New front opens in Australian war on drugs

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Portillo

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The Australian Crime Commission has warned of a dangerous new front in the war on drugs as it revealed a record 23.8 tonnes of illicit substances, worth $5 billion, were seized by customs staff last year. The haul included the highest number of seizures for performance enhancing drugs in a decade - adding further weight to the ACC's bombshell February report which alleged widespread use of drugs in professional sport.

Performance enhancing drug seizures rose 56.9 per cent to 8726 in 2011/12, with 6126 involving steroids and 2600 involving hormones. Other seizures included a single 11 tonne cache of hypophosphorus acid, a chemical used to make methylamphetamine, a record 785.5 kilograms of cocaine, 256kg of heroin, 347kg of amphetamines and 17kg of cannabis.

There were 93,000 drug-related arrests in 2011/12 - the highest for a decade - and 809 clandestine drug laboratories discovered. But while the seizure of sports and recreational drugs was welcomed, senior crime fighters also revealed concerns about the increasing popularity of new, synthetic substances mimicking ecstasy, cannabis and amphetamines.

The so-called 'drug analogues' are being invented at a rate of one per week in China, India and other countries, according to a recent European Union study cited in the ACC report. The speed at which these exotic party drugs are being made - including cannabinoids called Voodoo and ecstasy-type drugs 'miaow miaow' and 'plant food' - is making it difficult for authorities to keep up.

The ACC report said the drugs have been selling for as little as $15 a capsule in Australia. "I argue that no market is as dynamic as the drug analogues and novel substances market which is changing the illicit drugs landscape as we know it," ACC CEO John Lawler said. Drug analogue seizures in Australia fell from almost 300kg in 2010/11 to just 50kg in 2011/12, with the ACC report citing "technical difficulties" in identifying some of the substances. "As a result, monitoring and reporting on national trends of these drugs is limited," the report said.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus said the seizures had dented organised criminals' bid to profit from Australia's relative wealth. But he admitted it's unclear how many drugs slipped through the net and conceded the war on drugs will never be won. "The relative height of the Australian dollar, the relative wealth of this country means we are a target," Mr Negus said. "Will we ever get to the point where we've got no drugs coming into this country? I suggest not. But we have to do our very best that's our objective."

Justice Minister Jason Clare welcomed the seizures and revealed he was offered heroin almost daily as a student. "As a young bloke catching the train to university I remember almost every day on the way home being asked if I wanted to buy heroin," he said. "Friends I went to school with became heroin addicts, people I knew through school ended up going to jail." Mr Clare blamed drugs for Sydney's recent spate of shootings which number 222 since March 2011, according to NSW state opposition figures.
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http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/20/09/08/more-hormones-steroids-being-seized
 
It does seem that a lot of people these days are in to juicing up and working out. Go to any gym in the country and you'll see huge guys with the usual back acne etc.

Zyzz's legacy I guess.
 
I'm oddly fascinated with the duality of Zyzz's legacy - he promoted healthy living, by working out all the time and talking about it, but he was supposed to have been pretty open about steroid use too, which is pretty contradictory. Then again, I know where he's coming from - I used to use amphetamines at low doses to help me work out in the gym and they helped me out for a time - it was easier to build muscle after I stopped using amps though. I actually just recently stopped working out 5 days a week, as I've been used to for 5 years, because I did realize I seemingly always had to smoke a bowl of weed before I went - I'm going to start up going again soon without using the weed 'crutch', even though I don't really think of it like a PED, just as another expense which I can't afford all the time.
 
It's not a new front. It's always been like that. It's just human ingenuity at it's finest.

It all comes down to people importing or buying illegal substances, and finding new and different ways to get what they want.

Even Mr Negus conceded that the war will never be won. That is an admission that we're wasting our time. Most of these substances (including Nembutal) cannot be detected by sniffer dogs. Only by X-Ray and scanning devices. Plenty comes through, but only about 5% of packages containing illicit substances are ever seized, and far far fewer than that are actually followed up on with legal proceedings. The chances of getting detected are small and the chances of getting busted, even smaller. But they are still there. It's like playing the poker machines in reverse. Most of the time you'll lose and be fine. But sometimes you'll win and get into trouble.
 
I'd say your chances of 'winning and getting in trouble' were close to nonexistant as long as you didn't overdo it. If you were stupid enough to order ounces or more, then yeah you should expect a knock on the door if lady luck denies you her favor, but I have a hard time imagining they'd bother prosecuting for personal use quantities.

I mean maybe that's just optimistic thinking, but to be honest, that's actually what I expected when SR first became big, a huge wave of people being charged for importation because they ordered a 10 pack of european pills or a ball of coke from south america, just to make an example of them and discourage any further orders, but that never happened. I can literally count on one hand (and short a few digits at that) the number of people I heard of who were charged for SR shenanigans, and every one of them went stupidly over the top and ordered ounces - kilos of various substances for resale and ended up being busted with commercial quantities.
 
I can literally count on one hand (and short a few digits at that) the number of people I heard of who were charged for SR shenanigans, and every one of them went stupidly over the top and ordered ounces - kilos of various substances for resale and ended up being busted with commercial quantities.
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Yeah it seemed pretty low for how many people were apparently using it. From the ones I heard of getting busted anyway, maybe there were more, but they didn't seem very common, and as you say the ones caught ordered stupid large amounts or kept on doing it for too long.
 
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"""The so-called 'drug analogues' are being invented at a rate of one per week in China, India and other countries, according to a recent European Union study cited in the ACC report. The speed at which these exotic party drugs are being made - including cannabinoids called Voodoo and ecstasy-type drugs 'miaow miaow' and 'plant food' - is making it difficult for authorities to keep up.""

-so called "drug analogues" (as if this wasnt a legitimate scientific term)
-ecstasy-type drugs (ecstasy is a category of drugs apparently)
-miaow miaow, plant food (quit pretending like anybody but journalist uses terms this juvenile)


FACEPALM, for fucks sake, journalism really attracts the goddamn dumbest people
 
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