Mattersof Substance. august 2014 Volume 25 Issue No.3 www.drugfoundation.org.nz

History never repeats New Zealand’s history of drugs and the laws to control them. CONTENTS

History never New Zealand’s history of drugs and the laws to control them ABOUT repeats A DRUG COVER STORY 18 FEATURE DOING 06 LAPS USD 20 WORLD NEWS $25 04

FEATURES Become 06 16 20 24 a member History never repeats Shulgin was known Doing LAPs Face trashed A survey of the long history to many as the With few Local Alcohol Social media is a new The New Zealand Drug Foundation has of imbibing in Aotearoa “Godfather of Plans in place, communities frontier for alcohol been at the heart of major alcohol and New Zealand ecstasy” are still responding to companies, but does other drug policy debates for over 20 years. The pioneering chemist alcohol licence applications virtual marketing need During that time, we have demonstrated who created MDMA one by one better regulation? a strong commitment to advocating spawned many imitators policies and practices based on the but was an individual best evidence available. to the last You can help us. A key strength of the Drug REGULARS Foundation lies in its diverse membership base. As a member of the Drug Foundation, you will receive information about major The Director’s Cut 01 alcohol and other drug policy challenges. You can also get involved in our work to find Events 01 30 32 36 solutions to those challenges. GUEST EDITORIAL OPINION Q&A News 02 Our membership includes health promoters, Towards global drug Decriminalise Lotta Dann About a Drug 18 policies pathways cannabis, Journalist and mother primary health and community organisations, Viewpoints 32 that work decriminalise Maori?- Lotta Dann wrote about researchers, students, schools and boards A new Global Commission Hirini Kaa opposes legal her journey to sobriety Q&A 36 of trustees, policy makers, and addiction treatment agencies and workers. on Drugs report sets out changes that might and is now helping Mythbusters 37 an agenda for reform, increase access by Mäori hundreds as they make Membership and subscription enquiries says Steve Rolles to cannabis and invites us their own way [email protected] to tackle bigger questions or visit our website. of social justice

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matters of substance is published matters of substance invites Brand development/ NZ Drug Foundation by the New Zealand Drug feedback and contributions. graphic design 4th Floor, 265 Wakefield Street Foundation. All rights reserved. If you’re interested in Insight +64 4 801 6644 PO Box 3082, Wellington, Neither this publication nor any contributing a guest editorial [email protected] New Zealand part of it may be reproduced or article, please contact us: www.designedbyinsight.com p +64 4 801 6303 matters of substance without prior permission of the [email protected] August 2014 Drug Foundation. p +64 4 801 6303 Vol 25 No. 3 ISSN 1177-200X

COVER PHOTO: Nambassa Music Festival at Waihi, 15 February 1979. PHOTO CREDIT: ©APN THE DIRECTOR’S CUT SOCIAL

@fioraaeterna A friend just referred to the FBI’s problem with trying to find hackers who don’t smoke weed as a “highering problem”. I give up. MAY 21

@stephenathome A new study says schizophrenia and pot smoking are genetically linked – but don’t worry, another study says you’re just being paranoid. JUNE 25

@rustyrockets Penalties; the crack-cocaine of football – we know it’s wrong but what a buzz. #BRAvsCHI JUNE 29 Should we lament the fact that, even though this was an election year, there was no @duncanstott “Drink responsibly” is the alcohol considered discussion of drug policy ideas industry’s version of “some of my best friends between political parties? On the other hand, knowing how difficult sensible political are black”. JULY 11 engagement is on this tricky issue, should we just be quietly grateful? @who WHO recommends removing laws S criminalizing sexual behaviours, drug use, It’s Catch-22. Drug policy deserves greater political attention, and there’s no good reason gender expression or perceived sexual ROSS BELL why parties can’t develop meaningful Executive Director orientation #HIV JULY 16 manifestos. But they don’t. Instead, drug debates are typically characterised by strident, ideological and simplistic rhetoric – “you’re either with us or against @thestartrust @PeterDunneMP confirms “That us”. We only need look back a few months to the unnecessary legal while the case for regulating #nzlegalhighs is high U-turn, which only happened because of election year sensitivities. very strong, doing it well does require some trial JULY 23 While drug policy didn’t feature in the election, we were able to glean and error.” party positions from responses to a New Zealand Herald poll showing, for the first time, majority support (52 percent) for @richiehardcore ‘You would possibly be the most cannabis law reform. annoying person ever on drugs.’ – @Amberleigh_ The National Party retained its blind faith in the status quo. Labour, Jack Personally I reckon I’d be awesome but and not for the first time, claimed it’s not a priority. So did the Greens, we’ll never know. JULY 31 who previously were big supporters of reform. ACT, the party of individual rights and liberty, copped out saying they’ll leave it to their MPs’ consciences. The only party that tried to develop a position was Internet MANA, but its leadership just couldn’t hold things together. KEY EVENTS & DATES It’s no longer tenable to say drug policy is a low priority. Yes, it’s hard and complex, and solutions will be tricky to come by. Cutting Edge 2014 Dunedin, New Zealand But political leadership needs to be shown. cuttingedge.org.nz What are our priorities for drug policy reform? Drawing inspiration 17-20 SEP 2014 from the Wellington Declaration, there is much to do. Let’s start with:

• Scaling up harm-reduction services, especially needle exchanges, NZ Population Health Congress and replicate the successful Christchurch hep C clinic in major Auckland, New Zealand cities. pophealthcongress.org.nz 6-8 OCT 2014 • Giving real effect to recommendations from the alcohol marketing forum and not shy away from alcohol pricing. APSAD Scientific Conference • Supporting schools to keep young New Zealanders engaged in Adelaide, Australia education, including those busted with booze or pot. apsad.org.au 9-12 NOV 2014 • Rebalancing unfair funding between DHB and NGO addiction treatment services, and investing more in treatment and recovery efforts. 2nd International Symposium on Drugs and Driving 12-13 November • Reforming our 40-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act so the law supports Wellington, New Zealand rather than hinders health-focused drug policy. www.drugdriving.org.nz 12-13 NOV 2014 If our politicians continue to shy away from drug debates, we should invite them to take a backseat and allow the public to have the Follow us necessary dialogue instead. Join us online You can still read and sign up to the Wellington Declaration – nzdrug. drugfoundation.org.nz/connect org/wellingtondec

matters of substance August 14 01 NEWS NZ. 02 Who stole 03 Bar staff 04 0.05 the power? vs predators at last! $17,685

A ROTORUA man has WELLINGTON bouncers A LAW PASSED in late been sentenced to nearly and bartenders are now July will lower the legal four years jail after being trained to step in blood alcohol concentration stealing almost $18,000 if they spot predatory to 0.05 percent for New worth of electricity to behaviour and think Zealand drivers and will 01 RESEARCH TO TRACK CHANGES power his cannabis- someone may be in danger take effect 1 December. FROM NEW SALE OF LIQUOR ACT of sexual violence. growing operation. The law means an average A typical example might A $1.2 million Massey University His other ‘hobbies’ adult should not consume be a man buying drinks included unlawful more than two standard for a woman and secretly project led by Professor Sally Casswell possession of a firearm, drinks in an hour before ordering water for himself. will investigate changes to alcohol assaulting Police, refusing driving. A zero alcohol a blood alcohol test and The Sexual Abuse tolerance for drivers consumption brought about by the dangerous driving. Prevention Network, under 20 remains. a collaboration between John Kenneth David, 53, Supporters say the law new alcohol legislation and will look Rape Crisis, the Sexual was caught with around complements the Sale Abuse Help Foundation to predict what further behavioural 200 plants, which could and Supply of Alcohol Act and WellStop, launched produce an estimated and will have a positive changes might occur. The same people the Wellington Safer Bars annual turnover of effect on drinking culture. Alliance in August. will be followed over time, and their $162,000. Police found However, opponents he had tampered with point out few people are drinking patterns and purchasing his power meter, stopping actually caught drink behaviours will be studied. it from recording power driving at these low limits. consumption. 06

RESOURCES “The law

Read more on the story here: means an nzdrug.org/ProfCasswell12 0.2% average adult HIV AMONGST INJECTING DRUG USERS should not

A RECENT NZ NEEDLE Exchange consume study shows HIV amongst more than injecting drug users in New Zealand has fallen to two standard just 0.2 percent-the lowest drinks in an ever recorded here. - hour before 05 Common Ground Part of the Prime Minister’s whanau access to information, NZ Needle Exchange Director Youth Mental Health Project, tools and support so they can Charles Henderson attributes driving.” Common Ground, helps assist young people to get the the decline to the early - parents, families, whanau and right kind of help when they introduction of the needle friends of young people to need it. exchange programme in New better support them to enjoy Zealand. He says preventing positive mental health and RESOURCES the virus from entering the wellbeing. injecting population has also The website, phone line and Visit the website here: reduced its potential to information pack service give www.commonground.org.nz spread more widely.

02 matters of substance August 14 01 07 Charlotte’s Web 09 Fair funding 08 Two more campaign A Kiwi family has been years, boys launched separated so they can give their six-year-old daughter AT A JUNE meeting in COMMUNITY mental medical cannabis for her 02 Australia, trans-Tasman health and addiction epilepsy. Daughter Jade food safety ministers services provided by cannot walk, talk or feed 03 allowed the alcohol NGOs are facing financial herself and has around 06 industry two more years failure as funding 30 seizures a day, but to ‘voluntarily’ warn provided by district health conventional drugs don’t consumers about the boards is not covering cost help and have significant risks of drinking during increases, says Marion side effects. pregnancy. Blake, CEO of Platform Trust, a national network A cannabis strain called The two years Food of mental health and Charlotte’s Web might work 03 Standards Australia addiction NGOs. for Jade, but it is illegal here 05 New Zealand had and the government has 04 previously given the “We have reached refused to approve its industry to include the a critical point and have medicinal use. Her mother warnings expired in launched the Fair Funding has moved with her to December 2013. campaign to seek an the US to access the The extension came urgent restoration of a needed cannabis. despite an independent sustainable funding path 07 audit undertaken in for the mental health and Australia that looked at addiction NGO sector.” 250 products and found only 37 percent carried RESOURCES Drinkwise consumer information and only See the campaign here: 26 percent carried www.fairfunding.org.nz 09 pregnancy warnings.

10 Pot opposition A June Herald-DigiPoll However, the government outweigh the harm survey showed a third remains steadfast in it causes society,” declining of those polled thought opposing law reform. said Justice Minister smoking cannabis should “We do not think there Judith Collins. not attract a conviction, are any benefits for while a fifth said it should decriminalising or RESOURCES be legalised. Forty-five legalising cannabis, 52.4% percent said it should for medicinal purposes See full survey results DECRIMINALISE remain illegal. or otherwise, which nzdrug.org/DigiPoll52 OR MAKE LEGAL

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 03

NEWS

World. 09 03 01

Turkey bans Down Under drinkers It seems the Turks want Thousands of Antipodeans gather every year at Gallipoli to honour their ancestors to ban alcohol for Kiwis killed in the 1915 battle, but a Turkish parliamentary committee favours a 04 Methadone and Australians who bill, introduced by the Islamic-rooted withdrawal 05 Arthur’s Justice and Development Party, that costing lives Day pass come to honour those would change the status of the Gallipoli killed in the Gallipoli peninsula from a national park to a historical area, where consuming campaign. alcoholic drinks is strictly banned.

