Posts by Russell Brown
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I really can't imagine an X+BZP mixture is more dangerous than the standard X+Speed or X+P that we're used to. What exactly is the issue here? "Drug dealers are dishonest"?
The stuff on Pill Reports suggests that there's some weirder things going into pills across the Tasman, including 2CB (alright on its own, but a potentially nasty surprise in an "ecstasy" pill), ketamine, and other things I've never even heard of. Two of the reports recorded suppressed lung function. You can see where that could go wrong.
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That's a fairly fundamental part of the story to get wrong.
And they had to ignore the opening line of the police press release to do it.
I only caught the end of the interview with the ESR guy on National yesterday afternoon, so didn't pick up on the actual story. I was really struggling to understand why someone would put an expensive illegal substance into a cheaper legal party pill. Unless it was a loss-leader to get brand loyalty... Anyhoo, thanks to RB for digging a little deeper and clearing up more un-journalistic behaviour from the main stream media.
It's one area of reporting where the MSM not only feels entitled but positively obliged to get it wrong. It took about two seconds to guess there was something wrong with the angle.
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The Rugby Union has made $20 million + surpluses the last couple of years. It is a profitable franchise. There is absolutely no reason why it could not raise the funds from issuing bonds or other borrowing techniques, and paying it off, just like the rest of us.
The NZRU doesn't own Eden Park - or any of the other stadia around the country. Is there a particular reason it should plough 10 years' earnings into Eden Park rather than, say Carisbrook?
If there's a bad guy here, it's the Eden Park Trust Board, which pitched a $30m upgrade and then, when it was probably too late to consider other options, came to the government wanting more than 10 times that much.
David's complaining because Mallard might open the public purse. Brian Rudman's complaining because he might not. Murray McCully opposed the waterfront stadium, and is now complaining about Eden Park. Poor old Duck Hubbard gets blamed for everything. It just makes my head hurt.
Frankly, the limitations of Eden Park are such that I thought the $385m plan was money down the drain. I can live with the half-price plan, but it's insane to expect Auckland City ratepayers to pick up the bill. I think it's reasonable for Mallard to demand that the trust board fronts up with some more finance of its own.
Why the fuck am I paying a for-profit entertainment business huge sums from my taxes when urgent, universally-needed infrastructure goes begging?
There will actually be significant infrastructure improvements tied to the Rugby World Cup. Most of that will come out of my rates. Ditto Vector Arena and (thank goodness it's a regional asset) the upkeep and improvement of Mt Smart Stadium.
Large venues are also a form of infrastructure - I'd just rather spend the money on a stadium we actually own. But that idea got shot down.
And, finally, while not everyone enjoys it, rugby union is the national game, one which forms part of our identity and one at which we truly excel. The RWC will bring in a lot of foreign exchange in 2011 - whether it's enough to return the public investment via tax is another matter. But we've made the commitment and we really need to get on with it.
PS: Don, ask the people who went to the Roger Waters show at North Harbour and spent forever driving home what they think about staging games with more than twice the crowd there. It's a ground that can't even attract 10,000 people to an NPC match - bulking it up to 60,000 would be creating a massive white elephant miles out of town.
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I am sorry if you and the other journalists, spin doctors, and hacks are taking this personally, but I do consider the generally poor writing and analytical skills of NZ's journalists an issue of public concern.
Okay. Britain has 15 times the population of New Zealand, the ability to attract talent from all over the world and a tradition that stretches back to the advent of newspapers.
The Guardian website has lost/cost something approaching £100 million since it was launched, because it doesn't have to make a profit. It's owned by a non-profit trust that demands only a high standard and innovation.
The BBC doesn't have to make a profit either, and The Independent soldiers on despite having been in the red for years - because Tony O'Reilly can keep it on as a vanity project while he sucks money out of the colonies. Fairfax props up the Australian Financial Review with money it sucks out of its New Zealand operations.
Result? A stream of talented and experienced journalists who get to middle age and think, sod this, and take a tasty PR job. The standard freelance writing rate - 40 cents a word - hasn't changed in 12 years and is a fraction of that in other markets.
It's a wonder, frankly, that the NZ press is as good as it is.
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Cutting illegal substances with BZP to up the profits, that I can believe.
Of course. The newspapers, whether wilfully or not, just got it arse-about.
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I suspect that the best option is to make (relatively) safe ecstasy available via pharmacies. Getting high-quality ecstasy from a known supplier would likely result in a collapse of the P market (as well as that of the less-than-great BZPs) and probably a drop in alcohol-related crime.
I suspect that there are now synthetic drugs that would do ecstasy's job with an even lower risk. Matt Bowden's Ease (methylone) sort of fit that bill. But that was declared illegal because it was discovered that it was, um, illegal - while BZP is in the shops because it couldn't be construed as an analog of any currently banned drug. It's not exactly a rational process.
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Hmmm ... I went and had a look at Pill Reports and the Aust-NZ section seems to have a strikingly high number of adulterated pills listed. They're all Australian reports, but it would be reasonable to assume some of the bad pills are making it over here.
Case in point: "Pink DVDs". Reports here and here
No one really seems to know what's in them. Nasty.
If bad people in NZ are taking something like this, bulking it up with BZP, reconstituting and onselling, it's not surprising we have a problem.
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John - very unimpressed with that story - was surprised to see you run something like that.
I think they put themselves in a risky position when they went with a story focusing on a staff member.
It's very hard to turn around and contradict someone in a position like that, but it was not helpful when the father went on Campbell Live and declared that party pills have "rat poison and horse tranquiliser" in them and it wasn't swiftly corrected. I got the feeling JC knew that too.
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Lost in all this is the public's health. For Gods sake, if a bung pill is out there then just fucking tell people. The police have a duty to tell the community the colour, name, and general description of any pill that has hurt or killed anyone.
Quite right. I guess the only risk is that some munter will think those ones must be extra good and seek them out - but if someone is hurt by a bad pill because it was politically incorrect for the police to issue a specific warning ...
If the pills are being packaged and sold as "legal" and the STANZ knows anything then they should tell people. No one should be crippled or killed for a $50 high just so people can play politics over BZP.
I would guess that some of the STANZ people have more specific market knowledge than they let on, but these clearly aren't retail party pills. I've never seen one of these grey-market BZP jobs, but I guess you come across them if you're a twentysomething drum 'n' bass freak in the South Island.
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It occurred to me that while it probably is a call for help, Britney's head-shaving could also be seen as a rational way of shaking off all the people who have their grubby paws on her; of taking herself out of the game. No one can make her the pop princess now.
The degree of paparazzi pressure she endures is astonishing and must be very hard to bear. It's not just traditional media sticking cameras in her face now, but internet-based crews trailing her everywhere. It's really creepy.
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