NZ regulates drugs

[CLICKHEREx]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-26/nz-regulates-drugs/5348012

Updated Thu 27 Mar 2014, 12:14am AEDT

The New Zealand government says its radical new approach to controlling psychoactive substances has led to fewer drugs, fewer retailers, and less harm to health.

Dominique Schwartz

Source: Lateline | Duration: 5min 17sec

Topics: drugs-and-substance-abuse, doctors-and-medical-professionals, australia

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The New Zealand Government says its radical new approach to controlling psychoactive substances is paying early dividends. Fewer drugs, fewer retailers and less damage to health in the community. Now last year New Zealand became the first country in the world to establish a regulated licensed market for new psychoactive drugs. The country's parliament came to the conclusion that the prohibition model now favoured by Australian governments simply wasn't keeping pace with the emergence of new drugs. New Zealand correspondent Dominique Schwartz reports from Auckland.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ, REPORTER: The hemp store in downtown Auckland can't legally sell cannabis, but it is allowed to sell synthetic cannabis and other psychoactive drugs.

CHRIS FOWLIE, RETAILER: We have the word's first retail licence to sell psychoactive substances, substances that have been approved by the Government.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: New Zealanders are among the world's biggest users of these new drugs, also called legal highs.

Such drugs have been linked to mental health problems and deaths in Australia and near-death experiences in New Zealand.

MAN: If my mother hadn't found me as I was frothing at the mouth and having seizures, I would have been dead.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: The NSW Government has responded by banning all psychoactive products, but New Zealand has taken a radically different approach.

PETER DUNNE, NZ ASSOCIATE HEALTH MINISTER: What we've got to do is say, "You can only sell your products if you can prove that they are low risk to users." Doesn't mean we approve necessarily of people using them, but if they present a low risk to the user, then it's legal for you to sell them.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: It's eight months since Parliament overwhelmingly passed the Psychoactive Substances Act.

The new regime won't take full effect until next year, but associate Health Minister Peter Dunne says the early signs are promising.

PETER DUNNE: About 95 per cent of the products that were on the shelves prior to the legislation have been removed. We've gone from having over 4,000 unregulated retail outlets to now 156 retail outlets, and anecdotally, we're getting reports from hospital emergency rooms and others about a decrease in the number of people presenting with significant issues.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Prior to the new law, legal highs were sold at the corner store alongside milk, bread and lollies. Now they're restricted to adult-only shops which must be licensed to sell psychoactive products.

Like pharmaceutical drugs, legal highs will undergo rigorous testing to convince authorities they pose a low risk of harm, a process estimated to cost manufacturers as much as $2 million per product.

Legal high retailer Chris FOWLIE says about 40 products have interim government approval while safety testing continues.

CHRIS FOWLIE: The packaging has been changed so that people know exactly what's in it and the strength that they're at, but the key is that it puts the health and safety of consumers first.

LEO SCHEP, NZ NATIONAL POISONS CENTRE: I think the approach the New Zealand Government is taking is bold and I think it's innovative and I think there is every reason to believe it was successful.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Even so, toxicologist Dr Leo Schep has his concerns.

LEO SCHEP: These are not low-risk drugs. The major concern that we have here at the Poisons Centre is the long-term effects which are just starting to emerge now where you've got neuropsychiatric effects going on there, addiction issues going on there, withdrawal symptoms.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: It's because of those effects that this Auckland mother wants all legal highs banned.

MOTHER: For almost four years now we've been on the rollercoaster ride that has just been a nightmare with synthetic cannabis.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: She's asked not to be identified to protect her son, a once-happy full-time worker, she says, who's now an often-violent mental health care patient.

MOTHER: Whatever that poison has in it destroyed his brain. They've diagnosed him with schizophrenia.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Communities which oppose the new law prior to its passing are again raising their voices and are planning a national day of action next month. One city council has used its by-laws to effectively lock legal high retailers out of its town centre, a move the legal high industry is taking to court.