02 Sniffer dogs cause overdoses 03

Art vs Science guitarist “We’re a nation descended THE DEVASTATING AFTER five years, Dan McNamee wants from convicts, we’re going effects of the Russian Guinness has scrapped sniffer dogs banned to break the rules!” ‘ban on methadone’ Arthur’s Day, a celebration from music festivals are being felt in Crimea, established to In 2009, 17-year-old FINE because they cause Gemma Thoms died at $25 with as many as 20 former commemorate Guinness’s panic-induced overdoses. the music festival Big Day methadone patients 250th anniversary, but He said Australian Out in Perth of a drug having died since its it denies negative press Starting late July, getting politicians need to think overdose. According to implementation, around binge drinking caught with a bag of weed, more about health and her friend, she swallowed according to a report by was the reason. Instead, a blunt or a bong by wellbeing instead of ecstasy tablets out of Radio Free Europe/Radio it will support Guinness Washington DC Police violence, power, rules ‘fear’ of being detected Liberty. Countless others Amplify-a new music has resulted only in a and restrictions. by sniffer dogs. are said to be suffering programme to get behind ticket and a $25 fine. from untreated diseases emerging Irish artists. After a Congressional such as HIV/AIDs and “We view Arthur’s Day review, possession of less hepatitis. as a success. There is a than an ounce of cannabis However, Russian bigger issue here and that has been decriminalised. authorities deny is alcohol consumption Apart from Washington methadone has any in Ireland. Arthur’s Day and Colorado, where efficacy and say the was brought into that cannabis is now legal, money and interests discussion, but that was DC’s legislation is perhaps of pharmaceutical firms not the deciding factor the most progressive drug stand behind it. They in replacing it,” said law in the US. insist those who need it Guinness Marketing are receiving proper care. Director Stephen O’Kelly. 04 matters of substance August 14

05 07 08 10 04 01

06 02 $2.3B 06 07 Sales ban 09 Cannabis 10 Does the could eradicate 08 Britain sets demand in pope support USD smoking driving limits the tonnes legalisation? THE AMOUNT NEEDED IN 2015 ALONE TO FUND HIV SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WHO INJECT DRUGS AROUND THE WORLD

To coincide with the 20th UK DOCTORS are UK DRIVERS will be PROJECTED demand for DESPITE being more International AIDS Conference, allowed to get behind the which took place recently in pushing to permanently cannabis in Colorado is liberal than plenty of past Melbourne, Harm Reduction ban cigarette sales to wheel if they have traces much higher than pontiffs, Pope Francis says International (HRI) and the everyone born after the of illegal drugs in their anticipated at 130 tonnes he staunchly opposes the International HIV/AIDS year 2000. The British system under new this year, a state revenue legalisation of drugs, Alliance have issued a report Medical Association has drug-driving limits. But authority says. More than including cannabis. warning global funding for HIV voted to put its entire motorists who exceed 90 percent of demand is “Drug addiction is an evil, prevention for people who weight behind lobbying certain thresholds of eight from residents, while and with evil, there can be inject drugs is in crisis. Donor for the ban. prescription and eight out-of-state visitors no compromise,” he said at withdrawal, government Specialist Registrar in illegal drugs, including accounted for only about a recent drug enforcement neglect of people who use Public Health Medicine cannabis and cocaine, nine tonnes. conference in Rome. drugs and overspending on Tim Crocker-Buque said will be prosecuted in the The report said tax figures “No to every type of drug enforcement are a “perfect this could be a chance same way as drink drivers. showed retail supply is use. It is as simple as that.” storm”, and it will be for the UK to be the first The limits for individual growing in the state, impossible to achieve an He says the solution to nation to completely drugs reflect the speed while supply via medical AIDS-free generation without addiction lies in education at which they are broken dispensaries had remained concerted action. eradicate cigarettes. and promoting more 80 percent of UK smokers down by the body and are relatively constant. positive values. designed to prevent RESOURCES start as teenagers as a result of intense peer people being prosecuted for taking medically Read the report here: pressure. nzdrug.org/1pDFova approved quantities of prescribed drugs.

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 05 COVER STORY

History never repeats? New Zealand’s history of drugs and the laws to control them

Just when did people living in the land of the long white cloud begin using drugs? What turned them on? And off? When were the rules changed? Russell Brown surveys the long history of imbibing in Aotearoa New Zealand.

06 matters of substance August 14 www.drugfoundation.org.nz 07 COVER STORY

Drugs once legally used for medicinal purposes were ultimately restricted Ma-ori man smoking a pipe, 1847

ew Zealand has a visitors in the late 18th century. While prominent place in some Mäori leaders strongly discouraged many of the global the use of both, they soon became currency narratives around in trade. A pattern of tobacco use by psychoactive drugs. Mäori women took hold in the early We have led the 19th century (a time when smoking was world in seeking frowned upon for European women) and N new ways to curb persists to this day. RUSSELL the use of some – and in our prodigious Heavy alcohol use was characteristic BROWN national appetite for others. We were the of 19th century settlers, but Mäori didn’t world’s keenest consumers of LSD for years catch up until the 1890s. In her Te Ara and continue to sit near the top of the table article ‘Mäori smoking, alcohol and drugs for amphetamines, MDMA and cannabis. – tüpeka, waipiro me te tarukino – Mäori We were virtually born into binge drinking use of alcohol’, Megan Cook suggests that as a nation. alcohol “was used to blunt the grief Mäori And it all started from… nothing. communities experienced as a result of The accepted view is that, before the high rates of death and loss of land”. arrival of Europeans, Mäori were one of the few societies that had no intoxicants. This does not necessarily mean they had Alcohol was used to no use for psychoactive substances. - Kawakawa (a relative of kava), pukatea blunt the grief Maori (containing the analgesic alkaloid communities experienced pukateine, which has a similar chemical as a result of high rates of structure to morphine) and radula marginata (a species of liverwort death and loss of land. containing the cannabinoid perrottetinene) were all used as rongoä, or traditional MEGAN COOK Mäori medicines. And all can now be purchased from specialist ethnobotanical While a series of alcohol regulations suppliers and turn up occasionally in specific to Mäori were passed in the 1800s, reports in the forums of drug experience the colonists themselves had ready access sites like Bluelight and The Shroomery. to opium (as laudanum), cannabis and But there’s no evidence these plants even cocaine. The patent medicine were used outside of a medical context by Chlorodyne (which contained morphine, Mäori, who were vulnerable when tobacco chloroform and cannabis) was popular and and alcohol were introduced by European even given to children, and it seems likely

08 matters of substance August 14 Pukatea and other plants with were used as rongoa/ medicine [Mother Aubert’s medicine]

Maori- were vulnerable when tobacco and alcohol were introduced by European visitors in the late 18th century. While some Mäori leaders strongly discouraged the use of both, they soon became currency in trade.

that the British experience of Chlorodyne much in line with the international close at 6pm until 1967, clubs like The addiction and overdose was equally consensus on drugs. Top 20 in Auckland opened six nights a visited on the colonies. Cannabis cigarettes Well, nearly. In ‘Drugs – Restricting week in 1962 and rocked until 2am at the were widely advertised in 19th century drugs, 1866 to 1965’ for Te Ara, Jock weekends. Legendary singer Max Merritt newspapers as a cure for asthma and Phillips writes: recently explained to the Audioculture insomnia. In the 1860s, some migrant “Despite these restrictions there was website how he and his band managed the Chinese miners brought opium smoking still considerable use of the drugs under hours virtually without breaks – whisky to New Zealand. prescription for medical purposes. In the and speed: “Man, by 2am we were Although some official efforts were late 1940s it was discovered that doctors bouncing off the walls!” made to curb the use of opium, it wasn’t were prescribing heroin so freely that Marijuana – mostly brought in on until 1912 and the International Opium New Zealand had one of the world’s merchant ships from the early 1950s, Convention (the precursor to the UN Single highest rates of use per person. By 1955 but some of it grown unrecognised in Convention on Narcotic Drugs) that the this had been drastically reduced.’ suburban back yards – was more the thing trade in opiates and later cannabis was Remarkably, New Zealand also had of jazz and literary cliques in Auckland more seriously restricted, ultimately via medical marijuana well into the 20th and Wellington. Again, it was largely the Dangerous Drugs Act 1927. century. In his book New Zealand Green, invisible to the wider public – until At the same time, a new popular mood Redmer Yska notes that cannabis was Auckland ‘it girl’ Anna Hoffman was was driven by wire stories from the British prescribed by some doctors for migraine charged in 1959 with supplying cannabis and American press. In 1911, the Auckland and hypertensive headaches, although to an undercover policeman (“I had no Star billed negotiations over the Opium “users were mainly in the Auckland idea it was illegal,” she said many years Convention as a matter of “Checking the district, whereas the Wellington and South later in the documentary High Times: The Dope Fiend”. A lurid story published in Island areas had seldom heard of such New Zealand Drug Experience). She was 1919 by the Marlborough Express, on the prescriptions”. sentenced to six months’ jail, and the city death of musical actress Billie Carleton In 1955, in response to a World Health was scandalised. reported that, “The dope fiends of London Organization request, New Zealand agreed Things were beginning to change, seek only one thing – the feeling of to end medical cannabis imports. permanently. wellbeing, of exhilaration, the elimination While a dwindling group of elderly The house at 115 Bassett Road, of time and space.” Chinese opium smokers occasionally made Remuera, was the creation of New We had our own stories: in 1917, there the headlines, the use of psychoactive Zealand’s liquor laws: an illicit ‘beerhouse’ were reports that “shirkers” were seeking drugs apart from alcohol and tobacco where people could keep drinking after the to avoid the call-up for war by taking was largely invisible to the wider public pubs closed at six o’clock. It was a criminal “dope” so they would fail the medical. from the mid-50s. Which didn’t mean it offence to run such a place, so criminals And by the 1930s, when the Auckland Star didn’t happen. did the job, sometimes facilitating the ran a glossary headed ‘Argot of the Dope The 50s dancehall and rock ‘n’ roll supply of other drugs and sexual services Fiends’ (“H” for heroin, “Candy” for scene in Auckland and Wellington was into the bargain. The beerhouses were cocaine and “Happy dust” for “any fuelled by prescription amphetamines, tacitly tolerated until, in December 1963, powdered dope”), New Zealand was very and while the pubs would continue to the proprietors of the Bassett Road

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 09 COVER STORY

Tents at Nambassa festival, Golden Valley, near Waihi, 1979 beerhouse, Kevin Speight and George Walker, were found shot full of bullets from machine guns. If the shootings were the result of competition for the supply of one drug, alcohol – the killers, Ronald Jorgensen and John Gillies, came from a rival beerhouse in Ponsonby – they would also become associated with another, marijuana, when it emerged that Gillies had smoked a “reefer” before setting off to do the job. The Police publicly took the view that marijuana created homicidal urges. Officer Bob Walton was dispatched in 1964 to ...little, if any, chance of learn more from his American halting, let alone reversing, contemporaries and, on his return, established New Zealand’s first drug the steady escalation in the squads and helped draft the extraordinary misuse of drugs... Narcotics Act 1965, which reversed the onus of proof in drug cases and set a THE BLAKE-PALMER penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment for COMMITTEE REPORT, 1973 possession of more than an ounce of pot. (“At the time, the Act was seen as some of those who protested the visits draconian in relation to the problem,” of American nuclear vessels in Auckland noted the official Police tribute to Walton would ruefully acknowledge to each other on his death in 2008.) that they were marching to end their own If the new Police teams and harsh law source of high-quality LSD, which was were meant to cut off the drug problem believed to come in on those same ships. before it grew, they failed. In 1967, 10 But just as many drugs were simply New Zealand pharmacies and five doctors’ walked through airport arrival halls, in surgeries were burgled in search of drugs. the days before sophisticated screening. The following year, the Police recorded In 1975, when Marty Johnstone bought 118 burglaries or thefts from pharmacies a boat called The Brigadoon and had it and 37 from surgeries. Between 1966 and pick up 450,000 “Buddha sticks” in 1970, the number of people aged under 25 Thailand, importation hit a grand scale. charged with drug offences jumped from The Thai cannabis brought in by Johnstone 14 to more than 200. and Terry Clark, in what became known as What the flurry of enforcement couldn’t the “Mr Asia” syndicate, first wrecked the do was change demographic reality. market for the less-potent local pot, The post-war cohort of Baby-Boomers then set a new market standard for was reshaping society. The more the news “New Zealand Green” to reach. media reported in a shocked voice that this But the greater impact came when or that overseas pop-culture hero was Mr Asia turned to a more profitable associated with marijuana or LSD, the product: heroin. While punk rock in more they established to the Boomers that Britain was largely fuelled by the same drugs were indeed part of popular culture. drug that had given the mod and northern LSD appeared locally around 1967, soul movements their energy – speed and New Zealand’s per-capita use of the – New Zealand’s nascent punk scene went drug was said to be the highest in the with what was at hand, which, thanks to world during the two decades that Johnstone and Clark, was heroin. followed. In the same year, in the first issue The drug took its toll at the time, but of Chris Wheeler’s scabrous pamphlet its real impact arguably lies in the “silent Cock, Dr Erich Geiringer was the first epidemic” of hepatitis C, which continues New Zealander to advance the argument to echo decades later. It’s also a grim lesson that marijuana’s criminal status was in fact in the failure of harm reduction. more socially harmful than the drug itself. New Zealand IV drug users could not Ironically, “The Man” became a buy syringes from pharmacies, there would significant source of drugs for the be no safe-use education until the 1990s counterculture. In 1967, 13kg of marijuana and needle exchange programmes were was seized in a bust at the headquarters decades away. Around 50,000 New of the US Operation Deep Freeze base at Zealanders are thought now to be infected, Christchurch Airport. Twenty years later, and three-quarters of them are undiagnosed.

