They lost the war on drugs

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Awrrr
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#1735851 13-Mar-2017 16:29

No doubt the lock 'em up brigade will howl at benefits being used to buy drugs, though that is hardly surprising news. I suppose it is better than robbing dairies to buy drugs.

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BlueShift

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#1735878 13-Mar-2017 16:59

Fred99:

Some data from testing sewage in Auckland:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11817303

Not sure why they didn't extrapolate that out, but assuming a street price of $800/g and not taking into account that product on the street will be (probably very significantly) "cut" and impure, then for 1.3 million people in that sewage catchment, there's about 170 kg of pure methamphetamine being used per year, as a cost of about $136 million.

Nearly 70 per cent of regular methamphetamine users said they commonly used social welfare payments to buy drugs last year. (source)

They also didn't extrapolate it out to average doses - arithmetic says 170kg meth, divided by 1.3 million people is about .2 grams each. I have no idea what size a hit of meth is: is it a gram? is it a tiny fraction of a gram? At a gram a shot 170kg is (obvs) 170,000 doses, if a heavy user is using a gram a day, then there's less than 450 heavy users in Auckland.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1735881 13-Mar-2017 17:08

A gram of meth would kill you many times over so I think there are a lot more users than that in Auckland. Doses are measured in milligrams, as in maybe 100-150mg per hit.

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Fred99

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#1735894 13-Mar-2017 17:34

BlueShift:

Fred99:

Some data from testing sewage in Auckland:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11817303

Not sure why they didn't extrapolate that out, but assuming a street price of $800/g and not taking into account that product on the street will be (probably very significantly) "cut" and impure, then for 1.3 million people in that sewage catchment, there's about 170 kg of pure methamphetamine being used per year, as a cost of about $136 million.

Nearly 70 per cent of regular methamphetamine users said they commonly used social welfare payments to buy drugs last year. (source)

They also didn't extrapolate it out to average doses - arithmetic says 170kg meth, divided by 1.3 million people is about .2 grams each. I have no idea what size a hit of meth is: is it a gram? is it a tiny fraction of a gram? At a gram a shot 170kg is (obvs) 170,000 doses, if a heavy user is using a gram a day, then there's less than 450 heavy users in Auckland.

From what I could find, a normal / heavy dose may be about 50mg, so 20 hits per gram - or an average 4 hits per person per year in the overall population, but heavy users may use much more (3x?) per hit.

IIRC the "bust" up in Northland last year was about 450kg, so 3 years supply for the Auckland market or extrapolating to a year supply for the NZ market. It seems improbable that quantity in one shipment was destined to the NZ market. If the figures from Auckland sewage are accurate, then it seems that Auckland's meth problem is nowhere near as severe as Perth.

I found this re WA/Perth:

Testing assumes a meth purity of 68.5 per cent and doses are assumed to be a “point”, which is 0.1 gram of the drug worth $100 on the street. (so at 68.5mg, that's a little higher than the 50mg)

In that case about 3.8% of the population were users, supposedly double the average for the rest of Aus. In one town (Bunbury) estimated use rate was 558 doses per week per 1,000 people.

It looks like Aus may have a far more serious problem than NZ.

MikeB4

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#1735914 13-Mar-2017 18:30

Rikkitic:

No doubt the lock 'em up brigade will howl at benefits being used to buy drugs, though that is hardly surprising news. I suppose it is better than robbing dairies to buy drugs.

Income be it wages, salary, dividends or Welfare Benefits have been misused for enabling substance abuse for decades upon decades. Raiding corner dairies these days is more for cigarettes, meth and other drugs require bigger targets.

Lias

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#1735949 13-Mar-2017 19:15

BlueShift:

Fred99:

Some data from testing sewage in Auckland:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11817303

Not sure why they didn't extrapolate that out, but assuming a street price of $800/g and not taking into account that product on the street will be (probably very significantly) "cut" and impure, then for 1.3 million people in that sewage catchment, there's about 170 kg of pure methamphetamine being used per year, as a cost of about $136 million.

Nearly 70 per cent of regular methamphetamine users said they commonly used social welfare payments to buy drugs last year. (source)

They also didn't extrapolate it out to average doses - arithmetic says 170kg meth, divided by 1.3 million people is about .2 grams each. I have no idea what size a hit of meth is: is it a gram? is it a tiny fraction of a gram? At a gram a shot 170kg is (obvs) 170,000 doses, if a heavy user is using a gram a day, then there's less than 450 heavy users in Auckland.

The "Retail" unit of meth is "point bags", being a plastic bag containing 0.1g, and the common larger non wholesale quantity being a gram (roughly but not entirely equivalent to a "tinnie" and an ounce respectively for cannabis)

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Awrrr
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#1749164 28-Mar-2017 08:24

If anyone still doubts that they lost the war, Canada is about to legalise it. We are going to look pretty silly before long.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39411026

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gzt

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#1749188 28-Mar-2017 09:55

Never used to bother me but, it bugs me now whenever i hear about a large marijuana seizure. The reason is that 'P' is the replacement drug when marijuana is unavailable. 'P'.

