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Pill Testing: Arguments For and Against
Catholic Weekly 24 January 2019
Family First Comment: “Advising a potentially allergic user to take only half a 100 per cent pure MDMA pill won’t help anymore than eating half a peanut instead of the whole will stop anaphylactic shock for those allergic to peanuts. With that knowledge, the results of this pill testing push will be frightening. What better way is there to broaden the pool of prospective drug users than to suggest pill testing makes ecstasy use safer? Expect an accelerating number of deaths from this craven misinformation… Why aren’t the pill testing promoters telling the truth about ecstasy, saying pill testing is about safety when it’s not? Maybe there’s something to hide, like another agenda.”

Every death from a party pill in Australia has a toxicology analysis of what caused the death in the coroner’s report, so there are no mysteries about what is causing these deaths.

But here is the appalling news – the cause is very different from what you are hearing from pill testing proponents and from an Australian media that has largely failed its due diligence on this story.

The only Australian study on an extensive number of ecstasy-related deaths looked at 82 coroners’ reports from between 2001 and 2005. First, that is a lot of under-reported ecstasy deaths in five years. Second, 23 per cent of those deaths were caused solely by the MDMA in the pill. Another 59 per cent were caused by MDMA when used with other legal and illegal drugs.

Conclusion? Eighty two per cent of the 82 deaths reviewed were directly attributed to MDMA. Ecstasy is the killer. Third, none of these 82 deaths were from impurities or other unknown drugs in the pills. And recent coroners’ reports concur. The Daily Telegraph reported on 15 January that Professor Dawson had indicated MDMA was implicated in early toxicology tests on four recent NSW deaths.

The other evidence-free assertion we keep hearing is that many deaths are from MDMA ‘overdoses’. The truth is that MDMA overdoses are rare, with most deaths from a single pill or from MDMA ingestion within the normal range of recreational use.

Even Harm Reduction Australia’s senior organisation, the US Drug Policy Alliance, says ecstasy overdoses are rare. So why does HRA keep promoting this dangerous myth that misleads the public into thinking the MDMA purity of a single pill needs quantifying?

Why, then, are people dying? The reality is that most deaths outside polydrug use are due to something akin to an individual allergic reaction to MDMA. In 1995, Anna Wood took the same tablet as five other friends, but she was the one that died.

So, advising a potentially allergic user to take only half a 100 per cent pure MDMA pill won’t help anymore than eating half a peanut instead of the whole will stop anaphylactic shock for those allergic to peanuts.

With that knowledge, the results of this pill testing push will be frightening. What better way is there to broaden the pool of prospective drug users than to suggest pill testing makes ecstasy use safer? Expect an accelerating number of deaths from this craven misinformation.

There are practical issues too. John Lewis, a forensic scientist at UTS, says pill testing equipment will never provide safety because scrapings from a pill wrongly assume that contained substances are uniformly distributed.

Additionally, the three deaths in Melbourne where purported ecstasy pills contained 4-FA and 25C-NBOMe require equipment so sophisticated that police sent samples to Spain for verification. Also, pill testing won’t reduce drug use and its risks as is claimed.

A festival-goer with a tested ‘dangerous’ pill will simply ask friends next time where the ‘safe’ MDMA ones are purchased.

Why aren’t the pill testing promoters telling the truth about ecstasy, saying pill testing is about safety when it’s not? Maybe there’s something to hide, like another agenda.

Of course, only they know their own motives.

Gary Christian is a specialist researcher in AOD and Community Health for Drug Free Australia.
READ MORE: https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/pill-testing-arguments-for-and-against/

NewsHub 25 January 2019 
A Ngaruwahia woman has had a lucky escape from the law, after police discovered 45 marijuana plants in her garden.

The maximum penalty for the cultivation of cannabis is seven years imprisonment, but all Tamara Garlick got was a warning.

Ms Garlick is a dairy farmer, who says she smokes once or twice a day and again before she goes to bed. She says she was growing weed for personal use, so that she could spend less money.

However last Tuesday, police received information regarding Ms Garlick’s illicit gardening project and her crop was seized and destroyed.

