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Joint Release: Government's new $17 million campagn to combat illicit drug use in Aus

phase_dancer

phase_dancer

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Apologies if this has already been posted.


Joint Release
The Hon Nicola Roxon MP
Minister for Health and Ageing
The Hon Justine Elliot MP
Minister for Ageing

25 February 2010

The Rudd Government today launched the next stage of its hard-hitting $17 million advertising campaign to combat illicit drug use in Australia.

The campaign presents the ugly facts of illicit substance use including confronting and graphic images of young people addicted to drugs and the reality of under ground production labs.

This campaign aims to tackle drug use by presenting the physical and psychological impacts of illicit drug use.

It urges young people to decide against drug use and directs users to support, counselling and treatment services.

This campaign is about young people understanding the consequences of illicit drug use, asking them to ‘face facts’ and emphasising the damaging effects drugs have.

Too many young Australians don’t understand the very real and dangerous impacts of taking or using illegal drugs.

Ecstasy is made in filthy, makeshift labs, using toxic ingredients like battery acid and bleach. The toxicity of each pill varies and the potential for overdose is in every single pill.

There is no ‘quality control’ over the manufacture of drugs such as ecstasy.

In 2007 more than one third of the people aged over 14 had used an illicit drug at least once in their lifetime.

The proportion of recent regular ecstasy users who use weekly or more often has risen from 0.8 per cent in 1998 to 17.3 per cent in 2007. There is also a disturbing trend in the increased ecstasy use by young females aged between 14-19 which is up from 4.7 per cent in 2004 to 6 per cent in 2007.

The campaign features print, outdoor, radio and in-venue advertisements depict real-life situations.

The advertisements, which will appear from this Sunday, were developed with the advice of clinicians, law enforcement officers and young people.

Further information, fact sheets and advice is available at www.australia.gov.au/drugs or by calling the free national hotline: 1800 250 015.

Media Contacts: Minister Roxon – 02 6277 7220 Minister Elliot – 02 6277 7280
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From personal communications, it seems many Aus AOD workers are up in arms about this, but are not permitted to comment publicly on the subject. From another Bler working in AOD, it's rumoured any national take over of the health system -as is currently proposed - would possibly start with overhauling the AOD sector.

Comments?
 
Joint release.... hehehehe

lol but seriously, this is ridiculous.

"Ecstasy is made in filthy, makeshift labs, using toxic ingredients like battery acid and bleach."

Does any ecstasy lab actually use either of these ingredients?
I thought it was a myth.

Also their ads last time did sweet fuck all, as shown by the statistics in this very article, why would it work now?

"The toxicity of each pill varies and the potential for overdose is in every single pill.
There is no ‘quality control’ over the manufacture of drugs such as ecstasy."

First, I don't think toxicity is the right word to use here. MDMA always has the same toxicity right? I mean it doesn't suddenly become more toxic from batch to batch. However the DOSAGE obviously varies, but I still doubt that one would ever OD from one pill, even if it was 100% MDMA, which isn't possible anyway coz you need binders. Unless it was a massive pill or something.
Plus, this just highlights the absolute NEED for quality control. 'Nuff said.
 
^ I guess the point is that virtually every pill is not 100% mdma and it has other ingredients, thus the statement "the toxicity of each pill varies" i think is a valid point
 
This is taken from the governments own drug clearing house, a review of the evidence regarding previous mass media campaigns:

Prevention Research Quarterly: current evidence evaluated
ISSN 1832-6013
© DrugInfo Clearinghouse 2005

http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/down...Quarterly/REP_No15_05Sep_Social_marketing.pdf

Social marketing: prevention and
practice review
Mr Netzach Goren, Centre for Youth Drug Studies,
Australian Drug Foundation

Page 16 in the conclusion section:

“by reviewing the results of the evaluation studies,
it appears that social marketing campaigns were
efficient in terms of reaching public awareness and,
to some extent, the level of attitudinal change.
However, there is little evidence to suggest that these
campaigns actually have an impact on desirable
behavioural change. There is even less supporting
evidence for the long-term impact of campaigns on
people’s behaviour.”

As far as commenting on AOD policy I suffer from cotton mouth, it's extremely difficult to talk!!!

Even though I am quite privileged in that I can talk to the media, as most workers can't. I may as well be mute!!!!!!!!

While I can speak as a concerned community member, that's a bit like walking on a tight rope. Nuff said
 
@chemi
Completely agree, It is a valid point.


HOWEVER

I Don't think their is a need to spend 17million dollars on raising awareness, majority of people fully understand the dangers of trying drugs including ecstasy.

I'll tell you what I hate... the government wants to spend 17million dollars to raise awareness, and yet they wanna spend another 44million dollars on sensoring the internet which will make it much harder for people to be able to research. *sigh*
 
Howcome its acceptable to advertise alcohol use and not slap warning labels on the bottles that're sold yet we're supposed to belielve whole heartedly that illicit substances are BAD BAD BAD?