10 matters of substance August 14 INFORMATION

The lack of harm-reduction strategies was not for want of official advice. The Blake-Palmer Committee report in Our drug laws over time 1973 declared there was “little, if any, chance of halting, let alone reversing, the steady escalation in the misuse of 1 Poisons Administration 8 Narcotics Act 1964 drugs” unless New Zealand was prepared Prevention Act 1866 Ratified New Zealand’s commitment to commit to treatment and education. The first attempt to control the sale to the 1961 UN Single Convention he report formed the basis of the Misuse of of readily available drugs such as on Narcotic Drugs. Covered more Drugs Act 1975 and in particular the Act’s laudanum and opium required only than 100 substances, from LSD to introduction of three schedules based on that the identity of the purchaser be opium and cannabis. For the first the harm attributed to particular drugs, recorded. time, the law made a meaningful finally separating cannabis from heroin distinction between possession and in the eyes of the law. 2 Sale of Poisons Act 1871 “dealing” and defined quantities at The extraordinary scale of the Mr Asia The first attempt to restrict the which dealing was presumed. organisation meant that it touched the lives sellers of drugs to those on a register Reversed the onus of proof, provided of many New Zealanders who went on to of licensed dealers. for warrantless searches and, as become ostensibly respectable citizens – Ray Henwood put it in his 1971 and that it left a significant vacuum when 3 Customs Law book A Turned On World: Drug Use in the enterprise was eventually taken down Consolidation Act 1882 New Zealand, smacked of “using a with the arrest of Clark for Johnstone’s cannon to kill flies”. murder in 1979. Confined the importation of opium to larger vessels at specified ports. That vacuum quickly saw the 9 Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 reappearance of the same DIY approach 4 Opium Prohibition Act 1901 Serially amended since but still the to drug manufacture that we saw during applicable law, the MODA the decades of the harshest regulation New Zealand’s first anti-drug statute introduced the three schedules of alcohol supply. But while it was targeted Chinese immigrants. It A, B and C based on the assessed (unusually, in world terms) never illegal banned the smoking of opium and harm caused by individual drugs and, to privately distil or brew liquor in its importation for smoking and was inline with the recommendations New Zealand, the practice of converting amended in 1910 to specifically ban of the Blake-Palmer report, set much pharmaceutical painkillers into any Chinese person from buying lower maximum penalties for monoacetylmorphine in makeshift home opium without a prescription. personal use or possession. Notable labs was always illicit. That did not stop amendments include those in 5 so-called “homebake heroin” becoming Quackery Prevention Act 1908 1988 and 1996, which made the law a characteristic (and unique) feature of The first consumer protection automatically apply to drug New Zealand drug culture. legislation around drug sales. analogues (substances that have a Enforcement also took its toll on the substantially similar chemical Police, especially after the Police 6 Dangerous Drugs Act 1927 structure to that of a controlled drug). undercover programme was launched in Made it an offence to import, 1974. Bruce Ansley’s 1995 book Stoned produce or deal in a range of drugs, 10 The Pyschoactive on Duty told the story of former undercover most of which remained available Substances Act 2013 policeman Peter Williamson’s descent into on prescription. A work in progress. addiction and repeated perjury, and the 2008 Gibson Group documentary 7 Poisons Act 1934 Undercover: The Thin Blue Lie, recalled Defined certain drugs, such as many more. barbiturates, as “prescription Marijuana, meanwhile, become less poisons” available only on prescription. a feature of any subculture than part of the national culture itself. Bob Marley’s visit in 1979 manifested the fairly loose

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 11 COVER STORY

Methamphetamine began to be smoked from the late 1990s .

interpretation of Rastafarian culture that of something called “designer drugs” had been embraced by young Mäori and and possibly even the drugs themselves. The downers sought out Pasifika New Zealanders, and everyone In general, the term referred to one drug: knew why the pioneering Pacific reggae MDMA, or ecstasy, which would, in the by the users of the 1970s had group Herbs had adopted their name. In next few years, become tightly tied to no place in the new scene, 1981, the protagonists in Geoff Murphy’s a powerful popular culture movement: which wanted drugs that let filmGoodbye Pork Pie smoked and enjoyed modern dance music, via the acid house you stay up all night – or even marijuana furnished by Bruno Lawrence’s craze that exploded in Britain in 1988. philosophising drug dealer. Hardly anyone When the first house parties came to all weekend. was scandalised. New Zealand in early 1989, MDMA was In 1990, the University of Auckland’s already there waiting for them. It was also Alcohol and Public Health Research Unit the favoured drug for a subsequent wave surveyed 5,000 people in Auckland and of young New Zealanders who had made the Bay of Plenty and found that 43 percent their way home from Europe, some through of people questioned had tried marijuana the party scenes of reinvented hippie at some point. A follow-up survey in 1998 havens like Goa. found that number had increased to The downers sought out by the users 52 percent. of the 1970s had no place in the new scene, But even in the second survey, which wanted drugs that let you stay up 73 percent of respondents said they all night – or even all weekend. A growing thought regularly smoking marijuana subculture developed almost unnoticed posed a “great risk” of harm. And some by the mainstream media – until Ngaire communities, especially Mäori in the O’Neill died after taking ecstasy in regions, had discovered the downside October 1998. of living and raising children in an The 27-year-old Aucklander’s death environment where cannabis was both was not down to taking ecstasy per se a profitable crop and a fact of life. In both but a result of “dry drowning” – she drank of the Alcohol and Public Health Research herself to death with water. This was a Unit surveys, there was greater concern point lost on most of the media and, about alcohol as a “community problem” indeed, on Auckland coroner Mate than cannabis, but concern about Frankovich, who declared that she was marijuana had grown by 1998 – and was drinking so much water because the strongest amongst under 25-year-olds. ecstasy had diluted the salt in her blood. Generation X had become more wary of A full-blown moral panic sprang up. cannabis than its Baby Boomer parents. The following year was election year, and In 1986, a few New Zealanders Prime Minister Jenny Shipley promised to returning from Sydney brought back news reclassify MDMA, on the basis of a single

12 matters of substance August 14 CULTURE

Popular culture: New Zealand songs About drugs

death, from Class B to Class A, placing it ‘Gracious Lady (Alice Dee)’, Lew Pryme ‘Looking for the Sun’, Children’s Hour alongside heroin. (Shipley lost the election, When Pryme’s 1968 tribute to acid sparked The forerunners of the Headless Chickens but MDMA was eventually moved from controversy, the clean-cut popstar had to recorded this ferocious account of life in Class B1 to B2.) pretend he’d actually tried LSD, in Australia. a druggy Grafton flat in 1983. The media hysteria was boosted further He hadn’t: the song was by Bryce Peterson, in March 1999 when a young surfer called who very much had. This caused some ‘Marijuana’, MC OJ and Rhythm Slave Jamie Langridge died at a dance party on embarrassment for the NZBC, which had The popular 1990s rap duo’s song is a Pakatoa Island. An autopsy showed already approved and played the song under whimsical account of smoking dope – and Langridge had used not only ecstasy but the strict standards of the time and had to sharing it with a policeman – one day in large quantities of alcohol and speed and publicly de-approve it. Ponsonby. Possibly fictional. had sustained a head injury when he slipped and fell on concrete. But when ‘Drugs’, Blerta ‘P’, Deja Voodoo Police photographed 500 strung-out Bruno Lawrence sang it in character as a At the peak of a wave of national alarm partygoers as they arrived back from the drug dealer in the ‘Country Girl’ episode of about the methamphetamine epidemic island the next morning, something else Blerta’s NZBC TV series in the early 70s. came Deja Voodoo with their song about was evident: these people weren’t all kids Still hard to believe it went to air. how P wasn’t really so bad. Of the nine Deja and ratbags. The party crowd included Voodoo videos that received an NZ On Air many professionals and even lawyers. ‘Blue Lady’, Hello Sailor grant, this was not one. While all this was going on, something The “blue lady” lauded in Graham Brazier’s much more troubling was happening. song was not a woman, but a special blue ‘I’ve Smoked Too Much’, Lawrence Arabia According to the 2005 documentary High glass syringe of German origin. Less a tune than a compact song-cycle, Times: The New Zealand Drug Experience, James Milne’s epic pop composition shifts “a prominent Auckland businessman” met ‘Mauveen’, Tommy Adderley through states of marijuana being: with gang representatives in late 1999 to Recorded by Adderley in 1982 while he contentment, introspection, malaise, love discuss rebooting the market in was on home leave from a prison term and existential dread. methamphetamine, which had been for selling heroin to an undercover cop. present in New Zealand since the 1970s. He called it ‘Morphine Blues’, but his label, ‘Datura/White Flowers’, Home Brew It was to be presented not as a cut-down Ripper Records, lost its nerve and put it A whacked-out tribute to backyard powder to be insufflated (snorted) but as a out as ‘Mauveen’. jimsonweed over a lazy soul groove. crystal to be smoked: in other words, as P. This means of administration was well ‘Anything Could Happen’, The Clean known in other countries but new to the A song about trying to get drugs from a local dance party crowds (again, including GP and receiving a lecture instead. many professionals) where its use began. Remarkably, it was later adopted by the Meth was initially received as a classier, Labour Party as its theme song for the and more benign, version of speed, but its 2005 election campaign. impact on the most vulnerable users was

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 13 COVER STORY

ruinous. By the mid-2000s, middle-class NEWSGRABS drug users were beginning to shun P as both dangerous and distasteful, but its use Ellis, a popular had spread to the young, working class and brown. TV figure, swiftly As if the genuine problems associated pleaded guilty, was with the meth epidemic weren’t enough, the news media inevitably invented a few fined$ 300 plus costs more. In 2006, TVNZ’s 20/20 programme staked out small-time pot dealers in for possessing five Auckland’s Grey Lynn Park and ecstasy tablets and speculated, baselessly, that marijuana was being laced with P. resigned from the The fact that methamphetamine could board of his Charlie’s be synthesised with extraordinary yields from pseudoephedrine, then a common juice company. constituent of pharmacy cold medications, meant it was profitable and plentiful. And, of course, it fit neatly into the national tradition of home drug manufacture. The cycles of public panic were familiar, but they were becoming tighter and more urgent. There was another flurry around GHB, a drug with significant potential for accidental overdose, which had entered dance party circles as Fantasy Scandalous! or “liquid ecstasy” in the late 90s. In 2001, 22-year-old Shawn Brenner died of an Larry Morris marijuana?” and replied “Yes, thank you Paul, I overdose of the GHB precursor GBL, which In 1971, Morris had left the band he founded, enjoy it.” A Whangarei police sergeant secured was being sold in branded packets as Larry’s Rebels, for a solo career and regular a warrant, searched Gray’s houseboat, found One4B. In 2002, Wellington Hospital appearances on the TV pop show C’Mon. It all 90 grams of marijuana and arrested him. After emergency staff reported handling 20 acute came crashing down when the cleaning lady a District Court judge refused to convict Gray, overdose cases of GHB in the past year. at a Palmerston North motel found some reasoning that the public good was served by Both GHB and GBL were subsequently crumbs of pot and called the Police, who Gray speaking honestly and openly, the Police added to Schedule B of the Misuse of pulled over the band’s tour van and threatened took the case to the Court of Appeal, which Drugs Act. to arrest the entire entourage until Morris took sent the case back to the same District Court While all this was going on, responsibility. The legal penalty was modest: a judge, who reluctantly fined Gray $100. Gray Aucklander Matt Bowden was at work $60 fine for possession, but Prime Minister refused to pay the fine, which was eventually on changing everything. In 1997, Bowden, Rob Muldoon instructed the NZBC to cease cleared by an anonymous supporter. then selling advertising for Performance playing Morris’s records, ban him from Car magazine, was approached by a client television and destroy any existing film of him. Marc Ellis et al with a business proposition based around Morris continued to make music, but his pop The social media age had well and truly a legal stimulant – a substitute for street career was destroyed. The following year, he arrived in August 2005 when it was reported methamphetamine. An early attempt to was sentenced to six and a half years in prison that two celebrities, both former sports stars, market a product via outlets such as the for possessing LSD for supply, serving four. had been caught up in a “white-collar drug Hemp Store foundered inside six months bust”. Interim name suppression did nothing when it was found to contain ephedrine, Les Gray to prevent a wired nation igniting with online a controlled drug. gossip. The celebrities were former All Black Bowden decamped to Australia, In 1984, at a meeting of the Dargaville PTA, Marc Ellis and league international Brent Todd. where he tried again. Working with a Department of Education psychologist Les Ellis, a popular TV figure, swiftly pleaded neuropharmacologist, he discovered that Gray challenged then-Education minister guilty, was fined $300 plus costs for a substance called BZP had been shown to Merv Wellington over his prohibition of sex possessing five ecstasy tablets and resigned have amphetamine-like effects in trials in and drug education in schools. Senior from the board of his Charlie’s juice company. the 1970s. After a failed approach to the policemen told the media they were In November of the same year, he was named Australian Government to endorse BZP considering prosecuting Gray, who had the country’s most popular male TV as a legal amphetamine replacement, he admitted using cannabis. But it would be five personality in a public vote. His request of returned to New Zealand in 2000 and years later, when Gray was asked to appear on a dealer as to whether the pills were “smooth began marketing Nemesis, the first the Holmes show, that the hammer came on the comedown” entered the local drug BZP-based party pill. down. Gray was asked, “Have you used culture lexicon. Bowden has always insisted his principal goal was to provide a less harmful alternative to methamphetamine,

14 matters of substance August 14 Safe party pill proponent Matt Bowden

Bowden has always insisted his principal goal was to provide a less harmful alternative to methamphetamine, to which he had once himself been addicted.