She was formally arrested at the police station, and read her rights. The 28-year-old then explained her reasons for growing; namely she was tired of paying $370 per ounce.
READ MORE: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/01/ngaruwahia-woman-with-45-marijuana-plants-in-garden-let-off-with-a-warning.html

Radio NZ 23 January 2019
Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson says the science that points to long term issues related to pot use is getting drowned out by the push to legalize use around the world. He analyses international studies, including a lot of research done here in New Zealand, and presents case studies that indicate that using marijuana is dangerous when it comes to brain development and mental health. He makes his case in a new book called Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.

AUDIO: https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018679415/are-the-negative-health-impacts-of-cannabis-being-drowned-out

NZ Herald 29 January 2019 
An Invercargill toddler with a condition likely to cut her life short at the age of 4 is finding some comfort thanks to medicinal cannabis.

Keira Mcmurdo is one of just three people in the world with a rare condition known as FUT8.

For most of the 3-year-old’s life she has suffered up to 30 seizures a day and cannot talk, walk or swallow.

For Keira’s mum Sascha Abey, watching her beautiful daughter suffer has been heart-breaking.

“I’d never seen a seizure before. I remember her first one – she went blue and her eyes rolled back. It’s really tough seeing your own child go through that and not being able to do anything,” Abey told the Herald.

But, for the last month she has been given 1.5mL of Tilray cannabidiol (CBD) through her feeding tube every day and her seizures have dropped to less than five a day.

“She can reach [and push off] the bottom of the pool now, something she had never been able to do before. She is more engaged and now loves interacting with people, you can hear the joy in her voice,” Abey said.

She said medicinal cannabis wasn’t a cure but it was life-changing.

“I just want to give my daughter the quality of life she deserves even if that’s for less than a year.”

Abey was 23 when she gave birth to her first-born, Keira.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12195552&ref=twitter

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NZ Herald 26 January 2019 
The 2020 referendum to legalise cannabis looks likely to propose a tightly regulated framework, including strict rules on supply and possession, an age limit of at least 18, and a non-profit model where money from sales may be funnelled into health services.

And while it is widely accepted that legalising personal use would not eliminate harm or kill off a black market, a political consensus appears to be emerging that the status quo is broken, but a profit-driven legal market would be just as bad.

Justice Minister Andrew Little said the Government was still working on the referendum question, but he personally opposed to a framework similar to alcohol if the public voted for legalisation in 2020.

“My general view would be, if there is an appetite for liberalisation in whatever form, to start with maximum regulation and control,” Little told the Weekend Herald.

“That’s the way you mitigate the risks, and then future generations can review what’s happening and whether further relaxation is needed.”

This sentiment was echoed by NZ First justice spokesman Darroch Ball, who said the level of cannabis-related harm in a black market dominated by gangs showed that the current system was not working.

“But we all understand that marijuana is a drug, and it’s not all positives.

“It’s just common sense to start at a more conservative, regulated market. Once you have no regulation, the horse has bolted and there’s no coming back.”

He added that the NZ First caucus was yet to make any decisions about the referendum question.

Green Party spokeswoman for drug law reform Chloe Swarbrick said a black market and a legal free market both “preyed on vulnerable people”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12195856&ref=twitter

Stuff co.nz 18 December 2019
Family First Comment: “A spokesman for Medsafe, the regulator for medicines and medical devices,​ said it was not correct to say that all cannabis is medicine.”
Exactly.
Read our summary
www.SayNopeToDope.org.nz/medicinal

Medsafe is “looking into” New Zealand’s first cannabis advertising campaign.

The Advertising Standards Authority received several complaints this week after a billboard advertising cannabis as medicine was erected on Auckland’s Anzac Ave.

Helius Therapeutics, a licensed medicinal cannabis company, launched the billboards following last week’s legalisation of medicinal cannabis manufacture, to “rebrand” cannabis.

A spokesman for Medsafe, the regulator for medicines and medical devices,​ said it was not correct to say that all cannabis is medicine.