I'm sorry, what's Alcohol again? ethyl-alcohol, it's quite a toxic chemical in itself, has a very real ability to kill people, cause addiction and overall damage to your system.

But it's okay because its "legal" however Cannabis or MDMA is somehow not allowed?

Double standards.
 
They pretty much have just outlined the problems they've caused here. And pretend that doing everything the same and spending more money is gonna work.
 
Sad times when the government throws away our money.
theres 22million ppl in Aus, i say take the 17mill and 44mill
and give each australian 3 dollars =D
 
Anti-drug use ads are a bit of a revolving door... around and around we go.

I have seen the Ecstasy advert in question, and the advert consists of nothing more than 'This is how ecstasy is made" with a pan to dirty toilet and make shift lab bottles full of black gunk, draining into a toilet full of blank gunk. What an obscene waste of tax payers money. :!

I am reminded of train spotting, not sure why. ;)
 
2sleepy said:
Anti-drug use ads are a bit of a revolving door... around and around we go.
Click to expand...

Yeah, im at the point where nothing they do surprise's me anymore.. unless our biology goes through some massive shift, there will always be that chemical desire.. we need to start accepting that its natural for humans and animals to seek out altered states of consciousness.. only when this is realized and accepted will anything change.

Until then, im gonna sit back and watch the show. ;)
 
malakaix said:
Yeah, im at the point where nothing they do surprise's me anymore.. unless our biology goes through some massive shift, there will always be that chemical desire.. we need to start accepting that its natural for humans and animals to seek out altered states of consciousness.. only when this is realized and accepted will anything change.

Until then, im gonna sit back and watch the show. ;)
Click to expand...

This reminded me of a paragraph I noted in Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley...

Ours is the age, among other things, of the automobile and of rocketing population. Alcohol is incompatible with safety on the roads, and its production, like that of tobacco, condemns to virtual sterility many millions of acres of the most fertile soil. The problems raised by alcohol and tobacco cannot, it goes without saying, be solved by prohibition. The universal and ever-present urge to self-transcendence is not to be abolished by slamming the currently popular Doors in the Wall. The only reasonable policy is to open the other, better doors in the hope of inducing men and women to exchange their old bad habits for new and less harmful ones. Some of these other, better doors will be social and technological in nature, others religious or psychological, others dietetic, educational, athletic. But the need for frequent chemical vacations from intolerable selfhood and repulsive surroundings will undoubtedly remain.

What is needed is a new drug which will relieve and console our suffering species without doing more harm in the long run that it does good in the short. Such a drug must be potent in minute doses and synthesizable. If it does not possess these qualities, its production, like that of wine, beer, spirits and tobacco will interfere with the raising of indispensable food and fibres. It must be less toxic than opium or cocaine, less likely to produce undesirable social consequences than alcohol or the barbiturates, less inimical to heart and lungs than the tars and nicotine of cigarettes. And, on the positive side, it should produce changes in consciousness more interesting, more intrinsically valuable than mere sedation or dreaminess, delusions of omnipotence or release from inhibition.
Click to expand...
 
^ Thankyou for that quote, that was a really amazing paragraph to read, very well said.
 
"Ecstasy is made in filthy, makeshift labs, using toxic ingredients like battery acid and bleach."

Does any ecstasy lab actually use either of these ingredients?
I thought it was a myth.
Click to expand...

To put things in perspective;

1) Pharmaceuticals are often made with similar chemicals, as well as far more toxic chemicals. That doesn't for a moment imply these chemicals are present in a final product. There may have been the odd case where impurities have been found and/or quality control was found to be lacking, but it's generally rare - as it should be.

2) The hypochlorite ion is a very useful tool in organic synthesis, and accordingly can be employed in various drug syntheses. Sulphuric acid is often used in MDMA and other amphetamine synths, but for the common methods, this is in relatively small amounts. The thing is, without going into synth details, it should never normally be found in a final product except from contamination. Same with hypochlorite. Which brings me to point three.

3) As the article mentions, pharmaceutical industry quality control should give far more assurance that impurities aren't present, and while there have been lab busts where a GC/MS was found, without independent confirmation or some form of certification, this still doesn't guarantee anything. Greed is often accompanied by a ... blind eye mentality after all.
 
Phase dancer, great post.

I think if they gave BL that 17mill, we would do better with it, and reduce more harm. Imagine the type of AD campain we could run with that money, that would educate more then the goverment ever could.
 
Thanks Sykik, yes I bet there's a lot of organisations that could do more good with a mere slice of it. If past advertising of this nature had been effective in the long term, then there would be less cause for concern, but as we all know, short running, highly graphic ads usually have limited value.
 
^
If only, They should be putting that cash towards making a compulsory balanced documentry for all students in year 10. What they need to realise that only stating the bad things about drugs means that if someone tries them and find out all the benefits that way, all previous things lose credability. Thats what happened to me, and the reason I started doing my own research.

Teenagers with this sort of topic should be approached like adults instead of like children.
 
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