must distinguish between three main kinds of drug-related harms
- Harms which individuals inflict upon themselves, or inflict upon others with their consent
- Harms which individuals inflict upon others without their consent
- Harms which governments inflict upon their citizens
Libertarianz says that the government should not seek to save people from themselves, and most certainly should not harm its own citizens. The government should seek to bring to justice those who commit thefts, assaults, rapes and murders, whether such criminal acts are drug-fuelled or not.
It’s by focussing on this third category that I believe we can, as libertarians, make a contribution to National Drug Policy while maintaining our philosophical integrity.
Moreover, the harms inflicted upon citizens by their own governments, in the name of the War on Drugs™, are widespread and severe. These harms are of the same order of magnitude as the drug-related harms which individuals inflict on themselves, and, unlike the harms which individuals inflict on themselves, they are preventable.
You are all probably familiar with the other main harms that the government inflicts on us, in the name of the War on Drugs™.
For example, a criminal conviction is an indisputable harm in itself. Thousands of these are handed down each year merely for smoking a psychoactive herb. Far worse is a sentence of life imprisonment, routinely handed down to some of our most daring entrepreneurs, for nothing more than supplying consumer demand for psychoactive chemicals.
This document identifies “four broad strategy areas for action” as means to achieve “harm minimisation”.
The government’s attempts at supply control and demand reduction do not decrease demand, and do not control supply, but they do alter the availability of specific drugs. With the result that relatively safe drugs are difficult to come by, and relatively harmful drugs (alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamine) are easy to come by.
One of the greatest harms of the War on Drugs™ is the way it’s stopped research into Better Living Through Chemistry. All of Alexander Shulgin’s new psychoactive drugs are illegal in New Zealand and most other countries, proscribed by the Analogues Amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Why would you spend your research dollars developing designer drugs which will be criminalised as soon as they go to market?
This stymieing and stifling and stultification of research into new and better recreational drugs, research which would bring us forward from the Stone Age to the 21st century, is one of the greatest but most overlooked harms of the War on Drugs™.
Fast forward to today and we have the Psychoactive Substances Act.
Do we have new and better recreational drugs?
Or is the government inflicting new harms on its citizens?