Hard News by Russell Brown

very good article

sprayed with actual poisons like acetone.

Acetone isn't especially toxic, and it's extremely volatile, so if the leaves aren't actually damp there's probably no more than a trace present. And it's extremely flammable, so it will go up in the smoke.

Also, I'm pretty sure that acetone has always been one of the solvents of choice for synthetic cannabis even back in the days when it was the less-nasty JWH series of compounds being used.

The report does say In some regions, groups are producing “synthetic cannabis” which does not even contain cannabinoids, but is made by spraying plant material with substances such as fly spray or weed killer, and that's obvously dangerous, but I don't see anywhere in the report worrying about acetone as toxic.

Acetone isn’t especially toxic

Wellllll ... drinking a half a glass if it will probably kill you.

and it’s extremely volatile, so if the leaves aren’t actually damp there’s probably no more than a trace present. And it’s extremely flammable, so it will go up in the smoke.

Also, I’m pretty sure that acetone has always been one of the solvents of choice for synthetic cannabis even back in the days when it was the less-nasty JWH series of compounds being used.

Yeah, good point.

So what MoDA regulated products would pass the low risk test, MDMA? Cannabis? shrooms? BZP?

cool
Shulgin has arisen from the dead and banned

he will act responsibly from now on

So what MoDA regulated products would pass the low risk test, MDMA? Cannabis? shrooms? BZP?

Cannabis would be the obvious one and the Act provides a decent structure for its regulated sale– but it could fall foul of the "low risk of harm" test as a smokeable product.

There's a fair bit of evidence that could be ranged as to MDMA's harms. But it's less harmful than any of the analogues or substitutes that moved into the market when its supply was constrained by the drug control system. It's quite the philosophical problem.

All good questions. It's hard to conceive of LSD being sold without some duty of care in the bargain.

Of course, what can definitively be said is that LSD is much safer than the NBOMe drugs being sold as "LSD" at the moment.

I'm somewhat annoyed that no-one has submitted an ethanoloid drug for consideration (are there such things? Which effects do you focus on?). It'd be worth doing and I'd happily contribute to a crowd fund for it, purely to see the "it's less harmful" argument being discussed.

"So what MoDA regulated products would pass the low risk test, MDMA? Cannabis? shrooms? BZP?"

I don't think there was ever any intention to have any drug be able to pass the low risk test.
Alcohol In 2012, about 3.3 million net deaths.
Tobacco 5 million net deaths per year.
It is estimated that in 2014 there were 207,400 (range: 113,700 – 250,100) drug-related deaths with overdose accounting for up to a half of all deaths and with opioids involved in most cases.
It is very obvious there's no achievable bar set which relates to safety and when the wider population finally wakes up to this fact, we can truly discuss the political motives that drive prohibition to the benefit of huge multinationals.

"I'm somewhat annoyed that no-one has submitted an ethanoloid drug for consideration (are there such things? Which effects do you focus on?). "

Yeah Moz, The biggest hurdle here would be that Governments don't recognize Alcohol based products as being Drugs, only scientists and those left to pick up the pieces of broken lives, classify Alcohol as a Drug.

The misuse of the word drug has done arguably more damage than the misuse of drugs. With the ban on animal testing,we only have the human trials of the drug Alcohol to fall back on and at only 3.3 million deaths per year it shouldn't have any problem passing.

Wellllll ... drinking a half a glass if it will probably kill you.

Probably not - its a UN Hazard Class 6.1E (oral), which is the lowest oral toxicity you can have without being harmless and the same UN class as salt. Although ChemFFX rates acetone toxicity as 1 out of 4 (low) to salt at 0. There is acute toxicity in children but not death in adults - I suspect it would come up pretty violently when swallowed.
.

A little more on MDMA's safety, from MAPS:

MDMA is not the same as "Ecstasy" or "molly." Substances sold on the street under these names may contain MDMA, but frequently also contain unknown and/or dangerous adulterants. In laboratory studies, pure MDMA has been proven sufficiently safe for human consumption when taken a limited number of times in moderate doses.

I guess the question is how you regulate for "a limited number of times" in the field. Does everyone get a limited number of Best Nights Ever?

I think it can pretty persuasively be argued that regulation of dosages would significantly decrease harm though, especially in Europe, where pills can currently (and unexpectedly) be crazy-strong. It'd still be hard to stop some people necking five of them, but it would be five of a known quantity.

Yes Steven, there's nothing but strange when it comes to how we treat Alcohol and Tobacco in our society.But that doesn't mean I would advocate for their prohibition either, even though I haven't drank in 16 years myself.

