Well, well, well…
Synthetic drugs: Death toll rises to 75 as toxic epidemic rages on
At least 75 people have died after taking synthetic drugs in the last two years – including a father of five who was found dead on a busy Auckland street after consuming the toxic substance.
Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall revealed today that since June 2017 24 people had died as a direct result of synthetic drug toxicity.
The remaining cases, where synthetics are provisionally attributed as the cause of death, were still before Coroners around the country.
…I hope sometime in the future when academics look back to unpick this cluster fuck of social policy that they damn the MPs and journalists who created it.
Let’s just remind everyone what actually happened here because the gutless MPs and overzealous Media who created this moral panic that resulted in the needless deaths of 75 NEVER get the contempt they deserve.
Because of the inane cannabis laws, synthetic cannabis exploded onto the scene in the late 90s and every time the police moved to make the chemical formula illegal, the chemists simply changed the formula. In the end everyone acknowledged this was ridiculous and so put together the Psychoactive Substances Bill that created a moratorium on the industry while creating a testing regime that would prove the products were safe.
My deep, deep, deep suspicion is that the vast majority of MPs who voted for the Psychoactive Substances Bill had no idea what they were voting for and because it was a half way house of a solution (the testing regime was never actually put in place because Key panicked that the animal testing regime would anger the Dog fanatics) we ended up with a wild west situation where only R18 sex shops could sell the product (leading to mass queues outside their shops) and no one was able to get the actual products through the none existent testing regime.
Then came the wave of over zealous media and pundits and journalists all screaming that they needed to be banned. As there was no actual promised testing regime in place, cowboys moved in and started selling product hundreds of times more potent than the original synthetics, people starting having seizures, National completely turned to jelly and banned them all over night which of course sent the entire market underground, removing any checks and balances on the quality of the product and ended up in the deaths of at least 75 people.
Round of applause for every MP and Media pundit with blood all over their hands who were involved in this moral panic.
Where the hell do these people get off having any say in the upcoming cannabis referendum?
The true madness of course, we wouldn’t have had the synthetic cannabis problem in the first place if the real cannabis was legalised.
Those cold dead corpses in the Grave will never get any justice, just a tiny footnote in the mindless war on drugs.
Okay that is a shitty way to go. The whole situation is a massive quagmire of inept incompetence, and it must be terrible for the family to have to injure scrutiny by media and pundant.
Goddamn.
Peter dunny is responsible he legalised this shit now what is he doing to fix up his mess nothing I suppose
Peter dunny is responsible he legalised this shit now what is he doing to fix up his mess nothing I suppose
those that want to legalize marajuana should take note that the legal marajuana will be expensive due to the need to recoup the cost of testing and taxes so synthetics will seem a good alternative to the poor.
As far as I’m concerned there’s only 2 reason to legalize the marijuana. 1) to gain more revenue via taxes. 2) to deprive gangs of a major source of income.
There is also the ability to regulate access via age (reduce use by teens) and breaking the public connection between the public and the gang also supplying P (many gangs offered free P to those buying marijuana – so they would become addicted to this more profitable drug).
Nonsense. What cost of testing a natural product?
They will need to test for the THC level . These can vary from different plants . If the product is sold under licence from the government I am sure the level will need to be known and if anythink has been added , I am not allowed to sell cakes made at home for my local charity so I am sure selling a drug will not be easy
These industrial chemicals have nothing to do with cannabis. True synthetic cannabis where Cannabinols, Cannabideols and other Cannabinolics were synthesised in a lab was already illegal. The so called synthetic cannabis used chemicals to mimic the effects of the functional groups in real cannabis, but were different enough not to be illegal. As with pharmaceuticals, the more differences in structure, the more side effects compared to the original drug. This can be seen where drug companies add a functional group to try and renew a patent. As more chemicals were banned the side effects of the chemicals increased. They were warned this would happen if the synthetic market was driven underground. Once underground any incentive to behave responsibly, along with the difficulty in getting “safer” chemicals made deaths inevitable. We all know that if cannabis had been legalized, no one would have died. The risk now is that the deaths from the chemical crap will be conflated with the risks of legalizing cannabis. Another risk is that so many restrictions will be put on it, like medical cannabis and CBD that the black market will continue. Lets hope we have a fair and well funded public education campaign.
You can thank Peter Dunne and the National Party for those 75 deaths IMHO ?
Lets see now, just before Helen Clark got defeated at the election and National took over we managed to get Class D. Dunne and National buried it immediately, it never saw the light of day. Then Dunne refused to allow the real thing but at the behest of his son who was representing Star Trust we got this synthetic crap.
Now we have National wanting them to be changed to Class A drugs and Dunne is chair of some adivsory board for one of the start up pharma cannabis companies.
They should be in jail
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