GRANT HALL, LEGAL HIGHS INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN: The people of Hamilton are still getting these products, whether they're going online, whether they're dealing with tinny houses or organised crime or travelling out of town. All of these things expose those people to more potential harms and that's why we need to win this case.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: Dr Ethan Nadelmann has been a key driver for drug policy reform in the United States. He says all eyes are now on New Zealand.

ETHAN NADELMANN, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE: This approach for synthetic drugs may ultimately be the model that we want to use with marijuana or possibly other substances.

DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ: The New Zealand Government says it's worth considering, but only if its current experiment doesn't go up in smoke.

Dominique Schwartz, Lateline.

[Nailthesnail]

So I'm kinda wondering what this offers for New Zealand, If this approach comes into effect next year we could potentially be looking at the legalization of Marijuana,Lsd,Psilocybin,Mescaline and other psychoactive drugs that we all know do not cause anywhere near as much harm as these 'Legal Highs'. It would be fairly easy to provide enough evidence for some of these things.

[Slocombe]

Looking forward to this. It would be nice if Australia adopted a similar approach, but with psychoactive plant material automatically being legal unless a decision is taken to schedule it. The New Zealand laws are a compromise in the right direction for psychoactive chemicals but bad for anyone that wants to grow medicinal plants.

[bogfrog]

Hmmm.. Dnt really know how to say this in a way that makes sense.. Yeah it's good that they are limiting the sales of synthetic cannabis, but by no means does this negate the fact that the low price and regular availability of these drugs are still serverly fucking up many people's lives, and solidifying a youth culture where it is now absolute norm to smoke research chems rather than plants.

I was talking to my old man about it recently and I was wondering how ppl would get hooked on this shit when it tastes terrible and the effects feels horrible, then he pointed out that most young people will now try synthetic cannabis before ever trying the real deal, meaning they have nothing to compare it to.

Another thing that really irritates me is the way the cannabis leaf is so often used as the emblem to represent synthetic drugs, therefore lumping together the chaos and devastation caused by synthetics with the general public's perception of cannabis, which is totally unreasonable when we compare a class of dangerous synthetic drugs which have cause multitudes of health, psychological and social problems, with a long-proven safe, natural substance which has multitudes of health benefits and few associated problems. (Alan Watts mentioned something in one of his talks about how the only negative side effect of smoking cannabis is that you can go to jail)

And we are still in the early stages of understanding what these research chems actually do to the human brain, who's to say a synthetic substance which seems harmless at first is not causing extensive neurological damage which only becomes evident after long term regular use?

I am really horrified to see the effects synthetic cannabis has had on our society already. Regulating a problem doesn't negate the destruction a problem has caused and is continuing to cause... It just keeps the masses quiet so they can go back to their lives and ignore the unfolding damage all around. A guy I know, who I consider to be one of the greatest artists I have ever met and probably will ever meet, has now got very little going for him other than smoking his synthetics, hasn't made any art for over a year, lost his passion for creating amazing art and swapped it for an addiction to poison.

[C_T]

um, stuff like jwh-018 is just as safe as cannabis.

[Nemisty]

Ceres you just took the thoughts right out of my mind and wrote it better than I ever could.

So far this bill put nothing but a bunch of dodge chemicals on the market to which no-one has any comprehension of the long term issues which these chemicals will cause. Obvious safer alternatives are off the table because they are already scheduled.

People keep saying, oh what about all the cool stuff in the future we can get? So what? Dont count your eggs before they're hatched. If whats happened so far is anything to go by then I dread to think what other subtances will be thrown out there in the future.

Politicans now using this bill as a fall back when media ask about any chance of cannabis or any other drug law reform. 'You have this bill so now we dont need to legalise any of the currently sheduled subtances' etc etc ( insert facepalm here )

Edited March 29, 2014 by Nemisty