to which he had once himself been Substances Act, a world-leading attempt addicted. And there may well be some to regulate new psychoactive substances truth in the idea that party pills provided rather than simply banning them. The a way off P for some users who were Act’s failure of that first test is too recent unwilling to give up the late-night lifestyle to traverse in a history like this, but it that had become a feature of young life in centred on flawed official execution, a the cities. But it went much, much further dramatic media panic and, probably, the than that. unsuitability of most synthetic Pills containing BZP (often in cannabinoids for regulated sale. combination with another piperazine or While the screws continue to tighten TFMPP) were initially only available via on one of the original coloniser drugs – outlets like The Hemp Store, but they tobacco – and some moves have been made Last year’s report Recent gradually entered the mainstream, entirely to haul back the 1980s liberalisation of Trends in Illegal Drug Use in unregulated. Bowden seemed to have alcohol, which remains our most harmful achieved the regulatory solution he sought New Zealand, 2006–2011 psychoactive drug, we’re still a hot mess when a 2005 amendment to the Misuse of around the others. found all the major illicit Drugs Act created the restricted substances Last year’s report Recent Trends in drugs still in use and noted the category, or Class D. Illegal Drug Use in New Zealand, 2006– emergence of new drugs such This gave authorities the power to set 2011 found all the major illicit drugs still restrictions on age and place of sale – as “synthetic LSD” (relatively in use and noted the emergence of new restrictions that were not put in place, drugs such as “synthetic LSD” (relatively risky drugs in the NBOMe thanks largely to a clash with the risky drugs in the NBOMe class) and trends class) and trends in the abuse provisions of the Hazardous Substances in the abuse of prescribed drugs, especially and New Organisms Act. It would not be oxycodone and Ritalin. Pills allegedly of prescribed drugs, especially the last time an official inability to execute containing ecstasy (but often something oxycodone and Ritalin. on new approaches would have else, thanks to a global crackdown on consequences. MDMA precursors) remain a staple of Although they were increasingly summer festivals and dance parties, and shunned by experienced drug users who marijuana is no less common. disliked the vile hangover they could Image Sources A reboot of the Misuse of Drugs Act produce, the use of “party pills” rapidly PAGE 06 1975 is due next year, on the heels of a became mainstream, as suppliers flooded 1 Auckland’s burning ministerial dismissal of the Law www.flickr.com/photos/taniwha the market with unregulated products. Commission’s review of the Act (which is PAGE 08 New Zealanders’ long-held tendency to 2 Archives New Zealand – described as “inconsistent with the official binge came into play – both with respect to Te Rua Mahara o te Käwanatanga drug policy adopted in New Zealand”) Reference: C1 141 34/8/37-8 the pills themselves and in conjunction and amid substantial confusion as to the 3 Alexander Turnbull Library with alcohol. Reference: NON-ATL-C-0138-3 way forward. The Act remains arbitrarily Although there were no party pill Ink and watercolour by Leopold Verguet separated from the Psychoactive PAGE 09 deaths, their use kept hospital emergency 4 Alexander Turnbull Library departments busy enough that it was no Substances Act, which will at some point Reference: Eph-A-PANTOMIME-1894-01-opp5 surprise when the Expert Advisory be tested again when the first new products PAGE 10 are submitted for approval. 5 Tents at a Nambassa festival, Golden Valley, Committee on Drugs recommended a ban near Waihi, Hauraki – Photograph taken by Brett on BZP and TFMPP, which was enacted So that’s where we are in 2014. As we Richardson. Further negatives of the Evening the following year. have done for 200 years, New Zealanders Post newspaper. Ref: EP/1979/0382/34-F. still like to get high. And we still don’t Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New By this time, the next problem was Zealand. already brewing: synthetic cannabinoids. really know what to do about that. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22336213 These marijuana substitutes (some of them PAGE 12 6 Meth pipe by michelle.irish manufactured by Bowden) were set to be Russell Brown blogs at publicaddress.net. www.flickr.com/photos/michelleirish the first real test of the Pyschoactive

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 15 FEATURE

Shulgin was known to many as the “Godfather of ecstasy”

Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin was born on 17 June 1925 and died, aged 88, at home in California on 2 June 2014. As he died, the sounds of his grandchildren’s laughter rang through the house and combined with the chants of the ancient Buddhist Heart Mantra, which hails the dying’s departing soul. You could do worse. MIKE POWER

hulgin was known He was one of the 20th century’s her therapeutic practice, and together, to many as the foremost scientists, a brilliant and fearless they were a charming, eccentric couple, “Godfather of pioneer who synthesised, self-tested and bonded by love and respect for each other’s ecstasy”, famed for recorded the effects of hundreds of new chosen disciplines. Friends describe resurrecting the psychedelic drugs. He published his work their partnership as a perfect union, and long-forgotten in two books, PIHKAL, a chemical love their warmth and generosity to researchers, S recipe for 3,4- story and TIHKAL, the continuation, which journalists and the merely curious methylenedioxy-N- detail the synthesis of hundreds of was legendary. methylamphetamine, MDMA or simply tryptamines and phenethylamines and Dr Dave Nichols, a renowned ‘ecstasy’ from the archives of German remain classics of clandestine chemistry. biochemist who published several key pharmaceutical firm Merck in the 1960s. “I am completely convinced that there papers with Shulgin, spoke about one is a wealth of information built into us, of his more memorable visits to the Shulgin’s destiny, and that of this drug, with miles of intuitive knowledge tucked Shulgin family home. are intertwined in the most implausible of away in the genetic material of every one “[It] was some time after the Rubik’s ways. MDMA was originally designed by of our cells,” he wrote. “The psychedelic cube craze hit. Sasha had worked out a Merck in 1912 in a bid to produce a drugs allow exploration of this interior clever, non-fail formula to solve it. blood-clotting agent. However, Shulgin world and insights into its nature.” “We had dinner and had been chatting created a new and easier synthesis and He was a mass of entirely logical for some hours, and we had been drinking inadvertently triggered the dance-drug contradictions. Here was a renegade red wine. He brought out the Rubik’s cube culture that endures to this day, with chemist who worked for the DEA. He was and began to describe and show me his tonnes of the drug consumed worldwide. an expert witness in drugs cases who could system for solving it. He was tipped off to the drug’s be found in the late 1990s lecturing on the “I rarely drink alcohol and had extraordinary qualities, its ability to inspire finer points of phenethylamine synthesis probably had at least four or five glasses in empathy and self-analysis, by a student in in the shade of Mayan pyramids, joking me. Even so, Sasha described with great the late 1960s. He made and took the drug that the CIA was watching. In later years, patience, how to solve the cube, and even for the first time in 1978 and was awestruck he would walk around at Las Vegas’s wrote out instructions for me using red and by its qualities. The drug spread, like vast anarchic annual Burning Man festival, blue coloured pencils. After several false ripples on an infinite pond, from these his face a knot of confusion and delight. starts, I finally went through it, with his experimental psychotherapeutic circles In 1978, he met his wife Ann, who was tutelage, and solved the cube. Somewhere, to the dance floors and music festivals born in Wellington, New Zealand. They lost and buried in my reams of stacked of the world. married in 1981. She used his creations in papers, is a small notepaper with red and

16 matters of substance August 14 He was one of the 20th century’s foremost scientists, a brilliant and fearless pioneer who synthesised, self-tested and recorded the effects of hundreds of new psychedelic drugs.

remains the definitive record of the emergence of MDMA as a world- conquering compound, says Shulgin’s legacy must be viewed in context. “Shulgin had a massive impact on popular culture, but it’s unclear how much he really understood it. He envisaged his beloved ‘materials’ being taken in benign, controlled settings, which are a long way from the average rave full of wilful hedonists looking for the next buzz.” Shulgin’s career spanned the 1960s’ psychedelic explosion right through the rebirth of MDMA, and his legacy can be seen in the modern-day emergence of novel psychoactive substances – drugs that skirt national and international laws through deliberate molecular manipulation. He was the counterculture’s eminence blue lines on it illustrating the stepwise knocked him clean out. This was his first grise, a figurehead for a generation who process for solving Rubik’s cube that Sasha consideration of the interface between rejected the irrationality of drug had solved!” mind and body and drugs that would prohibition and a scientist who hit the Shulgin described himself as a come to shape his life. bullseye of targets others didn’t even know toolmaker, and the job he set out to do was On leaving the Navy, Shulgin returned existed. He never made a penny from his to give people access to unexplored corners to California where he earned a PhD in creations, while many have retired early on of their own minds. biochemistry. He then worked at the the illicit profits made thanks to his work. “Our generation is the first, ever, to University of California before working Shulgin had a stroke in 2010 and was have made the search for self-awareness at Bio-Rad labs and later at Dow Chemicals. supported in his later years by the a crime, if it is done with the use of plants There, he invented a new pesticide that generosity of hundreds of well-wishers. or chemical compounds as the means of was so profitable for the firm he was given His first marriage, to Nina Shulgin, opening the psychic doors,” he wrote in free rein in its labs. ended when she died in 1977. Their son, PIHKAL. “But the urge to become aware Fascinated by his experiences in the Theodore Shulgin, died in 2011. He is is always present, and it increases in late 1950s with mescaline, he began to survived by Ann and four stepchildren. intensity as one grows older.” produce variants – new psychedelic drugs As he died, these words were chanted Shulgin was born in Berkeley, – in Dow’s labs. He left the firm in 1965 at his bedside. California, in 1925 to a Russian-emigrant and built his home laboratory, an Gate, gate father who became a schoolteacher. He alchemist’s lair with a Rachmaninov Gone, gone studied organic chemistry at Harvard but soundtrack. Here, he was free to pursue Para gate dropped out in 1943 to join the US Navy. his interests as he saw fit, helped along by Gone beyond Arguably, the most influential drug a DEA licence to produce illegal drugs, experience of his life happened during granted in exchange for his help as an Parasamgate this period. It was a few small grains of expert witness in trials. Gone way beyond powder given to him by a nurse. Shulgin created many hundreds Bodhi Svaha! While at sea, he suffered a serious of drugs and then tested them at home Hail the goer! thumb infection that required surgery. with friends, recording the experiences Handed a glass of juice by a nurse, he meticulously. He was anything but a spotted some undissolved solids at the hedonist, even though the substances Mike Power is a UK-based writer and author of bottom of the glass, assumed it was a he made elicited joy in millions. Drugs 2.0: The web revolution that’s changing sedative and fell unconscious. It was Matthew Collin, the journalist and the way the world gets high. actually sugar; the placebo effect had historian whose book Altered State

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 17 ABOUT A DRUG

americium Am neon 95 243 Ne 10 20.180

Amphetamine, meth’s parent drug, was first synthesised in Berlin in 1887 by Romanian chemist Lazâr Edeleanu, but its potency as a central nervous system stimulant wasn’t really discovered until 1927.

18 matters of substance August 14 0.1GRAM $700NZD 2,717 0.9% ONE ‘POINT’ THE AVERAGE COST FOR A GRAM THE NUMBER OF METH-RELATED PROPORTION OF ADULTS IN OR HIT OF METH OF METH, ALTHOUGH THIS CAN OFFENCES RECORDED IN 2013 NEW ZEALAND IN 2013 WHO RISE TO OVER $1,000 IN NEW ZEALAND HAD TRIED METH

It was first used as a The most common form is an reports on meth use vary might have a positive medicine – an inhaled odourless crystalline white widely. Some users say it experience on the body. decongestant – in 1934. powder. It is usually smoked made them terrified and In November 2011, scientists However, in 1919, Japanese but can also be snorted, paranoid. Others plead with from Columbia University scientists had synthesised injected or taken in pill form. readers never to even try published a study that methamphetamine (meth) According to the National meth. One user says his suggested meth could actually from amphetamine. They Institute of Drug Abuse in the first hit nearly drove him improve some brain functions, discovered meth was more United States, some common to suicide. such as attention span, memory potent and processed more short-term side effects of meth However, one user said and learning. quickly by the body. It was use include mind and mood his first “bump” of meth was In New Zealand, meth use easier to make too. changes such as anxiety, underwhelming and even is falling. The latest Tackling During World War II, euphoria and depression. boring. Another said she takes Methamphetamine: Indicators small doses of meth were Long-term effects can include meth on the weekends to help and Progress Report (April used by both sides to keep chronic fatigue, paranoid or her paint and has never had a 2014) indicates use in soldiers awake. High doses delusional thinking and problem with addiction or her New Zealand has more than were also given to Japanese permanent psychological health. Yet one more said it was halved over the past three Kamikaze pilots before damage. A meth overdose can like having all the blocks in years. The price of a gram here, their suicide missions. cause heart failure, and some of your consciousness removed. currently around $700, is Since the war, meth has the long-term physical effects “Nothing impairs.” slowly rising too, probably been used as a diet aid, an such as liver, kidney and lung While user experiences because there’s less meth on anti-depressant, a stimulant damage may also kill you. may differ, society generally the market. for students and athletes One suggested reason meth takes a dim view of meth. Meth The report says 0.9 percent and to treat ADHD. Its is so addictive is that it causes users are commonly portrayed of New Zealand adults have stimulant properties mean the brain to release in popular culture as tried meth, which is higher meth is often used extraordinary amounts of aggressive and paranoid and than the average recorded recreationally, but as its dopamine, leading to extreme with toothless smiles, by the United Nations of addictive properties became feelings of pleasure and uncontrollable twitches and 0.7 percent. This country’s more widely known, its motivation. Meanwhile, it faces riddled with sores. demographic with the highest recreational use has been slowly kills off the brain’s However, the Open Society rate was 16–24-year-old age banned in most countries. dopamine receptors, making Foundations’ 2014 paper group, where 2 percent had Meth has been placed in it harder and harder for a Methamphetamine: Fact vs. tried meth. schedule II of the United prolonged user to feel the fiction and lessons from the Fifteen percent of frequent Nations Convention on pleasant effects of a dopamine- crack hysteria, suggests many meth users in New Zealand Psychotropic Substances flooded brain. The user can of the immediate and long-term reported they were in treaty. New Zealand is a then enter a downward spiral harmful effects of treatment, and there have been signatory to international of needing to get high again methamphetamine have been 5,400 or more meth-related drug conventions so and again to feel that pleasure, greatly exaggerated. It also calls to the Alcohol and Drug recreational meth use is all the while doing their body asserts the uninformed stigma Helpline since November 2009. illegal here under the and brain more and more placed on meth users is a The New York Times once Misuse of Drugs Act. damage. And some research considerable barrier in referred to meth’s effects as a Also known as crystal, suggests damage done to the reaching them for treatment. “forest fire of damage”. Open speed, ice, glass or P, meth can brain may be permanent. It’s commonly accepted that Society Foundations would say be manufactured, or “cooked”, Drug-review website low doses of methamphetamine that’s an exaggeration. As with in a number of ways. This Erowid.org is a forum where improved wartime pilot so many other things, the means the drug can come in a drug users can describe performance, and some recent truth is probably somewhere range of forms and colours. their experiences, and research also reveals meth in the middle.

