Posts by Neil
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Together Alone, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think there’s also the prospect of restricted access to drugs (including the legal ones) driving drug-seeking behaviour that increases transmission risks. We want to keep people stable, not throw them into withdrawal.
That would be true of opiates but not of P. There is no stable use of P as there can be with some other drugs such as marijuana and opiates. Less P use would result in freeing up resources in the acute health services which most likely will be placed under enormous pressure.
-
Hard News: Together Alone, in reply to Moz,
Yes, some unexpected consequences. Less meth consumption will free up resources in EDs and acute mental health units. As people high on meth pose significant risk to health professionals that’s one safety issue that should reduce dramatically.
-
Meth prices have skyrocketed.
-
Why I mention this is with acute mental inpatient settings there is no way social distancing can be enforced, let alone effective infection isolation. If someone is positive then it will spread very quickly to patients, who often have physical issues, and staff who go back home after work.
That is very different to general hospital settings.
-
Acute mental inpatient units currently have no credible plans for isolating Covid19 positive patients.
Unless this is sorted out very quickly inpatient units will act as sources of cross infection.
There’s been some discussion of mental heath issues but overlooked are the most acutely unwell and vulnerable.
Staff of these units will be going home to families and many are already deeply distressed at the prospect of spreading the virus to their children and parents.
-
Hard News: The Cannabis Legalisation and…, in reply to ,
Do you have a link for that graph?
I’m curious to know how harm was defined. I find it hard to believe the harm from meth use is less than that for heroin.
Also if that harm takes into account fetal alcohol and P babies.
A relative who works in a school observed the increasing number of P babies coming through schools, for which there is no plan for, and also the increased number of very expensive Harleys on the streets.
The school’s in Flaxmere.
Physiological harm from heroin, excluding fatal OD, is transitory and minor whereas from P it’s major and irreversible.
-
Specifically, there needs to a substantial concurrent increase in mental health funding for areas which deal with the mental health issues associated with marijuana.
A small number of people develop drug induced psychosis from use and those with a psychotic disorder most often get a lot worse. The most at risk appear to overlooked.
The early intervention teams - the community based teams that target ask risk young people - are already massively under resourced and it just keeps getting worse.
-
This is definitely a huge step forward in harm prevention in many ways.
I have a couple of concerns.
There’s been some comment that this will have a negative effect on gangs. That’s unlikely. The gangs have already moved into the manuka honey black market – a legal, rural product which has a very high added value medicinal range. Much like marijuana will be. They’ll continue to poach, coerce and intimidate to get a product they can then trade for P and its precursors which they then sell into their own communities.
The other is the govt really does need to start properly funding acute mental health and addiction services as they have promised. Stop with this 12,000 new mental health workers sleight of hand. It’s 12,000 possible places in a one day workshop. That’s fine for what it is but it is not training mental health workers.
-
The lack of government action on corruption in the apartment construction industry has been more than puzzling. The lack of action in reining in dishonest apartment management companies has also been puzzling.
Why has a center left government been so reluctant to act against corrupt business in order to protect home owners? Why the reluctance to make sure apartments are built to standard and are run for the benefit of the home owner and not the management companies?
Mystery solved. One of the major sources of secret New Zealand First funding has been revealed to be Conrad Properties – which just so happens to be an apartment development company:
The largest series of donations occurs from Conrad Properties Ltd or companies and trusts connected to that company. The company donated $27,500 to the foundation in 2017 and 2018, as well as $15,000 in 2019 to date.
Conrad Properties has a single, 100 per cent shareholder in the name of KA Law Nominees Ltd. Five other trusts with the same shareholding as Conrad Properties also made donations.
The consequences of such political corruption has been the destruction a great many peoples’ lives.
-
Speaker: What almost everyone is missing…, in reply to Moz,
Yes it’s a huge problem in Australia as well. It does seem to be finally getting a bit more political traction than here in NZ.
The construction minister Salesa is proposing home owners pay the builder’s insurance. A bit like pedestrians having to pay motorists’ insurance in the event they cause injury driving down footpaths.
And that insurance would only cover 10 years.
It doesn’t suggest any faith in the building industry to do the right thing.
What shocks me is that banks here will still lend to people buying, especially apartments. We *know* that the vast majority are not fit for purpose but the banks will still lend against them.
It’s completely unethical. At some point the banks will pull the plug on apartments because of the losses they face but in the meantime many more people will be unwittingly drawn into this nightmare.