“Sativex is the only cannabinoid product approved by Medsafe in New Zealand…Medsafe is aware of this campaign and is looking into it.”
READ MORE: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/109435600/medsafe-investigating-claims-on-cannabis-billboard

NZ Herald 25 January 2019
Family First Comment: ”A 6-year-old boy who was injured in a head-on crash by a cannabis-affected driver has been left with more than just physical scars, a court has heard.”
But hey! Marijuana never harmed anyone.
#SayNopeToDope

A 6-year-old boy who was injured in a head-on crash by a cannabis-affected driver has been left with more than just physical scars, a court has heard.

The victim was admitted to hospital after the van in which he was travelling on April 14 was hit by Aaron Kahu Ashby (32), who later told police he lost control because he sneezed while lighting a cigarette.

The boy sustained a “severe gash” to his face, as well as multiple contusions to his arms, legs and neck, Judge Michael Turner told the Dunedin District Court yesterday.

He now suffered from nightmares, a fear of travelling in vehicles – particularly at night – and required “constant reassurance”, the judge said.

Ashby previously pleaded guilty to two charges of careless driving causing injury while under the influence of a drug.
READ MORE: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12195936&ref=twitter

Ex-chair of the NZMA Dr Stephen Child talks to Tim Wilson on Newstalk ZB
20 January 2019

CTV News 12 October 2018 
The man who helped Portugal decriminalize all drugs isn’t yet sure if Canada’s plan to legalize cannabis is the right one.

Joao Goulao, the current national drug coordinator for Portugal, says his country will be keeping an eye on Canada as it legalizes cannabis next week, but doesn’t yet know if the move is a good idea.

“I’ll wait and see,” Goulao told CTV News’ Paul Workman. “I’m very curious. I’ll watch it very closely because I’m sure the discussion is going to be had in my country also.”

“I believe this is probably the best step that we can do to deal with (drug abuse), but I would like to see the results.”

Goulao is considered a principal architect behind Portugal’s landmark decision in 2001 to decriminalize all drugs. Now 17 years later, the country has seen major drops in drug overdoses and HIV.

Goulao has already been keeping a close eye on Uruguay, which legalized cannabis in 2013, and some of the states in the U.S., but believes Canada will provide the best case study for what a world of legal marijuana would look like.

“I believe the Canadian model is probably the best one, to show us the results, what we can expect from that decision,” he said.

Drugs are still illegal in Portugal, however users are sent to counselling instead of being charged with a crime. Those selling illicit drugs are still considered criminals.

“Decriminalization is not the solution for everything, but everything is much easier (when) thinking about addiction as a disease with the same dignity as other diseases,” said Goulao.

Goulao adds that Canada’s marijuana legalization represents a significant shift forward from Portugal’s laws, but says Canadians should monitor the situation to see if people start using cannabis more frequently, if people are choosing to consume cannabis at a younger age or if they are moving on to harder drugs.

Cannabis becomes legal in Canada on Oct. 17.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/man-credited-with-decriminalizing-drugs-in-portugal-not-sure-legal-cannabis-is-the-right-move-1.4131841

Radio NZ News 23 January 2019
Family First Comment: “She said the government’s smokefree goals clashed with its plans to hold the referendum and was contributing to its “ad hoc” and “confused” approach to drug reform.” 
#SayNopeToDope 
www.VoteNo.nz

National’s new spokesperson on drug reform says she has a raft of unanswered questions about next year’s referendum on legalising cannabis.

A binding referendum on legalising cannabis for personal use will be held at the 2020 general election.

Today National Party leader Simon Bridges announced that as part of a minor reshuffle, a new shadow portfolio on drug reform would be led by deputy leader Mrs Bennett.

Mrs Bennett told 5 o’clock Report that while she was still weighing up whether she supported the referendum, her main concern was the impact of legalisation on young people.

“I honestly worry about our young people and the evidence we’ve seen is that more of them access cannabis when their brains are still developing and it has the potential to have very devastating effects on them and I want to know the answers.”

She said the government’s smokefree goals clashed with its plans to hold the referendum and was contributing to its “ad hoc” and “confused” approach to drug reform.

She said other uncertainties included the wording of the question in the referendum, what would the administration regime look like, would THC levels be monitored, what would happen to illicit drug use, and the legal age for purchase of marijuana.
READ MORE: https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/380681/marijuana-has-potentially-devastating-effects-on-young-people-bennett

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