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 19 FEATURE Doing LAPs

With few Local Alcohol Plans (LAPs) in place, communities are forced into being reactive when faced with new applications for liquor licences. Rob Zorn looks at what the slow arrival of LAPs means in Mangere, and nationwide.

he Sale and Supply community and that they need to keep of Alcohol Act 2012 themselves safe in terms of drugs and came into force alcohol. Setting up a liquor store right in December 2013 outside our front gate completely as the culmination undermines that.” of the Law In granting the licence, the District Commission’s many Licensing Committee (DLC) has made some T recommendations concessions to the school. No alcohol can ROB to government around alcohol law reform. be sold between the hours of 3pm and ZORN Part of its purpose was to restore to 4pm, no deliveries may be received during communities some control over where, that time, single-item sales are forbidden when and how alcohol is sold in their and no person in school uniform can be on neighbourhoods. the premises, regardless of their age. Why is it then, that in June 2014, a Mangere East Family Service Centre new liquor licence was granted to a store CEO Peter Sykes, who appeared at the directly across the road from Southern hearing as a witness for the local board, Cross Campus, a 1,500–pupil school in says it’s ridiculous to think school pupils Ma-ngere – despite what appeared to be are only vulnerable between 3pm and 4pm. considerable opposition from the local “Students go over the road at lunchtime community? to buy food, and any slightly clever young An objection was lodged by the person wanting to buy alcohol, can easily - Mangere-Ota-huhu Local Board and the, disguise a school uniform. This is a shop licence was opposed by Auckland Regional that’s open and selling alcohol and many Public Health, the local licensing inspector students have to walk right past it on their and, not surprisingly, Southern Cross way to or from school.” Campus itself. Alcohol Healthwatch Director Rebecca Southern Cross Chair Peter Parussini Williams agrees. says the decision to grant the licence “The new legislation was supposed to beggars belief. face us in a new direction, away from the “We have a deliberate strategy to liberal one and towards something much improve academic performance, and we’re more community focused. Clearly that really proud of what we have achieved. hasn’t been realised yet. A big part of that has been teaching our “With the new Act in place, allowing pupils they have a role as leaders in the consideration of local amenity and good

20 matters of substance August 14 A new liquor licence was granted for an outlet opposite Southern Cross School

The Police agreed and did not oppose The new legislation the licence application. “Our job is to oppose licences if the was supposed to face us applicant is deemed unsuitable or if there in a new direction, away is a clear connection between the outlet from the liberal one and and recognised hotspots of harm,” says towards something much Sergeant Matt Tierney of the Counties Manukau Police District Licensing Unit. more community-focused. “None of that applied here, so we Clearly that hasn’t been had no objection. It’s up to councils to realised yet. oppose around grounds involving sensitive sites and that sort of thing. We try not to REBECCA WILLIAMS cross into each other’s areas so there aren’t multiple objections all about the order, I would have thought the DLC would same thing. have more considered the community’s “The other thing to remember is that concerns.” there are significant differences around a A big part of that While many may find the DLC’s grocery store selling beer and wine and a decision astonishing, there are some factors full off licence. There were a whole bunch has been teaching our that make this case a little less clear cut of conditions imposed, and the view of the pupils they have a role as than it would seem. Police was that this would reduce harm by leaders in the community The store in question, a superette, had making alcohol less accessible for and that they need to keep already been selling beer and wine for children.” quite some time. The application was for a Sykes disagrees. themselves safe in terms new full off licence to sell the complete “There’s actually a lot of harm of drugs and alcohol. range of alcohol (including RTDs and associated with this store. There are three spirits) from an outlet above the store, and Setting up a liquor store the proprietor was happy to forego the youth gang houses within a few hundred right outside our front metres of it. There was a stabbing right superette licence if the new off licence was gate completely granted. He agreed there would be no outside where the door to the upstairs advertising other than the store’s Thirsty outlet will be, and it’s a notorious place for undermines that. Liquor branding and argued a more youth gang activity historically.” supervised upstairs location would Parussini says the school has had no actually make alcohol less accessible to end of trouble associated with nearby PETER PARUSSINI young people. alcohol sales.

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 21 FEATURE

“We’ve had instances of people walking through the grounds during school So far there are around 30 hours carrying boxes of beer. There’s plenty of evidence of people drinking on draft LAPs in existence around the grounds at night or during the the county, but only one weekends; bottles lying around, vandalism council has managed full and stuff. implementation. “We have sports during the weekend and after-school homework or catch-up classes, and we have people walking past a chance the licence would not have been with alcohol. It’s not conducive to academic granted had the LAP been in place. performance, and how anyone could think “The draft LAP contains a concept it’s a good idea to let this application go called a ‘presumption against’, which is ahead is completely beyond me.” applied in some areas. It means the default At the hearing, much was made of the position is that new licences will not be fact that Southern Cross Campus did not granted unless applicants can prove a new lodge an objection when the application These industry outlet will not contribute to alcohol harm. was first announced. This was seen to Also, because this is a sensitive location or delaying tactics amount weaken their opposition. ‘neighbourhood centre’, an environmental to an undermining of “It’s true we didn’t object,” says and cumulative impact assessment would community decision Parussini, “but that’s because the notice have been required. This would have making using legal informing the community about the ensured the school was informed and application was issued at the back of a involved from the get-go.” argy-bargy in the newspaper in January when the school LAPs are also likely to reduce harm courts. It’s costing local was closed and people were on holiday. in other ways, such as providing clarity to government and denying We simply didn’t know about it. both the industry and law enforcement in “If I were cynical, I’d suspect this was how to deal with alcohol harms. communities the right deliberately done to sneak it through under “Exactly how much help the LAP will to have their say. the radar. But why should we have had to be for officers on the front line is hard to find out and object in the first place? say until we see it in its final form,” says I would have thought, given the theme of Tierney, “but we’re already seeing benefits REBECCA WILLIAMS the current legislation, that they should from the default trading hours in the Act. have had to come to us directly to ask for “We’ve seen a huge reduction in approval.” disorderly behaviour in the central city Williams says the Sale and Supply of between the hours of 6am and 8am, which Alcohol Act 2012 is all about reducing or is really good. So, if we use that as an minimising harm, and that requires things example of how well thought out to change rather than to leave them as legislation can affect things, then yeah, they are. further improvements are likely.” “Here we had an opportunity to So why doesn’t Auckland have an LAP improve the situation and move towards in place? the spirit of the new legislation, and it’s an In a way it’s an unfair question. So far, opportunity that’s simply gone begging.” there are around 30 draft LAPs in existence However, she does concede that an around the country, but only one council important mechanism in the Act for giving has managed full implementation. communities more say lies in the Belinda Hansen, Principal Policy development of Local Alcohol Plans Analyst at Auckland Council, says a (LAPs), and herein lies the rub. Auckland number of factors influenced the hasn’t yet got an LAP in place. This means timeframes for the development of its LAP. the new Act had little impact on what “Around 40 percent of the nation’s actually happened. alcohol licences are in Auckland, so it’s While the Act stipulates broad level important to get it right. We spent 18 criteria such as default trading hours, it months consulting with a range of has empowered local councils to determine stakeholders including Police, the industry, exactly what happens in their communities health and social agencies and the wider via LAPs. These can stipulate different community to inform the draft LAP. opening hours and impose more specific “We have a bustling CBD and big areas restrictions (or not) according to what like Ponsonby, so we needed to consider a council might think is appropriate in what was going to be right and to work for a given area. so many different outlets in so many Auckland Council has completed different circumstances in terms of opening a draft LAP, and Williams says there’s hours and specific conditions.”

22 matters of substance August 14 Written submissions on the draft LAP communities the right to have their say closed in July, and public discussion will through their LAPs. When you sit back and take place during September. It is expected look at it, these appeals are pathetic and a provisional LAP will be accepted by vexatious.” Auckland Council in November, at which While we might expect someone like stage, it will become subject to appeal. Full Williams to be reluctant to give Big Alcohol adoption is not expected until early 2015, a break, there is certainly evidence of some after appeals have been considered. dubious practices on the part of the industry Williams thinks any hope of full in terms of the submission process. adoption by early 2015 is probably For example, in April, it was revealed unrealistic. only about a third of the 260 submissions “So far, three LAPs have made it to presented by Hospitality New Zealand to provisional status (Waimakariri, the Hastings and Napier District Council’s Wellington and Tasman-Marlborough). draft LAPs could be considered genuine. All three have been subject to multiple The remainder were found to be from appeals, mostly by organisations like addresses that couldn’t be verified or from Hospitality New Zealand, Independent people who, when contacted, said they Basically, we were made Liquor and the big supermarket chains like didn’t recall making a submission. Progressive and Foodstuffs. One ‘submitter’ even said they’d signed to feel that, because we “So what we’re seeing here is the a filled-out submission form at a Havelock didn’t know in time to lodge alcohol industry using its commercial North bar in exchange for a free jug. That an objection, we didn’t exist muscle to hold things up as much as it can person has since withdrawn their and had no right to a say in to maintain the status quo by delaying the ‘submission’. implementation of LAPs for as long as it Sykes says those opposed felt quite the matter. can. Because of the size of the city, belittled by the lawyer for the applicant Auckland Council received 2,600 or more at the Mangere hearing and he was amazed PETER SYKES submissions on its draft LAP. It’s likely the at what he calls the games played with words. Auckland LAP will also be heavily “Basically we were made to feel that appealed.” because we didn’t know in time to lodge an The Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing objection, we didn’t exist and had no right Authority (ARLA) has decided it will deal to a say in the matter. It was suggested that, with appeals one at a time, so Williams is because we hadn’t objected, our opposition probably right that the process could take at the hearing was some sort of ambush. some time. “It was even argued that, because She says many of the appeals have been alcohol is already available in around the meaning of the word supermarkets, society accepts that it “reasonable” even though, in many cases, should be available in generic places. the issue is just a single extra hour of A child could see the difference between opening time. One supermarket is even selling alcohol at a supermarket and selling appealing over hours in which it doesn’t it at a store across the road from a school. currently operate. It was ridiculous.” “The argument is that they may not As Williams points out, district currently operate at that time, but they licensing committees and alcohol want to reserve the right to in the future. authorities are courts of law, and it’s really The reason they don’t operate during the hard for ordinary members of communities disputed hours is because it’s clear the to gear up and take on lawyers – which is community doesn’t need them to, why local boards have been so willing to so this looks to me like an appeal for get involved. appeal’s sake.” “We need to get LAPs in place quickly Meanwhile, she says, the very fact that so ordinary mums and dads won’t be there have been so many appeals may well forced to take this sort of action to protect be causing delays in other localities. their children in future. “The feedback Alcohol Healthwatch is “In the meantime, and at the very least, receiving is that a lot of councils have put the DLC has imposed some conditions on their LAPs on hold until they see the the new licence. Time will tell whether results of the appeals in places that have they are sufficient. The Police say there are already gone provisional. no trouble hotspots associated with the “Basically, these industry delaying store. It will be interesting to see whether tactics amount to an undermining of that changes.” community decision making using legal argy-bargy in the courts. It’s costing local Rob Zorn is a Wellington-based writer. government (i.e. ratepayers) and denying

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 23 FEATURE Face trashed

Alcohol marketing on social media is cheap, successful and legal. But researchers say New Zealand should be attempting to control marketers’ sophisticated digital strategies to build brand loyalty with young Kiwis.