I'm not an advocate of the growing but i really question the strategic wisdom of continuing an emphasis on those seizures.

Fred99

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#1749223 28-Mar-2017 10:21

gzt: Never used to bother me but, it bugs me now whenever i hear about a large marijuana seizure. The reason is that 'P' is the replacement drug when marijuana is unavailable. 'P'.

I'm not an advocate of the growing but i really question the strategic wisdom of continuing an emphasis on those seizures.

I don't know if P could be called the replacement drug for marijuana if marijuana was unavailable.

While I'm sure there's an overlap group of people who'll get high on anything available, my impression is that marijuana and P appeal to different demographics.

That impression is clouded by the fact that although I know a lot of people who openly admit to using marijuana, I've met very few people who've admitted to using P. Could be that's because of me not meeting people from that demographic, but could also be that as P has such a reputation, it's socially unacceptable to admit that you use it.

My concern would be that in the demographic most susceptible to harm (teenagers), then free easy access to marijuana probably isn't a good thing. OTOH they use it anyway, so the present laws are not working to protect the most vulnerable.

Lias

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#1749283 28-Mar-2017 11:06

Fred99:

That impression is clouded by the fact that although I know a lot of people who openly admit to using marijuana, I've met very few people who've admitted to using P. Could be that's because of me not meeting people from that demographic, but could also be that as P has such a reputation, it's socially unacceptable to admit that you use it.

I've previously smoked P (and a variety of other things), but given I had serious second thoughts about admitting that even behind a pseudonym on the internet I'm going with the latter. It's often seen and portrayed in the media as something that's the realm of poor/brown people, but I think most people would be surprised at how high the usage rates are in other socioeconomic groups. If you read the papers regularly, I can recall seeing lawyers, millionaire business owners, customs officers, and a justice of the peace all appear on methamphetamine charges in the last few years.

That being said I also knew a young bloke who was the son of a sitting High Court judge, and working part time at the courts, who was making copious amounts of cash growing weed in his garage :-)

Pumpedd

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#1749309 28-Mar-2017 11:47

Rikkitic:

If anyone still doubts that they lost the war, Canada is about to legalise it. We are going to look pretty silly before long.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39411026

Bill English is very catholic and conservative in his views. Under his watch nothing will happen, despite Richard Branson telling us to get on with it.

gzt

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#1749453 28-Mar-2017 14:44

Fred99:
gzt: Never used to bother me but, it bugs me now whenever i hear about a large marijuana seizure. The reason is that 'P' is the replacement drug when marijuana is unavailable. 'P'.

I'm not an advocate of the growing but i really question the strategic wisdom of continuing an emphasis on those seizures.

I don't know if P could be called the replacement drug for marijuana if marijuana was unavailable.

While I'm sure there's an overlap group of people who'll get high on anything available, my impression is that marijuana and P appeal to different demographics.

That impression is clouded by the fact that although I know a lot of people who openly admit to using marijuana, I've met very few people who've admitted to using P. Could be that's because of me not meeting people from that demographic, but could also be that as P has such a reputation, it's socially unacceptable to admit that you use it.

My concern would be that in the demographic most susceptible to harm (teenagers), then free easy access to marijuana probably isn't a good thing. OTOH they use it anyway, so the present laws are not working to protect the most vulnerable.

Drugs are essentially a form of recreation for a huge segment of users. I'd guess that's the biggest segment. One is not available, they will use another.

gzt

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#1749455 28-Mar-2017 14:48

Watched a short psychology doc last night. The reality is that left in a room for 30 minutes with nothing to do, a large number of people will press a button that gives them an unpleasant electric shock, and press it more than once over that period. Just for something to do. By extension, two buttons, take one away, they will press the other one.

Lias

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#1749597 28-Mar-2017 17:00

Pumpedd:

Bill English is very catholic and conservative in his views. Under his watch nothing will happen, despite Richard Branson telling us to get on with it.

Hopefully he'll be out of a job in a few months :-)

SepticSceptic

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#1750223 29-Mar-2017 15:49

gzt: Never used to bother me but, it bugs me now whenever i hear about a large marijuana seizure. The reason is that 'P' is the replacement drug when marijuana is unavailable. 'P'.

I'm not an advocate of the growing but i really question the strategic wisdom of continuing an emphasis on those seizures.

The RNZ podcast series on the War on Drugs highlighted that since higher seizure rates of cannabis has resulted in many users switching to meth as it is easier to come by, easily transported, less detectable.

Cannabis is hard to conceal, and easily busted, whereas meth can be cooked in the boot of a car, or a hotel room, etc, with minimal risk of detection. Purely a business decision - lower risk = higher rewards.

The price of meth has also come down - was around $100 point, now around $60 ( in the Bays District).

So despite all the massive pre-cursor seizures, there is still even more coming into the country, making almost an over-supply of this sh!t.

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