Synthetic cannabis makes a comeback & reminds us all why we should despise NZ politicians when it comes to their war on drugs

ByMartyn Bradbury

Just as we are debating the cannabis referendum and the madness of continuing the failed war on drugs, synthetic cannabis pops its head up again…

AMB-FUBINACA, a synthetic cannabinoid 100 times stronger than weed, is back in NZ

A synthetic cannabinoid drug said to be up to 100 times stronger than the real thing is back in New Zealand, just weeks after apparently being wiped out. 

AMB-FUBINACA has been linked to dozens of deaths, providing a massive hit that can leave users acting like “zombies”. 

“The synthetic cannabinoid AMB-FUBINACA has been detected in a number of locations across New Zealand,” an update on the Government’s (DIA) High Alert website said on Tuesday.

“This is particularly concerning as AMB-FUBINACA has been one of the most deadly illicit substances in NZ in recent years, having been responsible for the majority of [drug] fatalities in 2017-2019.”

…you’ll remember synthetic cannabis.

NZ passed a law to legalise the synthetic cannabis market, Key got cold feet over testing on animals, no guidelines were established, product hundreds of times more powerful than the originals flooded the unregulated market, the media breathlessly highlighted those loopholes, the Parliament panicked and made them illegal again, the market was forced under ground and dozens and dozens and dozens of NZers died from overdoses because it was run by gangs with no quality control.

And the sickest part of all of that is the synthetic cannabis was far more deadly than just ordinary cannabis!

WE WOULDN’T HAVE HAD A SYNTHETIC MARKET OF THE REAL STUFF WAS LEGAL!

MPs panicked last time and it saw more than 70 die from overdoses.

Their continued cowardice in the face of the war on drugs is why we can’t get actual progress.

A regulated cannabis market would stop any demand for synthetic cannabis, what is wrong with the NZ Public that they can’t see the difference here?

Vote yes in the cannabis referendum!

 

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9 Comments

  1. Legal booze has been available for ever but illegal home made liquor has still been in demand so legal marajuana will not cut out the illegal market. There will always be people who want a bigger hit or will try another way to escape life if only for a short time.

  2. Synthetic cannabis may not of made it into NZ if it wasn’t legalised under key’s government. Then they drove it underground when they realised it was potently dangerous stuff. I never recall a referendum on legalising synthetic so why can’t the government just legalise the natural stuff without a referendum like how they did with synthetics?

  3. This from a couple of months back has some interesting details, and isn’t too technical:

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30204-2/fulltext

    Standout for me is that 43% (of tested fatalities) had FPP as well as Fub in their systems. Which used to be in party/ weight-loss pills. That suggests that the illegal drug market may not be the best for quality control &truthful product labelling. Though not a surprise, still useful information.

    Also striking, is the number of those on anti-psychotics. And 88% of deaths were with; male, had caffeine, or tobacco in their systems – but that seems more percentage coincidence. 67% being Maori (with a further 16% Pasifika) not so much.

  4. There is nothing quite like the misinformation that follows cannabis legalisation.

    Synthetics are not and have never been synthetic cannabis. They are a drug smoked and sometimes coloured green is about all they have in common. It’s for people who feel the need to anaesthetize themselves from their ordinary existence, just like every other shitty drug from alcohol to meth.

    The effect is way different to cannabis and so it is in a segment all on its own in the drug-using communities world. The effect is quite addictive and despite the fact it kills depending on the batch, users carry on regardless. Darwinism at its worst.

    Therefore this shit has a market and it would have had a market if cannabis was legal or not. Someone saw an opportunity to make money and they took it. And for a while, it had either no legal status or it was legal. Its effects and the near-impossible mission of regulating recreational drugs (because you can add what you like until the regulator, who is always in catch up mode, intervenes) meant no politician was going to vote to keep it legal. And if there was a so-called ideal active ingredient content there is absolutely nothing that will stop the criminal fraternity such as gangs selling an alternative and undercutting the real thing, GST free too!.

    Which brings us to another point. Alcohol, (and I am no proponent of it either), is regulated by an accurate percentage of alcohol per volume unless it is hill billy, but I cannot think of any other recreational drug that won’t be fucked around with to have any strength you care to name and equally as impossible to label and as impossible to regulate. Just like this Fubinaca crap!

  5. While we have these religious nut jobs doing a con job on the electorate then we are going to be denied what is rightfully ours to use the cannabis plant for whatever ffn purpose we choose to use it. Yet, they are allowed to market their RTD booze to our kids, ply spirits, wine and beer as an acceptable form of inebriation(only), corporatization of our food ecosystem (unsustainable food prod), destroying rivers and land the list goes on but you get my drift. If they had any ffn imagination they would realize that the cannabis plant is our way out of the economic shit storm about to hit. We could be growing green gold and selling it to the Americans given this is happening. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/300117525/residents-of-marijuanagrowing-area-in-the-us-refuse-to-evacuate-despite-giant-wildfire.

  6. And if the referendum fails how many more young lives will be destroyed because corrupt politicians haven’t got the balls to own up to being sucked in by fake news promoted by businessmen seeking to remove a threat to their destroying the planet for profit.
    Where is the regulation and control around kava.
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1444-0903.2003.00405.x
    If it was about health surely there would be regulation here.
    But no the kindness queen would rather ruin lives than than acknowledge reality and jeopardize her income.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ebz9OuYLL0&t=23s

  8. Winemakers who adulterate their product get big fines: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural/2020/03/big-fines-and-home-detention-in-wine-fraud-case.html
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/109248443/yealands-estate-peter-yealands-and-top-former-staff-convicted-of-falsifying-export-certificates
    It is time the same law was applied to drug manufacturers ie. pharmaceutical companies who are seen to be producing far more lethal product.
    Media which misrepresent the facts are not helping..people are dying.

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