Keri Welham reports. KERI WELHAM

here are more than In an unprecedented move, Finland 1 billion people on will introduce alcohol advertising reforms Is there anything wrong gargantuan social from 2015 that are aimed at limiting social with a Kiwi sports fan who media network media marketing. Facebook. But New Zealand beer brands have had enthusiastically uploads It can serve as considerable success with social media pictures of themselves with T a social organiser, marketing in recent months – with sponsor’s product in the hope a way to quickly campaigns such as Tui’s Catch a Million of winning merchandise? share family photos, an address book, – and advertising bodies would strongly a device to track down old mates and – oppose similar moves here. crucially for young people – an Steinlager’s #AllBlackSnap was opportunity to create and refine an online digital marketing gold for the beer brand. persona. A columnist on marketing publication When young people ‘like’ their StopPress suggested it was “either a favourite fashion designer, coffee house, slightly duplicitous or very clever way musician or sports team, it clarifies their of getting the people to post ‘ads’ for desired social standing. They know their Steinlager of their own volition”. friends will see content posted by the StopPress explains that the Steinlager brands they’ve liked. Glassons or Karen campaign was launched for the first 2014 Walker? The Eagles or Paloma Faith? All Black test against England at Eden Park Badminton or cage fighting? Southern on 7 June. Rugby fans were invited to post Comfort or Tutankhamun Ale? pictures of themselves at the ground with An enthusiasm towards drinking a numbered Steinlager bottle (one for each can be communicated by liking alcohol- member of the team) and the hashtag related pages or brands. Teens and young #AllBlackSnap. When Aaron Cruden adults will be among the 5.2 million scored the first goal wearing the number 10 people who like a Facebook page called jersey, prizes were immediately delivered Beer, the 5.3 million who like the ‘hobby’ to some of those who had posted images of drinking or the 51,000 who like the themselves with number 10 bottles. ‘sport’ drinking. StopPress says the campaign generated In December last year, Facebook a combined social reach of more than announced it had 1.23 billion monthly 350,000 from a total of 1,300 entries on active users. The other big players at this social media sites Twitter, Facebook and stage are Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Instagram. Some of this consumer- Snapchat, WhatsApp and, for the oldies, generated content was then loaded onto Pinterest and LinkedIn. The sites most the site steinlagerfans.co.nz, under the commonly linked to alcohol marketing headline: BEER. RUGBY. PERFECT. are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So, what?

24 matters of substance August 14 Sport and downing a beer go hand-in-hand, at

Is there anything wrong with a Kiwi “Alcohol companies employed social sports fan who enthusiastically uploads media to market their products to young New Zealand Code pictures of themselves with sponsor’s people in sophisticated ways that meant for Advertising and product in the hope of winning the campaigns and actions were rarely Promotion of Alcohol merchandise? perceived as marketing. Online alcohol marketing initiatives were actively What about a New Zealander of legal There are four principles in the code. appropriated by young people and drinking age who willingly shares a viral The first three deal with advertising. video or photo created by an alcohol reproduced within their Facebook pages marketer? to present tastes and preferences, facilitate Principle 1 Or a pic, uploaded to a beer brand’s social interaction, construct identities and • Alcohol advertising and promotions Facebook page, of an infant with an empty more generally develop cultural capital.” shall observe a high standard of social responsibility. beer bottle? Lyons says researchers were shocked Massey University Associate Professor by the volume of alcohol marketing in Principle 2 of Psychology Antonia Lyons studies social media. • Alcohol advertising and promotions “You see the desire to get intoxicated New Zealand’s culture of intoxication. shall be consistent with the need become normalised.” “Research has shown that [alcohol for responsibility and moderation in This is evident on pages like Getting marketing] is very harmful,” she says. alcohol consumption. Drunk!, which has almost 700,000 likes “It reinforces a drinking culture.” Principle 3 and is updated with new alcohol-related Last year, Lyons led research into • Alcohol advertising and promotions shall jokes at least once a week. drinking cultures and digital technologies. be directed at adult audiences. Alcohol No single company stands to gain from A report, titled Flaunting it on Facebook: advertising and promotions shall not be a page like Getting Drunk! Young adults, drinking cultures and the directed at minors nor have strong or But sophisticated brands pour cult of celebrity, was released in March this evident appeal to minors in particular. significant budgets into digital marketing This applies to both content and year. It covers surveys of 141 young adults, in an attempt to garner followings placement. analysis of 487 examples of online comparable in size to those on the joke marketing and a walk-through of 23 sites. They post well devised videos with The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) says: “This code is designed to ensure that individual Facebook users’ pages. excellent filming and make it easy for alcohol advertising and promotion is The report says young New Zealanders consumers to share the videos with their consistent with the need for responsibility are obsessed with identity, image and online friends. celebrity. and moderation in merchandising and For brands, viral posts lend a valuable consumption, and does not encourage “Being visible online was crucial for impression of personal endorsement to consumption by minors. Particular care is many young adults, and they put advertising material. And in terms of the also required in the advertising and significant amounts of time and energy bottom line, marketing becomes extremely promotion of products likely to have strong into updating and maintaining Facebook cost-effective when consumers themselves appeal to young adults over the legal pages, particularly with material regarding take care of message dissemination. purchase age.” drinking practices and events,” says Research by Dr Nicholas Carah at the Source: ASA.co.nz the report. Australian Foundation for Alcohol

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 25 FEATURE

SOCIAL MEDIA

Steinlager Facebook page | July 25 Beer Barrel Facebook page | July 17 ‘Farewell week. ‘Toga Hello weekend.’ Party’

All children and adolescents have the right to grow up in an environment protected from the negative consequences of alcohol consumption and, to the extent possible, from the promotion of alcoholic beverages.

Source: World Health Organization, European Charter on Alcohol (1995)

Shared Likes Brands engage with consumers’ routine 77 TIMES 645 conversations about everyday life. The more Young people use Facebook page | August 1 embedded in everyday life Facebook to organise alcohol consumption is, the Getting Drunk! their social lives, so more valuable alcohol pubs such as Dunedin’s brands are because they Beer Barrel use the social become increasingly media to ensure they impervious to regulation have a chance of featuring in those plans. DR NICHOLAS CARAH

Shared Likes 152 TIMES 761

26 matters of substance August 14 Research and Education (FARE) shows New Zealand, he says, but for the brand in QUOTES OF SUBSTANCE Australia’s top 20 alcohol brands posted question to increase market share. more than 4,500 items of digital marketing ANZA administers a service called the content on Facebook in 2012. Liquor Advertising Pre-vetting System “Brands continuously seek engagement (LAPS – not to be confused with Local from fans in the form of likes, comments Alcohol Policies, which use the same and shares. They ask questions, host acronym). competitions and post memes and videos The LAPS, set up in 1998, offers to spark engagement and conversation. advertisers an educated, external opinion As brands do this, they rely on fans to use on whether the campaign they are planning their own identities and peer networks to is likely to fall outside the Advertising circulate brand messages.” Codes of Practice. This forms a picture of an The research, released in May this year, It is free to lay a complaint with the employer that is not observing shows brands are most likely to post social Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), of the statutory requirements media content between 3–5pm on a Friday which Mouat is currently chair. A separate and will often reference end-of-the-week self-regulatory body called the Advertising which apply to all employers drinking rituals. Standards Complaints Board considers the in New Zealand. “Brands engage with consumers’ complaints. It is made up of five public Employment Relations Authority routine conversations about everyday life. representatives with no connection to member Rachel Larmer politely The more embedded in everyday life media or advertising groups and four describes an employer who thought alcohol consumption is, the more valuable ASA-nominated people with media and/or it would be okay to pay a worker with alcohol brands are because they become advertising backgrounds. beers instead of proper wages. increasingly impervious to regulation,” Since online records began in 2007, Carah writes. there have been 45 complaints to the Researchers from the University of New Zealand ASA regarding Facebook – Western Sydney’s School of Business nine of those involving alcohol companies If we want to get this right studied six months of alcohol promotion or drinking establishments. we are going to have to do it on Twitter. They looked at the seven most An explanation of the process on the ASA slowly. valuable global alcohol brands and found, website illustrates the limited power at President Jose Mujica of Uruguay – the although each company’s Twitter following ASA’s disposal: “In the event of a first country to legalise growing, selling was modest (Heineken had 58,777 while complaint being upheld the advertiser, and consuming cannabis – realises pop star Lady Gaga has 42 million), their agency, and media are requested to posts were often retweeted to a much larger withdraw the advertisement. These that, even though it’s the government secondary audience, which could include requests are invariably complied with.” producing the pot, the gangs and those under 18. Mouat says complaints that are upheld thugs will still want to get involved. Lyons says those in her study drank to bring “shame” on the advertiser in feel alcohol’s effects. question. “People enjoy the buzz. It’s a positive On average, it takes the ASA 15 days to But it is long past time experience a lot of the time,” she says. issue a decision. Antonia Lyons says this is to repeal this version “But it turns very quickly into a an eternity in social media terms, where of Prohibition. negative impact.” videos go viral in hours. Lindsay Mouat She says social media offers an says 15 days is a fast turnaround for any A landmark New York Times editorial “airbrushed” drinking culture. It’s glam, adjudication process. weighs up the science and concludes funny, fun. Mouat says, in recent years, there has it’s time to repeal 40 years of cannabis People seldom post about getting their been a marked reduction in the number of prohibition in the US. stomach pumped or ending up in hospital complaints about alcohol advertising to the after a fight, and posts about alcohol- ASA. He says it is assumed there are fewer fuelled domestic violence are rare. complaints because advertisers are working It doesn’t seem to serve Lyons, Carah and other researchers say within the guidelines. anyone well to attach criminal alcohol companies’ use of social media to In 2012, New Zealand passed section penalties to people who have create brand value has become a matter of 237 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act public concern and debate. 2012. It implemented the first stage of the addiction disorders, particularly But how, in practice, do you stop a New Zealand Law Commission’s pregnant women. runaway train of this magnitude? recommendations for alcohol law reform. Michael Botticelli, Acting Director Lindsay Mouat is Chief Executive of the This year, a Ministerial Forum on Alcohol of the White House Office of National Association of New Zealand Advertisers Advertising and Sponsorship received Drug Control Policy, criticises a new (ANZA). He says advertising portrays submissions about advertising and Tennessee law and suggests that what responsible drinking. promotion of alcohol. Submissions closed a woman with an addiction and a baby Advertisers are required to present on 28 April. on the way just needs is a criminal drinking as an adult activity, enjoyed in In total, 177 submitters supported moderation. The point of advertising is not further alcohol advertising restrictions, conviction to make her life complete. to increase the volume of alcohol sold in while 64 submitters favoured the status

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 27 FEATURE

quo. Not all submitters commented on “Of course, the worst option, for SOCIAL MEDIA both advertising and sponsorship.). any government, is just to sit back and A summary of submissions states: watch these new forms of advertising,” “Generally, submitters categorised as Tuominen says. Facebook page health, professional associations, Lindsay Mouat of ANZA says there is community/cultural groups, researchers, “complete stupidity” in what the Finns have The Bank and individuals were more likely to done. “It will have very limited impact.” support the implementation of further What the legislation won’t stop, Mouat Bar & Brasserie restrictions. Specific groups more likely says, is young people taking photos of to support the status quo (and no further themselves drunk and posting them on restrictions) were sporting bodies, their own social media accounts. advertising/media submitters, retailers, Advertising-generated content would make alcohol industry and trade associations.” up an “extremely small” part of a young The Health Ministry outlined three adult’s newsfeed, as opposed to their constraints that prevented consideration friends’ posts about drinking. of further measures to address alcohol “It’s not the advertising. It’s what their advertising and sponsorship. One factor peers are doing.” was economic and community consequences He says New Zealand’s legislative as a result of lost sponsorship. Another was reform, similar to that in Finland, would the difficulty of assessing the evidence base. “achieve absolutely nothing”. The third factor was changing technology. “It’s just not going to help,” he says. “It was noted that regulating alcohol “The media is changing so fast.” advertising is difficult and its effect is Mouat points to France, where the uncertain, particularly because alcohol Loi Evin alcohol policy law was introduced advertising is a rapidly growing area with in 1991 to control advertising for alcohol. new technologies and marketing Mouat says analysis found it was “ineffective” Likes techniques providing new opportunities in reducing high-risk drinking patterns. to influence purchase and consumption However, alcohol prevention 6,316 behaviour. Restrictions, may, therefore, researchers said the legislation had brought be easily circumvented.” about a distinct change in advertising. Antonia Lyons says: “So it’s too hard The Association Nationale de Prévention Drinking establishments, so we won’t bother? I mean, that’s a real en Alcoologie et Addictologie (ANPAA) cop-out. You could at least stand up and wrote that the success of complaints such as The Bank Bar & do something.” against advertisers, drawing on the strength Brasserie in Hamilton In February this year, Finland of the law, had alarmed alcohol producers, use their Facebook pages introduced proposed amendments to advertisers and the media. to build a sense of alcohol advertising legislation. One of the “As a consequence, since 1991, new laws, due to take effect in 2015, is a we can observe a real change in alcohol community. This page, ban on alcohol-branded social media advertising: the law has modified the which is uploaded with communication. language of advertising, losing most of its pictures of people at the Ismo Tuominen works on drafting the seductive character. It is no longer allowed amendments. In a YouTube presentation, to use drinkers and drinking atmospheres: bar most weekends, has Tuominen says, in practice, the we have observed the disappearance of been liked 6,316 times. amendments will rule out any promotion the drinker from the images and the In 13,582 instances, users involving a game, lottery or contest; highlighting of the product itself.” have told their Facebook advertiser use of any content produced A recent research letter in the Medical by consumers; and production of viral Journal of Australia referred to the success friends that they are marketing videos that are intended to be of banning tobacco promotion in 168 (or were) at the bar and shared on social media. countries through the 2003 World Health linked that status update In other words, various elements of the Organisation’s Framework Convention on to the bar’s official page. #AllBlackSnap promotion would be illegal Tobacco Control. in Finland. “That framework’s trajectory suggests The amendments don’t ban alcohol- research, public pressure, political will and related posts on a consumer’s own website, international co-operation are needed to social media page or emails, as these are reduce widespread alcohol promotion and not considered advertising. the associated public health costs.” Tuominen says he would have Antonia Lyons says tobacco promotion preferred more extreme regulations, reform was more straightforward because banning everything except product one cigarette is harmful, whereas one drink information, but the political environment can have benefits. But she doesn’t believe dictated that Finland should focus on that’s justification to avoid the issue of banning the most harmful practices. alcohol promotion on social media.

