The purpose is Polices, the outcomes selected for inclusion (and their method of analyses) by Police and biased scientists are up for much criticism, the applicability for deriving social costs is therefore a long way off. These frameworks are not ripe enough to yet take the theory into practise (allocation of resources). Berl seem well aware of this limitation given they have qualified the report with -

"All work is done, and services rendered at the request of, and for the purposes of the client only. Neither BERL nor any of its employees accepts any responsibility on any grounds whatsoever, including negligence, to any other person. While every effort is made by BERL to ensure that the information, opinions and forecasts provided to the client are accurate and reliable, BERL shall not be liable for any adverse consequences of the client’s decisions made in reliance of any report provided by BERL, nor shall BERL be held to have given or implied any warranty as to whether any report provided by BERL will assist in the performance of the client’s functions."

Ali provided the recommended research list for the AFP framework or so she told me! The framework is a skeleton that Economists without specialty knowledge re each report section eg "drug related hospitalisations" can use as an issue map, directing them to more or less fruitful avenues eg harm here or not here - so they can then flesh the skeleton out with local findings.

So to simplify she was responsible for a sort of recommended reference guide for each section. The references had a bias introduced - if you are willing to spend a few hours on this the bias of what was included or excluded as authorfitative references clearly aligns with the philosophy of the "mastermind". The word cherrypicking springs to mind.

Adrian Slack admits to no specialty knowledge and to using the "recommended research" as a guide to where to dig and where to look away.

I have spoken to world leading economists who say from their point of view the crux problem with the report is iots broad range of inquiry and the high dependence of writers therefore on secondary specialist knowledge - in multiple fields they have no personal expertise that would enable critical thinking or discernment.

Ritter abnegates responsibility for what use others may put her work to, but says that if others have differing views they ought martial their evidence in response. NDARC is but one of many playgrounds for that one.

Resorting to data from Health Information Service is also problematic as it is often low grade eg overdoses are poorly reported and recorded. Adverse drug effects are not legally required to be reported in NZ etc etc on and on.

Police say the tool must be viewed in awareness it is a very blunt tool painting a broad canvas - it can not be taken as an accurate detailed picture at all. Ritter and others say the woirk is only foundatioinal and should not be seen as a final statement at all. These indexes are made to be improved, added to, beefed out +++.

The fear in the scientific community is they will be attacked so hard they never get to mature into more accurate useful things such as drink harm indexes have become (in a way) by slow development and refinement over years as knowledge grew.

This argument in defence I accept - but still query the sanity of releasing on the unsuspecting public something so half baked.

BERLs report and it's misuse are all just so silly,silly silly. the report content should be lauded by legalisers.... for mj anyhow. Police are to be applauded with mirth for taking something which denies harm (other than costs imposed by prohibition) and holding it up as a damning indictment. Now that is pure audacity.

Perhaps most amusing is how drug legalisers are missing their opportunity to put this report to their own use... for its contents serve their purposes well, and perhaps were intended to given the looming review of the Misuse of drugs Act. As regards pot at least... not so well would it suit legalisers of P.

Still they would use the report contents to intended advantage (eg contrasting alleged pot harm with alcohol harm taken from other sources) at their peril - given the methodology is so incompetent in the round.

1. It does not weight pros against cons as frequently noted here
2. It is based on very poor research regarding cons; as most of the budget for research in NZ has gone in to tobacco and alcohol leaving drug harms pretty unexplored locally. Except party pills tee hee, and dihydrogen monoxide.

I would say that is why the name of the index was not changed as agreed to "illicit drug harm index" as then the question may have beeen askedof how many workdays are missed due to party pill hangovers.

Or of how many P users are weaning off on party pills - I know a couple which broke their P addiction (quite serious) by using party pills to address their lackadaisical state of mind while their brains recovered from P. Great - it worrked. But now pweerhaps they and their toddlers are condemned to relapse.

It is a fact that a prominent pot legaliser of high academic standing helped to create the parent model of the NZ drug harm index. This ensured cannabis got favorable treatment - a handicap so to speak. This is also why the major harms from pot were not included. Why the report says no primary health costs are attributed to cannabis eg self harm like transient psychosis induced self injury
eg car crash injuries (existence denied based on a debunked 1996 study (by Robinson & Sullivan I believe) from which assumptions of the parent model were taken.

This BERL report is based on a report methodology used by Oz Police =- one criticised by renowned economists as outdated even before NZ Police decided to copy and recycle the model. It is flawed on many fronts so I wish the Drug Foundy all luck in getting a review done. The only problem is that the report is so full of bull it could take years and drive their appointed reviewers insane - or make them puke at the smell of politically tainted BS.

Many agendas have conspired to form the final report. Most ironically the agendas of prominent drug liberalisers (report framework modellers)working for Oz Police have combined with pro drug policing agendas of Police, and with agendas of politicians trying to present a contradictory, flawed and essentially corrupted report (on many fronts) as "damning".

The only thing that is damned is the report unless you have only a primary school science education. This is not a report that will sit week with anyone, from rampant prohibitionists to the most liberal of legalisers. It is just pure bad social science - the kind of thing laying soft sciences openm to ridicule since any quest for some semblence of "truth" has obviously been hijacked.

I have never supported bookburning but for this I would make an exception. It is not salvageable, and needs to be redone from the start by people confirmed as having no strong leanings one way or another re preferred drug policies.

Oz Police should never have employed Dr Alison Ritter who created this monster. Where were their investigative skills that day? Now they have just landed NZ Police in the same poo they'd be sitting in - if only they were dumb enough to also publicly release their cousin index. But they aren't. The Victorian one is officially secret. For Cops eyes only. Thank God for that.