We see studies like the Dunedin study tell us that no harmful effects to physical health from Cannabis use, other than Gum disease have been observed in over 38 years. This result is tempered with their fear that Cannabis users are likely Poly-Drug users, which opens them to higher risks of the co-use of Alcohol and Tobacco.

Cannabis users are too often disregarded as wack jobs that should just shut up and go away and just take the legal drugs we supply already. But I would say the average Cannabis user knows more about the drug they are using than the average Alcohol user, who in most cases just don't want know.

It would be pretty safe to say a legal frame work would go a long way to quality control. But if you don't give the consumers what they want,there will always be someone waiting in the wings selling on a promise.

I remember 12 years ago at the height of the party pill market, we were doing some major work on a premises manufacturing products with BZP. I was quite taken back to see this multi million dollar production, was carried out using concrete mixers. There was all manner of ingredients some of which were B and C vitamins, cayenne pepper and of course BZP, it isn't too hard to see consistency via this method would be challenging.

If you wanna geek out on acetone toxicity, LD50 is 5g/kg*, so 350g for a 70kg person, which would be around a Kiwi pint. I think you’d do well to swig that much.

You would stand a good chance of losing your eyebrows if you tried smoking an acetone soaked spliff, however.

*Rabbit. Humans might vary.

"If you wanna geek out on acetone toxicity, LD50 is 5g/kg*, so 350g for a 70kg person, which would be around a Kiwi pint. I think you’d do well to swig that much"

Yes and the LD 50 of Cannabis between 20,000 - 40,000 joints in fifteen minutes.

Waters LD 50 6 liters in one hour which sounds ridiculous but has been cited as the cause of death for a few MDMA users.

Alcohols LD 50 is 5 to 8g/kg (3g/kg for children) that is, for a 60kg person, 300g of alcohol can kill, which is equal to 30 standard drinks about 1 litre of spirits or four bottles of wine.

I know some will say I can drink more than that, but this is the piont where 50% Die.

The peyote eaters in America might have some insights. But that takes us into the realms of using drugs with some sort of religious discipline.

It was more considered a rite of passage into adulthood, the "religious" overtones came later when dealing with the screwed up perceptions of an white calvinist establishment that was probably drunk at the time.

In reply to andin...I like what you wrote there!

In other matters, the idea of consuming fly spray and weed killa on plant material is kind of... attractive....

...but then - while I pondered that....I couldn't help but wonder about all the 520 meth contaminated state houses....I could so do like urban raids and go lick walls and soft furnishings...perhaps I could start a clean up company...I have developed a clean up method for Gib Board...I could remove and crush all the board and extract the meth...now there some innovation for you....man =if it tested for micro-grams i am so extracting it...

or my other idea...its kinda ugly...but you know... beats licking walls...so you find a clean up operation in a state house where they flush all the clean up waters down the sewer...I could put on a hi vis vest and collect that waste...with my gumboots on and a pumper truck....and carefully extract all that meth that would otherwise affect the health of waste water workers...

this evening I am so full of innovation...while insects crawl on my touch screen...reaches for the raid.....and momentarily...

apparently meth is attracted to paint...so I thought I could paint myself tomorrow and go stand near those boarded up state houses....and if anyone asked what i was doing...i would fly spray them with Raid....

I am about Compassion Innovation and of course Proportion.

(fucking roaches)

fucking roaches

[Insert obvious joke about inappropriate drug use here]

of course Proportion.

Keeping a balance view is hard when the scales of perception are heavily weighted one way.
And meth use doesnt aid that either way nor does licking walls ;-)

Getting bud-wiser...

It must have been something in the air. During a short time window at the end of the last ice age, Stone Age humans in Europe and Asia independently began using a new plant: cannabis.
That’s the conclusion of a review of cannabis archaeology, which also links an intensification of cannabis use in East Asia with the rise of transcontinental trade at the dawn of the Bronze Age, some 5000 years ago.
Central Eurasian’s Yamnaya people – thought to be one of the three key tribes that founded European civilisation ­– dispersed eastwards at this time and are thought to have spread cannabis, and possibly its psychoactive use, throughout Eurasia.The pollen, fruit and fibres of cannabis have been turning up in Eurasian archaeological digs for decades.
Tengwen Long and Pavel Tarasov at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and their colleagues have now compiled a database of this archaeological literature to identify trends and patterns in prehistoric cannabis use.
It is often assumed that cannabis was first used, and possibly domesticated, somewhere in China or Central Asia, the researchers say – but their database points to an alternative.
Some of the most recent studies included in the database suggest that the herb entered the archaeological record of Japan and Eastern Europe at almost exactly the same time, between about 11,500 and 10,200 years ago.

source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096440-founders-of-western-civilisation-were-prehistoric-dope-dealers/

....i was trying....waiting for bugs to fly spray....cause paint attracts meth...

i was gunna like demo the whole plan and start with new gib board...forensic science...minute shit...on walls and soft furnishings....

what do i lick again?