28 matters of substance August 14 She would love to see social media companies like Facebook ban alcohol companies from advertising. But she’s pessimistic. “It’s not going to happen.” Lyons says Facebook makes too much advertising money from beverage giants like Diageo – makers of Johnnie Walker, A sample of Smirnoff, Guinness – to consider cutting Advertising Standards Authority off that income stream. (Diageo and Facebook signed a “multi-million dollar Complaints Board decisions strategic partnership”, in September 2011, which aimed to “drive unprecedented levels of interaction and joint business planning and experimentation between the two companies.” Diageo reported that the 2013 2011 partnership had led to a “20 percent increase in sales as a result of Facebook activity”.) September 2013 June 2011 Lyons says a more realistic option A complaint was considered regarding A complaint was considered is to make alcohol marketing transparent an advertisement for Carl’s Jr’s Jim regarding a Facebook website – so companies are forced to tell Beam Bourbon Burger on the Carl’s Jr advertisement for DB Breweries consumers they are watching/reading a Facebook page. The complainant was Limited. One photograph in the ad was paid advertisement. This might erode some concerned by one of the images in the of a man wakeboarding and holding a of the social value for young people advertisement – a picture of the burger bottle of DB Export Beer, another was sharing advertiser-generated content. accompanied by the words: “It’ll make of a young man (easily identifiable as Lyons says the self-regulation model a man out of you.” younger than 25) drinking a bottle of would need to be abandoned if demands DB Export Beer and another was a The ASA Complaints Board did not and limitations on the industry were ever photograph of a young baby holding a uphold the complaint. Its decision reads: “The to be effectively enforced. bottle of DB Export Beer in its mouth majority of the Complaints Board said the Lastly, Lyons would like to see and sitting on an adult’s knee. advertisers forced to disclose what tagline ‘It’ll make a man out of you’ did not information they gather about consumers suggest that consuming alcohol would make DB told the ASA: “The Facebook website when their page is liked and how that a consumer more manly, rather it said it was images which are the subject of this information could be used to target a reference to the size of the burger i.e. a complaint are user-generated and uploaded, drinkers. ‘man’s sized burger’.” and were not created by DB “I can’t see that happening in or by one of our agencies.” New Zealand because the government August 2013 It described a “stringent review process” hasn’t done very much about traditional A complaint was laid regarding for user-generated content. alcohol marketing.” two images on the Facebook page for She says any reform needs to be Thirsty Liquor. The first was a sleeping “Regrettably these images got through the trans-national to be effective. Social media cat sprawled beside two empty beer process undetected. Upon being made aware is global, so the solutions to a specific cans. The other was an infant with a of the error, we immediately took steps to social media concern must be global too. surprised look on its face. The caption remove the relevant material.” Lyons says New Zealand is at “the read: “How much did I drink last The chairman at the time decided the matter very liberal end” of the alcohol regulation night?” The complainant said the was settled by the self-regulatory action of spectrum. images were irresponsible and withdrawing the images, so it was not “We’ve normalised it so much that it’s inappropriate. referred to the Complaints Board. part of everyday life. We can buy it at the The complaint was upheld. The ASA supermarket. [But] it’s actually a drug and Complaints Board wrote: “…both images it’s a special commodity. It’s actually encouraged the idea that excessive something quite unique.” consumption of alcohol was amusing and comical and, therefore, were in breach of Keri Welham is a Tauranga-based writer. both Principles 1 and 2 of the Code for Advertising and Promotion of Alcohol.” The advertiser had already removed the images when the complaint was considered.

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 29 GUEST EDITORIAL

Towards global drug policy pathways that work

Ahead of the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs in 2016, the Global Commission on Drugs proposes a new drug control regime for the 21st century. The experience of what regulation means in practice is informing policy, as Steve Rolles explains STEVE ROLLES

n 9 September, the accelerating pace of drug policy reform since increasingly high-profile public figures, Global Commission 2011 is acknowledged. This is occurring including – for the first time – sitting heads on Drugs released in spheres of both decriminalisation and of state, to openly question the War on its latest report harm reduction and with the first cannabis Drugs and call for meaningful exploration Taking Control: regulation models being implemented in of alternative approaches. It helped ‘break Pathways to drug the US and Uruguay. As the regulation the taboo’ on high-level drug policy reform policies that work debate moves from theory to reality, a debate as it set out to do. O in New York. The substantial section of the report focuses on The most significant manifestation Commission is made up of political leaders providing more detail about what of this new openness was the call in including seven former presidents, UN regulation means in practice – attempting September 2012 from the presidents of luminaries, including former Secretary- to address many of the popular concerns Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala at the General Kofi Annan, and high-profile and misconceptions. UN for a Special Session of the General public figures, including businessman New Zealand’s groundbreaking 2013 Assembly (UNGASS) to review and reform Richard Branson and Paul Volker, former legislation to regulate certain novel the global drug control framework. The head of US Federal Reserve. psychoactive substances is presented as 2016 UNGASS that resulted is another key The Commission had a huge impact in part of this global drug policy reform focus of the new report. Recommendations 2011 with its first report,War on Drugs. process. For anyone in New Zealand are clearly designed to inform the UNGASS This report represented the most highly doubtful of the law’s significance, the 2013 deliberations, with a key final section on powered group thus far to argue for a Act is used as one of the examples of what UN-level reform entails. It suggests substantive re-orientation of drug policy innovative new thinking on regulation not only that the punitive paradigm from the failings of a punitive enforcement- models around the world. The approach underlying the UN drug treaties needs led paradigm to a health and human rights- has clearly informed the recommendations to be reconsidered, but ultimately that based approach. Most prominent were the which specifically encourage “diverse the drug treaty system itself needs to be calls for decriminalisation of drug users experiments in legally regulating markets revisited and modernised to make it and experimentation with legalisation and in currently illicit drugs, beginning with ‘fit for purpose’. regulation of some drugs. The second and but not limited to cannabis, coca leaf and third reports focused on the impacts of the certain novel psychoactive substances”. war on drugs on the epidemics of HIV and Whilst the Commission’s Steve Rolles is Senior Policy Analyst for hepatitis C. recommendations are familiar territory Transform Drug Policy Foundation www.tdpf. The new report returns to and develops for reform NGOs, the greatest political org.uk and was one of three technical the themes of the first, but notably with a significance of the report perhaps lies in coordinators involved in researching and new emphasis on the questions of regulation the Commissioners themselves. The 2011 drafting the new Global Commission report. and UN-level reforms (see box). The report helped create political space for

30 matters of substance August 14 Members of the Global Commission on Drugs with the 2011 petition to end the War on Drugs.

The Global Commission report’s key recommendations

PUT PEOPLE’S END THE CRIMINALISATION AND REGULATE DRUG MARKETS TO PUT HEALTH AND SAFETY FIRST INCARCERATION OF PEOPLE WHO GOVERNMENTS IN CONTROL Instead of punitive and harmful prohibition, USE DRUGS The regulation of drugs should be pursued policies should prioritise the safeguarding Criminalising people for the possession because they are risky, not because they of people’s health and safety. This means and use of drugs is wasteful and are safe. Different models of regulation can investing in community protection, counterproductive. It increases health be applied for different drugs according to prevention, harm reduction, and treatment harms and stigmatises vulnerable the risks they pose. In this way, regulation as cornerstones of drug policy. populations and contributes to an can reduce social and health harms and exploding prison population. Ending disempower organised crime. ENSURE ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL criminalisation is a prerequisite of any MEDICINES D PAIN CONTROL genuinely health-centred drug policy. GLOBAL LEADERSHIP FOR The international drug control system MORE EFFECTIVE AND HUMAN POLICIES is failing to ensure equitable access to REFOCUS ENFORCEMENT RESPONSES The evolution of an effective, modern essential medicines such as morphine TO DRUG TRAFFICKING AND international drug control system requires and methadone, leading to unnecessary ORGANISED CRIME leadership from the UN and national pain and suffering. The political obstacles A more targeted enforcement approach governments, building a new consensus that are preventing member states from is needed to reduce the harms of the illicit founded on core principles that allows ensuring an adequate provision of such drug markets and ensure peace and security. and encourages exploration of alternative medicines must be removed. Governments should deprioritise the pursuit approaches to prohibition. of non-violent and minor participants in the market, instead directing enforcement RESOURCES resources towards the most disruptive and violent elements of the drug trade. Report digital summary and download http://www.gcdpsummary2014.com

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 31 OPINION

Decriminalise cannabis, decriminalise Māori?

That Mäori are more often criminalised for cannabis use is often used as another good argument for decriminalisation. But Hirini Kaa argues things are more complex and that, as many Mäori probably know, decriminalisation won’t be the panacea proposed so often by privileged päkehä. HIRINI KAA

K, let’s get this out product quite high to discourage excessive of the way: arresting use and to include the all-important tax …. so anything that might and convicting revenue. So in Colorado where they are people for the working on this, a ‘tinnie’ will cost around increase access to the drug – possession or use of $42 including taxes. including decriminalisation – a small amount of In order to make the market work, I oppose. O cannabis is stupid, they will really have to crack down on the counterproductive, ‘illegal market’, which will mean … more racist and just doesn’t work. There, that arrests than ever before until the legal was easy, wasn’t it? market can become dominant. Of course, So obviously, if we decriminalise or if there are kids under the legal age who even legalise cannabis, we will be a much can get a tinnie for $20, there will still be better society and have healthier, stronger demand, and an illegal market will still communities and wha-nau. Right? Not exist to cater for them. necessarily. The problem is Ma-ori are Cannabis is not that big of a criminal arrested (and imprisoned) for a whole lot of problem for Ma-ori – the legal system is. things, and removing cannabis from the Only 4 percent of young people who go mix won’t necessarily help. through the youth courts are there for drug Khylee Quince (Associate Dean at the offences – 96 percent of them are there for University of Auckland Law School) points something else. And of course, rangatahi out that Ma-ori get arrested Ma-ori make up over half of those in front disproportionately for all sorts of crime, of the youth courts. And there are currently and that comes from a long and deep around 200 people in prison because of problem between Ma-ori and the Police. cannabis offences – out of 10,160 prisoners So Ma-ori get arrested (and imprisoned) in total – under 2 percent of total prison disproportionately anyway, whether inmates. Also, those actually in prison for drugs, driving, alcohol … or for cannabis alone are often those involved anything really. in very large amounts, hundreds or Also, having a ‘legal’ market won’t thousands of plants, as opposed to a few necessarily help. States in the US that have for personal use. legalised (and regulated) cannabis are It should be noted, though, that ‘the facing a resulting problem. If there is a system’ is not always the baddie. Judge regulated market that will sell to adults Jane McMeeken from the Christchurch (18+ say), then they will have to price the Youth Drug Court is an example of

32 matters of substance August 14 QUOTES OF SUBSTANCE

And there was total silence. Then a policeman came and said, ‘You’re right. We have to save them if we can, because my son is a drug user. And I don’t know what to do.’ This comment by Indonesian Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi shows how a truth hitting home changed the whole atmosphere of discussion at the recent AIDS conference in Melbourne.

