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Sky News; PLANS FOR LEGAL ECSTASY TESTING AT A DANCE PARTY

I put a pencil in my ear and now there's blood pouring from my head. Is that bad? When am I going to get fucked up? ;)
 
So is testing still going ahead at EC or is it pretty much a no go now?

Cheers,
L
 
Unless we get permission from the government it isn't going to happen. That is Earthcore's position and we at Enlighten respect that. Enlighten will still be attending Earthcore but we will limit ourselves ton only legal activities, ie selling kits, collecting signatures on petitions and talking to the inevitable journalists.

But as I said before 2 weeks is a very long time in politics, anything could happen.
 
Just another shitty HS article

Plan for ravers to test drug quality

12nov04

A PROPOSAL to enable people at rave parties to test illicit drugs for purity is to be examined by health officials.

The ministerial council on drug strategy, meeting in Brisbane today, established a working group of officials from government and the Australian National Council on Drugs to report on the issue and formulate a national policy.

However such a proposal is unlikely to get federal government backing.

Under recent proposals backed by the Australian Drug Foundation, revellers would be able to have their drugs, including ecstasy, tested for purity before being given them back.

If the plan went ahead, doctors would advise drug users whether their pills, which cost about $35 on the black market, contain deadly ingredients.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Christopher Pyne, raised the issue at today's meeting of health and police ministers saying the government's "Tough on Drugs" policy was about keeping drugs off the streets.

"Obviously to allow people to test for drugs at rave parties sends entirely the wrong message to young people about the harmful impacts of illicit drugs," Mr Pyne told journalists.

"There is no possibility of making illicit drugs safe for use.

"The message from the Commonwealth is that illicit drugs are illegal, harmful, dangerous.

"They always will be. They shouldn't be taken. To test these drugs at parties, hand them back to the party-goers and say: `Yes, they're safe to take' sends the message to those young people that in fact these drugs are okay to take when they're not."

To test these drugs at parties, hand them back to the party-goers and say: `Yes, they're safe to take'
Click to expand...
No one said this you fucking fucktard (continue entering explitives)... You all know where I'm going with this quote and I'm too lazy to go on about it...
(ie look at the writing at the bottom of every BL page...)
 
Thanks for the update P_P


What's the possibility that the federal gov. could prevent states from approving on-site testing?
 
If you thought meth psychosis was bad. Try having ignorant politician fucktard induced psychosis:X Every time I thought I was getting over it I would get another hit from the news on jjj!


Tough on drugs? Tough on drug users more like it.
 
Technically the federal government can't legislate on drugs, unless compelled to do so by international treaty. (That's according to the Australian Constitution i believe)

But the folks in canberra have a talent for re-interpreting the meaning of clauses in international agreements to suit their needs. So i guess they can do whatever they want.
 
potato -- you're correct, but we're already a signatory to three treaties limiting drug use, and so they might get away with it on that one.

"There's no possiiblity

Alternatively they just apply shitloads of pressure, and threaten to withhold state funding for noncompliance. there's the real power.

""There is no possibility of making illicit drugs safe for use." that's the most disappointing thing I've ever heard =\

You could say much the same for alcohol from that viewpoint
 
I know it doesn't count for regular on-site testing, but what if the testing was part of a University research project? Would the Feds be able to suppress this if it was already state approved?

If yes, can anyone cite other examples (not necessarily drug related) where Feds have intervened when a state university or medical research team were conducting or about to conduct a controversial project?
 
Missed this, on Wednesday when the Herald Sun reported that Bracksie had resoundingly said "no", this editorial was also published in the paper.

No good ecstasy

10 Nov 2004

THE Victorian Government rightly rejects a suggested trial quality-test of ecstasy tablets at a dance party this month.

The request was from a Royal Adelaide Hospital research fellow, backed by the Australian Drug Foundation and the Bracks Government's drug advisory body.

But Premier Steve Bracks says testing of ecstasy tablets is not government policy.

Two young Victorians died recently, possibly from the effects of ecstasy. In Sydney police have warned that 5000 dangerous ecstasy tablets are on the streets.

But if the testing trial was expanded to a general testing, to be of benefit in preventing harm it would have to be done at all public parties. That is not feasible.

Federal parliamentary secretary for health Christopher Pyne said: "They (ecstasy tablets) are not safe for consumption in any context; the proposal sends entirely the wrong message."

The right message to deliver is that people are foolish to indulge in an illegal drug which has the potential to kill them.