I was in two minds

so to speak about making another post

seeing as the painting myself and standing next to a state house failed to attract viable amounts of meth...
should I..

why not

xxx,

Just a follow up to some matters in the ---------- Letter.

In regards to so called synthetic cannabis, the coding. I asked the Data Section at the MOH what the ICD 10 code is for synthetic cannabis. This is now recorded by coders as T43.8 "other psychotropic drugs". I asked them when this was recognized by the ICD 10 database, they tell me the changed happened in July 2011. Cannabis poisoning, whatever that is, is code 407. That code is understandable, in that for example - a person could be poisoned by the Police spraying herbicide over outdoor cannabis crops! So before July 2011 any poisoning due to cannabinoids was coded as T407, therefore the data does not differentiate between the plant and synthetic substances. The data used by the harm index was for 2010, extracted in 2013 by Health. So we have quite a confused situation and this is even before people infer medical relationships from codes. But also the point is that we are focused on very small numbers that are actually statistically unimportant compared to other licit substances that cause much more harm to society.

Look at this little trick. If you go to the ICD 10 Guidelines for the F Section the code for Tobacco issues is F17. (Cannabis F12, Alcohol F10) the instruction to coders is "Mental and behavioral disorders due to the use of tobacco not to be used if the resultant physical condition is known." (see screenshot)So how is that possible, how come tobacco does not show in the statistics, yet we drill down into 10 classifications of problems due to cannabis use? I have asked the WHO for an explanation, but no one ever replies. It is my argument that the Tobacco industry must have made some sort of threat to the WHO about this matter. We can code for lung cancer, but not mention the tobacco use! See things become very dangerous when people don't keep to evidence.

I went thru the emails I have from my OIA on the index, I have asked numerous more questions to Health, I accuse them of withholding documents from me and that the OIA is an incomplete record of what I asked for. But the point is this - the Index is just another example of the politicization of the public service. The money for the Index came from a special fund Dunne tells us Audience at the release; "I would like to begin by acknowledging that funding for this project to reproduce a Drug Harm Index for New Zealand was approved by the Prime Minister from the proceeds of crime." Well that is quite funny! and then Dunne said this;

"Nearly all public sector agencies have struggled with measuring the social impact of their programmes.

This is hardly surprising given that those programmes operate in complex environments.

However, by better understanding the social impact of our policies, we can better inform social investment.

Social investment is one of the key tools the Government has to drive changes in the community.

As the Minister of Finance Bill English has said, at its heart, social investment is about understanding what makes the most difference to people’s lives, and using evidence to do more of what works.

The social investment approach fits squarely with the evidence based approach which lies at the heart of the National Drug Policy."

So in that backdrop, the Index was released on 7 April 2016, just in time for Dunne to take the Index to UNGASS in New York. Dunne had previously given the UN his CIP speach, Compassion Innovation and Proportion. So the Index was an example of Innovation and Dunne took copies to give to his UN mates.

The whole process undertaken to develop the index was driven by that clownish sideshow undertaken by Dunne. The MOH just went along for the goal driven target of getting an Index to Dunne to take to New York. No one bid for the Index under GETS, so Health had to find someone who could do the work to the project timetable. Along came McFadden to collect the $193,000 with his innovative index.

In the emails I have from Health some of the reviewers start raising concerns about the Index. Those concerns are dismissed by the Project manager from Health and in addition Mc Fadden gets quite cross when he gets a review document, he tells the Project a manger it would be easier if he didn't hear from Mr X again on the Index! Anyway health didn't care to attend to details, as it was driven by delivering a document Dunne could take to UNGASS.

So the public service Health did not deliver free and frank advice, they delivered propaganda to suit a politically driven agenda via funding, thru Social Investment, all the way to UNGASS the world stage for an innovative harm index. So this is very much Tory politics, new right, neo con, and it has very little to do with any concern about HARM.

Got any questions do drop me a line!

Take care.
xxxx

I know it was risky posting without moderation...

NZ's innovation in drug-making is noticed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/13/making-meth-how-new-zealands-knack-for-p-turned-into-a-homebaked-disaster

how do you get an image into hard news....

yeah.... so when the index was nearly cooked, the MOH project manager asks...well how we publish this shit?

------I will ask the NDIB.....if we should publish Michael....what is that......

NDIB...said you take the glory health