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CONFERENCE: Club Health 2005 - Sydney

First steps forward from prohibition policy: New Zealand’s designer pill industry

First steps forward from prohibition policy: New Zealand’s designer pill industry
Matt Bowden, Stargate Foundation, New Zealand

Matt explained that while law enforcement works to reduce supply of illicit drugs, whilst the demand continues unabated, this will lead to decreased quality of drugs and gangsterism.

In NZ, there is a class D of low risk drugs. Creating legal alternatives to illicit drugs means working on the demand for those drugs by providing a substitution.

P, or crystal methamphetamine, became a huge problem in NZ recently. Stargate developed BZP as a replacement for speed/P, as a potential substitution treatment for ‘meth addicts’. They approached the government with this novel solution. However it seems that many other people came onto the scene to manufacture ‘party pills’ containing BZP with a lack of regulations on manufacture and where pills could be sold. Party pills are now sold in ‘dairies’ (milk bars / delis) and there is no standards on manufacture. This has lead to some areas of NZ reporting higher related harms than others.

There have only been 23 overdoses in Auckland from BZP, but Christchurch had more serious problems.

Regulation, not prohibition, gives us quality control.

In order to get the government on side, the general public need to also be on side. De-stigmatation campaigns can help.
 
Substance use prevention at clubs and pubs in the Netherlands: An integrated preventi

Substance use prevention at clubs and pubs in the Netherlands: An integrated prevention approach.
Ninette van Hasselt
Trimbos Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Key elements of Dutch policy
- being realistic
- different in approach to demand reduction
- no fear appeals, we take people seriously
- harm reduction is cornerstone (Harm reduction is possible if you can differentiate your prevention approach between settings, because the message should be different depending on the group.)
- separation of hard and soft drugs in order to prevent those users from going to hard dealers
- very well regulated.
Over the last few years, policy has become more conservative. More a crime issue than before. Church is more of an influence. Now, there is no testing allowed at parties. Also there are now stricter rules on the prevention of alcohol.

Trends in nightlife in Netherlands:
- LSD, K, rare
- GHB used by small group
- Speed and ecstasy are less popular
- Cocaine and alcohol are the substances of choice

Polluted drugs are not such an issue here.

Drug Information Monitoring System (DIMS) and Club Drug projects are both funded by government.

DIMS
Consumer goes to Addiction care centre with ecstasy pill. If it can’t be identified at the centre (using a list of already identified pills) it is passed on for lab testing. Consumers get the info back but have to sacrifice their pill. Information is usually available within one week. The government stopped testing at parties because it assumed it would have the effect of legitimising use, even though the Hanover study found this was not the case. However we prefer this system because it is harder to identify pills at the parties.

Clubs & Drugs project
Strategy is harm reduction with a focus on the setting, the healthy settings approach. Some research shows this is effective, more so than any other focus. To integrate alcohol and drugs prevention, we needed to also focus on alcohol. Implementation structure – worked with regional centres to train health workers. Cooperation with stake holders was important. Unfortunately funds not available for a proper evaluation.

Lessons learnt
- less is more
- don’t mix universal with selective messages
- make life easier for others (eg. manual for regional partners)
- combining alcohol and drugs prevention has pros and cons
- alcohol is too big to ignore
- safety is the common goal between all parties.
 
Sniffer dogs in NSW: On the streets and in the clubs

Sniffer dogs in NSW: On the streets and in the clubs
Michael Walton
NSW Council for Civil Liberties

The Council is highly critical of searches with sniffer dogs. They undermine harm reduction and undermine police. Police with dogs used to sniff drugs on people:
- arbitrary nature of searching
- humiliation and embarrassment
- police use this to get info
- use is undermining public confidence in police
- appalling accuracy

How and when can they be used?
2001 ruled that searches were illegal. New act in 2002 authorised police officers without a warrant to use dogs in:
- premises where alcohol is served
- events / entertainment
- any train, light rail, bus

Accuracy
In June 2004, the Ombudsman released a discussion paper where it was revealed that 73% of people identified had no drugs on them. Apparently sniffer dogs were brought in primarily to help identify dealers. The vast majority of people who had drugs on them had small amounts of cannabis which were dealt with a caution. Only 1% were deemed to have supply amounts of illicit drugs on them. Police seem to turn blind eye to inaccuracy of dogs.

Health implications
Commitment of government to harm reduction is questioned. When police arrive at a venue, the venue is locked down. Patrons react either by discarding drugs, swallowing all drugs, this is dangerous. People also modify their behaviour, for example, people may take their entire amount of drugs at home before arriving at an event instead of pacing themselves over the night. People look to purchase drugs at the venue from unknown dealers to avoid the possibility of being caught with drugs on public transport to the event. Injecting drug users discarding used syringes on the street when dogs are seen between they attract the dogs.

Report will be sent out soon from the Ombudsman, but the NSW police have already pre-empted their response will be to keep the dogs. This way they are ‘seen to be doing something’ about the ‘drug problem’. And it provides them with an excuse to search without a warrant. The Council believes this is against our right to privacy and right to walk the streets without harassment.
 
Hey Guys,

Loved the conference. Definitely wanted to start protesting at the end. I guess we did in our own way haha. Such a great bunch of people that attended.

Hope to be back in Australia soon.

Dan+Anna
 
No worries, might as well get some of the info out there. Hi Dan & Anna, hope you enjoyed Australia :)
 
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