Condoning abuse by engaging in official testing is not the way to go.
Click to expand...

From here

Also, it's intersting that whether accurate or not, the announcement earlier this week by police about 5000 "bad" pills turning up in Australia actually helps this particular cause.
 
phase_dancer said:
I know it doesn't count for regular on-site testing, but what if the testing was part of a University research project? Would the Feds be able to suppress this if it was already state approved?

If yes, can anyone cite other examples (not necessarily drug related) where Feds have intervened when a state university or medical research team were conducting or about to conduct a controversial project?
Click to expand...

If it was part of a state approved research project I can't see any way of stopping that federally. The treaties only deal with the trafficking of drugs for illicit consumption. All the treaties contain exemptions for legitimate medical research, and the state acts have relevant provisions for that.

Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (NSW) s10
10 Possession of prohibited drugs

(1) A person who has a prohibited drug in his or her possession is guilty of an offence.

(2) Nothing in this section renders unlawful the possession of a prohibited drug by:
(a) a person licensed or authorised to have possession of the prohibited drug under the Poisons Act 1966 ,
(b) a person acting in accordance with an authority granted by the Secretary of the Department of Health where the Secretary is satisfied that the possession of the prohibited drug is for the purpose of scientific research, instruction, analysis or study,
(b1) a person acting in accordance with a direction given by the Commissioner of Police under section 39RA,
(c) a person for or to whom the prohibited drug has been lawfully prescribed or supplied, or
(d) a person who:
(i) has the care of, or is assisting in the care of, another person for or to whom the prohibited drug has been lawfully prescribed or supplied, and
(ii) has the prohibited drug in his or her possession for the sole purpose of administering, or assisting in the self-administration of, the prohibited drug to the other person in accordance with the prescription or supply.
Click to expand...
 
<B>whoah. i got 6 seconds on jjj. oh well.</b>

Yeh, JJJ usually do that, cos they try to make the news last around 3 minutes. You sounded good though - i wanted to hear more.
 
Just a general, somewhat related question: What harm minimisation initiatives has the government (any government, State or Federal) employed in the past?

I ask this because I read an interview with Andrea Mason, leader of Family First, who said that the party "doesn't believe that harm minimisation has worked".

Any foundation to a claim like that?
 
It all depends on how you judge success. In the eyes the opponents of harm reduction it is impossible for it to succeed as their only measure of success would be people not doing drugs. But, as harm reduction takes as its very basis the acceptance that some people will always take drugs, it can never achieve this goal. This is absurd, I know, but it is essentially their arguement. Even if we move past this you still have to ask how do yoiu measure success?

Australian drug policy has three branches; supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction. Supply rediction is stopping the drugs getting into the country or preventing them from being manufactured here. Since Australian Customs admits that on a good day they will sieze less than 20% of drugs coming into the country this means this area of policy has at least an 80% failure rate. And that's with a budget in the multi-millions.

Demand reduction is stopping people from wanting to take drugs. How does the government do this? By spending milions on slick TV ads. And how effective are they? Well you tell me.

Harm reduction, however, has a fracton of the budget but has areas of success you can actually measur, ie reductions in rates of IV users with transmittable diseases, reductions in adulterants. But it is the only area where any initiative put forward can be dismissed because "it doesn't work". even tho no data will be supplied to show that. The simple fact that people are still taking drugs is proof enough that harm reduction has failed.

Never mind that the USA, a country which has wholehearted dismissed harm reduction and kept a hard line of "Just Say NO" for the last 40 years, has endemic drug use. Never mind hard facts, this is faith we talking about. If they keep repeating that "harm minimisation has failed" then it will eventually be believed.
 
johnboy said:
But it is the only area where any initiative put forward can be dismissed because "it doesn't work". even tho no data will be supplied to show that. The simple fact that people are still taking drugs is proof enough that harm reduction has failed.

Never mind that the USA, a country which has wholehearted dismissed harm reduction and kept a hard line of "Just Say NO" for the last 40 years, has endemic drug use. Never mind hard facts, this is faith we talking about. If they keep repeating that "harm minimisation has failed" then it will eventually be believed.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... that's what I thought.

Thanks a bunch for that, johnboy. :D
 
I hope to say it to him in person soon. Preferably on national TV.
 
Ive beent thinking about writing a letter to the ANCD recently... similar to the one I wrote to the NSW ministers (and got a fucking form reply for :\ )...
 
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