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Mike Hosking is one of the best in the business. Week after week he nails it while rarking up the usual suspects. However his piece regarding pill testing is in my opinion totally misguided and wrong, and with the greatest respect here’s why.
Winston Peters as the voice of reason – are you used to it yet?
He got the Capital Gains Tax killed, he’s holding up the Emissions Trading Scheme for farmers – and now he’s come to the rescue of what I would imagine are most parents in this country, who look on aghast at the madness of people like the ever deluded, earnest, hopelessly woke, and out of touch Green MP Chloe Swarbrick who wants drugs tested at music festivals.
[…]What Labour represents on drugs is an example of the attitude that prevails on so many of today’s ills: from obesity, to salt, sugar, exercise, booze, tobacco and vaping.
Vaping is 95% less harmful than cigarettes. It is the very definition of harm reduction.
It’s an attitude of defeat, a white flag mentality whereby we go ‘oh well, it’s all a bit hard. We asked politely, we ran the obligatory campaign, it didn’t work so let’s acquiesce’.
As opposed to what? The mentality that says keep doing what we’re already doing even though it hasn’t worked can never work, will never work, because, you know, it’d work if we just try harder. Philippines anyone? And if we can’t keep drugs out of high-security prisons how can we expect to keep them out of music festivals?
[…]It’s the same mentality that supplies needles to drug addicts to make sure they use clean ones. Why don’t we just decriminalise drugs all together and the government supply them, so they’re nice, high quality with no horse tranquilliser in them? Just how far do you want the madness to go?
Mike needs to keep up. We’ve had clean needle exchanges since around 1987 with no increase in the number of heroin users. In fact, they reduced harm by stopping the spread of AIDS.
As for decriminalisation already done.
[…]You give kids the green light from the state that drugs are accepted and supported and they’ll go nuts with them. And enough of them have already gone nuts.
Uh, pill testing isn’t the State telling kids that drugs are accepted and supported. Kids, I mean young adults, don’t listen to the State. They listen to their peers. Nicotine is legal. Does the State support and accept nicotine?
The pill testing condones drug use argument. The short reply is it doesn’t. Clients are never told their drugs are safe. The first thing they are told is that the safest drug use is not to use drugs. A sample is tested and destroyed during the testing process. The client is told of the risks of the substance they plan to take including risks associated with any prescription medication the client may be on.
In fact, according to kiwi pill testing service KnowYourStuffNZ 62% of people will choose not to take their drugs if it tests for something other than what they thought it was.
According to Aussie pill testing service The Loop Australia 1/5 substances were not what the client expected, 1/5 of clients disposed of their drugs, 1/6 moderated their consumption, 2/3 of clients with missold drugs disposed of them.
In any case the problem with the condoning drug use argument (and we’re mainly talking MDMA here) as a reason not to allow pill testing is that statistically, MDMA is no more dangerous than riding a horse. When people do get in trouble from taking MDMA it’s either because it wasn’t MDMA or they’ve taken way too high a dose and possibly mixed it with alcohol. Things pill testing is designed to help prevent.
This to me is what makes this whole debate so absurd. For the most part, we’re talking about a substance that is safer than tobacco, cannabis, and much safer than alcohol.
Whatever way you look at it, the pill testing condones drug use argument is purely a moral one. If you believe that’s enough of a reason not to allow pill testing, fine. But your moral stance is far from a moral stance if it means young people dying.
[…] If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in.
Here’s something to think about. The number of people who get their substances tested is greater than the number of people going on to consume said substances in the manner originally intended. So pill testing means fewer people using and those that go on to use anyway, use less or use in a way that reduces harm.
For medical services such as St Johns, pill testing services mean the difference between a quiet night and a busy night.
So tell me: How is a policy that results in more young people using drugs, using more, and in a way that greatly increases the risk of harm, common sense?
One last thing. In 2015 at the Secret Garden party event there were 19 drug-related hospital admissions (similar to previous years). In the following year when pill testing was introduced, there was one.
One.
