Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: From Zero: The Meth Episode

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  • Rich Lock, in reply to Russell Brown,

    This brings to mind the infamous 2002 study that claimed even controlled doses of MDMA were so neurotoxic that casual users were at risk of Parkinson's disease and other conditions.

    Probably also worth mentioning that other research taking place in 2002 was showing, um, the exact opposite effect.

    As an aside, the BBC TV documentary mentioned in that article is worth a watch, if not already seen. It's on the 'tube.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock, in reply to william blake,

    drugs that ....instill fear and paranoia

    Hey, if only the Nazi's had been on E instead of speed, they'd all have got together and loved one another. Just like those football hooligans in the 90's! Or something.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Wellington police follow Waitemata and offer help, not harm, to users identified in a meth bust:

    Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Leitch of the Wellington District Drugs and Organised Crime team said: “This syndicate is believed to have been active for a significant period of time dealing methamphetamine to people in the central city. The investigation has also uncovered the regular trading of stolen property, including phones, designer bags and jewellery in exchange for drugs by the syndicate.”

    “Our investigation has again shown the terribly damaging effects that methamphetamine abuse and addiction has on the lives of everyday New Zealanders and their families. The investigation team is making contact with each of the people identified as customers of this syndicate to provide advice and referral to support agencies who can help them to confront and deal with any drug-related problems affecting them and their families.

    "We are also offering support to the people charged, so that the intervention by Police can be turned into a positive start point to face their own addiction challenges, where applicable, and reduce the detrimental impact and affects their drug use is having on them.”

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • william blake, in reply to Rich Lock,

    Hey, if only the Nazi’s had been ....football hooligans.

    I can change your meaning by terrible editing too.

    Since Mar 2010 • 380 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald, in reply to Russell Brown,

    So....with even the Constabulary coming on board with the 'help not hound' message for those with addictions, one would have thought that the Government would have ensured that the funding was in place to provide addiction services with a proven track record of the desired 'outcomes'.

    Not so...with not only funding being harder to secure, but funders demanding that addiction treatment providers follow what they (the funders) consider 'best practise', not what the providers have found actually is more effective.

    Kathryn Ryan interviews two addiction services providers, both who express their measured frustration at the "perverse incentives" that could "do more harm than good."

    And the Funder?

    Ultimately....this sorry lot...

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald, in reply to ,

    And regards funders requiring rehab operators to demonstrate best practice. What’s the problem with that?

    The problem is that the funder's idea of what is 'best practise', differs from what the operators have learned is 'best practise'.

    And the funders don't listen to what the operators are saying.

    And its all pretty damn depressing, especially when addicts can avoid jail. There's a window when someone is confronted with the reality of their problem and willingly seeks help. The help has to be available...

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald, in reply to ,

    Without re listening to the interview...it seems that the funders (the DHBs via the Ministry of Hell) think that funding a 12-16 week course is the best practise so they want to fund only 12-16 week courses. Those doing the work say that funding an initial 4 week course might very well be best practise, rather than signing someone up to months of rehab.

    I think the drop out rate is higher for the longer courses, and a shorter course with very good on going community support has a higher success rate.

    Services providers would need funding to actually collect evidence to support this.

    Later, I will listen again...but I think that is the gist.

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald, in reply to ,

    Here is an academic document from the national addiction centre. I was surprised to find this paragraph in there:

    Also....

    Addiction as an erosion of free will.

    The term addiction is derived from the Latin addictus referring to the relationship a slave had with his/her master - an enslavement.

    Definition.

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov,

    This is interesting, especially when observing contrasted behavioural patterns associated with alcohol use.

    The research she refers to found that a surprisingly high proportion of US soldiers had used heroin during the Vietnam War, with as many as 20 per cent reporting that they had been 'addicted' to the drug. This research also found, however, that only 10 per cent of this 20 per cent used opiates on their return to the USA. This suggests strongly that the popular representation of heroin as intensely addictive, and associated with unbearable withdrawal symptoms, is quite unreliable. If regular heroin use did not produce painful withdrawal and the usual gamut of social effects such as crime, what is heroin addiction? What, for that matter, is heroin?
    In raising these questions, we do not mean to imply that addiction is simply 'made up' and has no effects. Just as the idea of addiction has emerged in a particular time and place, so have experiences of addiction. Where drugs are not prohibited, for instance, they are unlikely to become scarce. Experiences of craving and withdrawal differ under conditions of plenty from those under conditions of scarcity and prohibition. In other words, addiction is partly the product of prohibition in that experiences of craving and compulsion are less likely to materialise where drugs are easy to obtain. This was true of the use of many drugs such as opiates prior to the late nineteenth century. No doubt some people (some heroin-using US veterans but not others, for example) experience addiction, compulsion, craving and withdrawal in relation to drugs, and these experiences have serious effect on their lives and the lives of others. But this does not mean that drugs should be seen deterministically as stable objects in possession of fixed characteristics that always produce predictable effects - that is, that their inherent properties determine people's experiences, and as such demand particular pre-given responses - for example, that they can and must be 'stamped out'. By the same token, we cannot assume that they have no real effects are therefore harmless. Sorting out perspectives that offer more than these two extremes, that take proper account of the materiality of drugs as Barad might ask us to do, is one of the key tasks for the field of critical studies of addiction and drugs.

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

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