• 🇳🇿 🇲🇲 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇦🇺 🇦🇶 🇮🇳
    Australian & Asian
    Drug Discussion


    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

JTV and Harm Minimisation

drplatypus

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 9, 2003
Messages
260
For those interested, JTV is covering the recent debate on harm minimisation vs prohibition on Steve Cannane's section this Friday night (28th September).
There is an extended interview with Bronwyn Bishop, which apparently speaks for itself...:\
 
We'll certainly be watching
14.gif
 
It's just on normal ABC. :)

11.45pm – 12.15am ABC
Friday 28 September 2007
 
I'm told that the full interview with Bronwyn Bishop will be online from 8pm AEST on the JTV website...
 
Hack: Bronwyn Bishop's war on drugs

Bronwyn Bishop has released a report claiming the War on Drugs is winnable - as long as the focus moves away from harm minimisation. Is this the way ahead? Steve Cannane investiagtes for Hack.

Dr Caldicott - Well spoken, as per usual, and a great representative of the HM movement.

Bronwyn Bishop -Why, oh why, are you a representative of our community???
 
I heard Steve talking this up on JJJ this morning. Can't wait to see it. Altho, its likely to be rather painful now that I think about it.
 
Since when has common sense or education come into play when it comes to legislation. :\
 
Ms Bishop says she has a zero tolerance stance while at the same time admits that - subject to evaluation - there's likely to be some place for harm minimisation involving needle exchange programs.

When we couple this attitude with changing future trends in illicit drug use, it's easy to see that such a stance will be difficult to maintain i.e. employing a HR based service for IV users, but not for other drug users.

In a broader sense of the term, harm prevention is already the ultimate aim of most, if not all HR workers and supporters. Semantics of such terms are always going to be ambiguous, and this one is no less so than harm minimisation or harm reduction. While a specific meaning of each term may be given as such, application often requires a slightly different interpretation e.g. Available care can't be available for some and not for others based upon addiction. If someone has already consumed a drug, they shouldn't be exempt from non-emergency level care regardless of whether they're an addict, a first time user, or somewhere between. Occasional and semi-regular use will continue to occur which will involve both problematic and non-problematic outcomes. It's the drugs themselves, the types of reactions they cause, and the number of problematic outcomes that are likely to change.

So, whether the focus of harm prevention will be zero tolerance or 'a bit of tolerance' in regards to drug use and infectious diseases, prevention will ultimately be viewed as minimisation or reduction; that is, saving lives, and just as importantly, ensuring the well being of young people and the drug using community in general. If any such policy is to be called harm prevention, it must therefore also encompass and support outreach activities where drug use often results in increased risk taking behavior or vulnerability due to intoxication.

To do that effectively, a non-judgemental approach is vital. It's quite easy to disseminate deterrent advice, so long as you're not waving a moral finger. To do that would mean you've got buckly's chance of reaching many of those who most need help. What Ms Bishop doesn't seem to grasp is that outreach operations such as RaveSafe bridge the gap between those who are willing to voluntarily administer themselves into reb/ detox etc, and those users at the other end of the scale who see no harm whatsoever in drug taking, or who can't for whatever reason take steps to limit or stop their own use. These outreach groups may accept that drug use is a reality and unlikely to change anytime soon, but that's a far cry from encouraging or even condoning use.

Down the road a bit, as trends do change, a blanket approach such as Bishop is suggesting is doomed for failure. It's all very well to have advertisements giving deterrent advice on the drugs around atm, but how will the curious respond to "try this, it's not Ecstasy or anything dangerous like that, it's a new 'legal' product called *Xtatic*". It's one thing to say don't take candy from strangers, but when a friend offers something described as above, there's likely to be a significant proportion of people who will say yes, even if those people have been influenced by the ads focused on specific drugs; "Ecstasy might be deadly [sic] but no-one has said anything about Xtatic, the new and improved version...." It will be so easy to hype such a product. Look at what's already happening; drugs being masqueraded as amino acids 8)

Users are taking the neo....s and other products from this supplier without knowing - and in some cases, caring - what drugs they are consuming. Some of these people no doubt feel they would rather take a legal product, or one made by a 'proper' company, or because they do worry about the inconsistency and increased risk associated with Ecstasy these days. We all know that increased LE has resulted in increases in substitutes such as PMA. There are more scared people out there, many of whom will switch to something of a similar nature if it's available, particularly if it's considered safer than a pill obtained on the street.

To think the drug supply industry won't switch to novel and masked compounds is either naive or stupid. Perhaps the notion isn't even considered by proponents of a hard line 'winnable war on drugs' ideology. Many of these newer substances will be more difficult or expensive to make that MDMA or Meth, but as the market potential is so big, I believe once this takes hold, it will be very hard to know what's in a pill.

So, lets say the the drug supply market does evolve further down this road. How effective will broad message advertising be? We've already seen that these are not as effective as single drug focused messages. A blanket just say no approach hasn't worked in the past, and there's no reason to believe it will in the future.

If we really hope to reduce demand for all mind altering substances, then we need to start with two things. Firstly address the hypocrisy surrounding legal vs illegal substances, and secondly, focus on establishing the reasons why people want to take drugs in the first place. Recent research, albeit controversial, indicates the desire to use drugs or the susceptibility to become addicted may lie in genetics and therefore make some individuals far more susceptible to 'just say, yes'. We also know environment can also affect susceptibility in some individuals, including non-drug associated factors such as social issues and living standards. Why then not focus on understanding the root cause of drug use. Some might say that susceptibility can't be reduced to mere chemistry or other common factors; people are individuals etc.... but I would say to them that to address the problem of drug use/abuse, we first need to understand trends as derived from established scientific processes. This approach is therefore based at the fundamentals of why people use, rather than just tackling those who do - for whatever reason or disposition - decide to use a drug.
 
Top