I was amazed by the someone making the system work. Hers is You throw these issues on top number of people who were a court for young people who have drug of cannabis use, and you get a very drunk and the level of alcohol. problems and would go through ‘the different picture. Some even argue that I was a bit surprised. system’ anyway. In this special court, they cannabis may pacify our communities. FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke meet once a fortnight with the judge and While that may be true in relation to the went to Brazil and was shocked by the counsellors and are specially supported by terrible impact of alcohol, what we really a wrap-around system. Even though this is want are drug, alcohol, violence and booziness of the World Cup. Christchurch, at present, half of the tobacco–free communities. - 14 young people there are Ma-ori. And yes there are Maori advocates Judge Jane (‘JJ’ to the rangatahi in the for the drug, but I take my lead from Alcoholic drinks are court) is passionate and harrowing in her Hone Harawira who simply says it’s no part of the FIFA World Cup, good for our people and we don’t need it. tales of some of these young people, and so we’re going to have them. their challenges make you want to cry. So anything that might increase access to the drug – including decriminalisation – Excuse me if I sound a bit For some of them, their proudest arrogant but that’s something achievement is to have a clear urine screen I oppose. So back to the beginning. We know we won’t negotiate. at their next appearance, and being - constantly out of it to escape their lives arresting Maori in particular for small FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke amounts of weed is not a good idea. was a common thread. And for some of (remember that guy?) bullies the Brazil But I’m not sure that simply wishing these rangatahi, being in this court Government to overturn its ban on provides more support than they will ever away the problem will make it work – and decriminalising or legalising cannabis alcohol sales at sports events as a receive from their own wha-nau – who led will not necessarily fix the bigger condition of hosting the games. them down this path in the first place. problems of institutionalised racism So ‘the system’ is not always the problem. and the breakdown of wha-nau To be honest, while I understand the and community. arguments of those who advocate for I hot-boxed the Camry. decriminalisation, I don’t necessarily Yeah, it wasn’t so bad. empathise with them. Rolling out wave Young Nat’s President Sean Topham after wave of Päkehä middle-class This opinion piece was first published talks on Back Benches about the first advocates who are highly functioning on the RevTalk blog www.revtalk.co.nz time he smoked marijuana. We’re not smokers is a kind of limited argument. sure whether he means the dope or the Those people do not face the intense Hirini Kaa, Ngäti Porou/Ngäti Kahungunu, Camry wasn’t so bad. pressure of racism, of poverty, of a justice is a historian and Anglican priest working system – a system full stop – that is set up in South Auckland. He tweets as @revhirini. to oppress them.

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 33 VIEWPOINTS

So should naloxone become more accessible in New Zealand?

IT is a life-saving drug that’s safe, easy to use and in many other states. The US Food and Drug

FOR THE CASE affordable. Naloxone hydrochloride (or the brand Administration also fast-tracked approval of a new name Narcan) is an opioid antidote that can device called Evzio, which delivers a dose of immediately reverse a potentially fatal overdose naloxone through a hand-held injector. When caused by opioids such as morphine, the powerful activated, it gives spoken instructions to the user prescription painkiller oxycodone and the illicit drug on how to inject the drug in an emergency. heroin. It’s possible that, if given early enough, it While the number of opioid overdoses in could have saved the life of acclaimed American New Zealand is currently low compared to other actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of a heroin countries including the United States and Australia, overdose in February this year. there is a strong case for naloxone to be made more So it is logical to make naloxone, which can be accessible as part of a harm-reduction approach. injected or given as a nasal spray, more widely This might not necessarily be through equipping available in New Zealand so it can be quickly Police officers and other emergency services staff administered in emergency situations where opiate with naloxone, but instead could be done through poisoning is suspected. Ambulance paramedics and community-based programmes. Health clinics could intensive care paramedics (the more highly trained be set up in a working partnership with a needle levels of ambulance staff) already routinely carry the exchange where GPs could prescribe the drug to drug and are trained in how and when to inject it those deemed to be at higher risk. Naloxone kits into a patient. New Zealand Police are not equipped could also be issued to vulnerable groups such as with naloxone. The argument is that the number of recently released prisoners. overdoses is too low here to justify the training While it’s positive that ambulance paramedics required for them to be able to administer the drug carry the overdose antidote, sometimes they might properly. However, Charles Henderson, national not get to the scene quickly enough to administer manager of the New Zealand Needle Exchange naloxone at the optimum time. The other difficulty is Programme, warns there are signs that heroin use that people are sometimes reluctant to call here is rising and the number of overdoses could emergency services to report an overdose, because in rise accordingly. doing so, they may be putting themselves at risk of “Whilst it’s rare, we think we’re seeing increases, facing drugs charges. and when we consider some of the reports and If family members or caregivers of an injecting Customs data around, we think heroin is on the rise.” drug user had naloxone close to hand, perhaps in an In the United States, on average, 110 people die easy to use form like Evzio, they could use it as a each day from overdoses, and more than half of these first-aid response to overdose. Opioid poisoning fatalities involve opioids such as heroin and victims quickly lose consciousness, so receiving prescription painkillers. Heroin overdose deaths naloxone immediately rather than waiting for increased by a staggering 45 percent between 2006 emergency services boosts their chances of survival. and 2010. In July, US Attorney-General Eric Holder Naloxone, which is on the World Health called for more law enforcement agencies to supply Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines, their personnel with naloxone, saying opioid is unlikely to cause harm even if given in the wrong addiction was a public health crisis. In New York circumstances. Making it more readily available to City, state funding of US$1.2 million has been those who might need it – either through the peers provided for 20,000 officers to begin carrying of drug users or their family members and caregivers naloxone kits this year, following similar initiatives – would save lives.

34 matters of substance August 14 In the United States opiates cause thousands of overdose deaths each year. Now Police officers and community members are being equipped with an antidote drug called naloxone to combat what has become a public health crisis. Making naloxone more readily available here would widen the safety net for overdose victims, a vital step if we follow international trends towards rising heroin use. Opponents argue broader access to naloxone could give drug users a false sense of security. So should it become more accessible in New Zealand?

THERE’S an important difference between Naloxone is carried routinely in ambulances THE CASE

New Zealand and other countries such as the United staffed by several hundred paramedics and intensive AGAINST States and Britain where moves are under way to care paramedics around the country, and St John equip Police officers with naloxone. Our rates of Medical Director Tony Smith says they would be opioid overdose are extremely low. sent in all cases where opioid overdose was The reason for this is that heroin is now rare suspected. in New Zealand and injected drugs are nearly all “The requirement for naloxone is very low. diverted pharmaceuticals, which means users have I don’t have any hard data, but opiate poisoning a more reliable idea of what dose they are taking. requiring an ambulance is a relatively unusual event. Heroin has a variable strength and purity, which The incidence is so low in New Zealand that we makes it more likely to cause an accidental overdose. don’t think it’s worth extending this [naloxone Recently released prisoners who have been drug training] beyond the paramedic and intensive care users are at higher risk of overdose because their paramedic staff.” tolerance is lower, but Jeremy McMinn, co-chair of Police Association President Greg O’Connor says the National Organisation of Opioid Providers says, the heroin scene is New Zealand today is very in most cases, Kiwi prisoners are allowed to remain different now to what it was like in the 1970s when on methadone or other opioid substitutes while they the Mr Asia drug syndicate was active. He remembers are serving their sentence, which helps protect them once encountering two heroin overdoses in one shift after they are released. when he was a Police officer back then. The number While it might seem like a positive step to arm of overdoses currently did not justify the training and those likely to be on the scene with an antidote to cost required for Police to be equipped with an overdose among one of their peers or a family naloxone, and it was not something he would member, there could be an unintended consequence advocate for at this stage. from widening availability of naloxone; people could Perhaps surprisingly, given the cultural become less cautious about their drug use because similarities between Australia and New Zealand, so they know life-saving treatment is close at hand. far New Zealand has not followed the trend of rising “They might think they have this safety net of numbers of opioid-related overdoses happening having naloxone right by them. What’s lacking is across the Tasman. If the situation changes, perhaps research to reassure us that emergency kits given to access to naloxone should be reviewed, but at people using opioids actually increase safety across present, the cost and time involved in training and YOUR VOICE the board. They might, in fact, increase risky use,” equipping more emergency personnel or setting up McMinn says. healthcare-based community schemes for distributing the drug more widely, are not warranted and could YOU be better spent on more urgent priorities. DECIDE

What do you think? Have your say drugfoundation.org. nz/viewpoints

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 35 Q&A

Q You have been interviewed on television and Q How important to your recovery was your in radio interviews since going public and blog and the online community that the release of your book. How much impact developed around it? do you think your story has had? A My main technique was writing out my A I’m hoping that the impact has been huge thoughts and feelings. You could do that where it counts, which is with the people privately, and it would still be effective, who are like me, and from what I can tell, but because I did it publicly, through it has been, because I’ve just been blogging, I was led to my second great inundated with emails and private sobriety tool – the online recovery Facebook messages, and they’re all saying, community. I didn’t go to any counselling “I’m just like you, it used to be just a glass or groups. of wine at night and now it’s a bottle, I’m My advice to other people who want to stop holding down my life, but I’m feeling drinking is don’t hide from the truth, really guilty.” A lot of them are believe that change is possible, find your businesswomen, successful people, who like-minded community who can help you are privately battling this addiction, and and know that you can get to a place where they’ve had no outlet for it, and then I pop you are free from all the angsting and up, and they’ve gone, “Oh my god.” cravings. It is hard, but you can get to a The night the Sunday interview aired on place where you don’t miss it. You have to TV One I had 30,000 hits on my blog, it be very strong and determined for the first was unbelievable. I remember the six months to a year, but after 12 months, I’m Lotta. overwhelming feeling I had three years ago you start feeling much freer. The new Living was loneliness, and I was married and had Sober website is great because we can all a lot of friends, but battling an addiction climb in there together and help each other. I’m an that isn’t visible is a very tricky, internal place to be, so you really do feel quite Q Was it a tough decision to publicly admit your drinking problem when your husband alone. I wanted to reach out to the people alcoholic. has a high-profile career? who feel that way too so they know they’re Lotta Dann, the journalist wife not alone. A I talked to Corin about it, it was a big decision, but he was 100 percent behind of TVNZ political editor Corin Q How bad did your drinking get, and how was me. He would tell you that there was no Dann and a mother of three, it affecting your family life? stopping me, not that he wanted to. He really encouraged me to write my story. has outed herself as a recovering A It started to really bed in and become We just feel that it’s so real and important much more habitual when I was at home alcoholic and released a book, and it’s something that matters. I feel so alone with the kids and dealing with the Mrs D is Going Without, good being sober that I want other people Groundhog Day aspect of that. I don’t think which has quickly become a who feel trapped in a boozy hole to know they were suffering from my drinking yet, bestseller. Dann started writing you can get out of it. You do get a bit I got out before I hit a real rock bottom. evangelical about it I think. an anonymous blog about her I would’ve been a bit vacant and full of battle with booze nearly three wine in the evenings, probably a sore head Q How good do you feel now, nearly three and dragging my hungover body around years ago, and now it receives years into your recovery, and how certain are during the day. But Corin and I didn’t have you that you’ll never drink again? about 2,500 hits a day. fights, it wasn’t a drama drinking problem, A It’s so great when you realise fun is fun it was just a sad, heavy, sloppy, personal Dann now reaches an even wider just if you’re having fun, it’s not about drinking problem. audience as the manager and face of a what you’re drinking. I’m figuring out how new website – www.livingsober.org.nz to deal with the hard things of being a Q How important was it for you to accept the – developed by the Matua Raki human without pushing them away with label of being an ‘alcoholic’ with all of the alcohol. I love it, it’s amazing being open to (Addiction Workforce Development), connotations and stigma that comes with the Health Promotion Agency and the this whole world of emotional experiences. that word? I used to wake up at 3am and go to the New Zealand Drug Foundation. As well A I have sober friends who still haven’t bathroom and I’d feel nauseous and guilty. as featuring Dann’s blog, the website accepted that label. But for me, when I had That 3am guilt has gone. I slept like crap will offer resources and an interactive that thought that I was an alcoholic, it was when I was boozing, but I sleep great now. online community for people who need very calming, because it was a complete I often wake up and go, “Wow, another support to quit drinking. She spoke to acceptance of the fact that I can’t touch night of eight hours sleep!” Matters of Substance about her alcohol ever again. It was lovely actually, transformation from a “boozy I’ve retrained my brain, I don’t need alcohol because it was simpler. It simplified housewife” to a model of happy in my life, and I don’t miss it. Even thinking sobriety. everything, and I realised that the that at my sons’ weddings in 20 years or 30 combination of my brain and alcohol years time I’ll be toasting them with a glass doesn’t work, I just can’t moderate with of orange juice in my hand doesn’t bother that drug. me. In fact I’m really happy about that.

36 matters of substance August 14 MYTHBUSTERS

Substance and substantiation Tobacco plain packaging laws are an experiment that hasn’t worked.

ebate over published in April this year. It says volumes have increased and the number of Australia’s ground- consumption of illegal cigarettes has people quitting has dropped. “From 2008 to breaking move to reached record levels, growing from 11.8 2012, smoking incidence, or the number of introduce plain percent in 2012 to 13.9 percent of total people smoking, was declining at an packaging is heating consumption in 2013. It estimates the average rate of 3.3 percent a year. Since up as tobacco government has lost up to AU$1.1 billion plain packaging was introduced, that companies claim in potential tax revenue as smokers light up decline rate slowed to 1.4 percent.” D the new law has led more contraband tobacco. Overall, tobacco But government figures contradict his to a booming black market for cheap consumption actually increased slightly comments, with federal treasury data cigarettes instead of stamping out smoking. last year, bucking a historic downward showing cigarette sales have fallen by Australia became the first country in the trend, the report concludes. 3.4 percent since the introduction of plain world to introduce plain packaging in Of course, big tobacco companies have packaging. When adjusted for population December 2012. Since then, all legal a clear interest in Australia’s world-first growth, the data suggests the number of cigarettes have come in standard dull green legislation being seen internationally as a cigarettes sold per person dropped by about packaging with large graphic health failed experiment. A peer-reviewed 5 percent last year. Australian Bureau of warnings, replacing the usual branding. academic study by researchers at Cancer Statistics figures also show a decline of 0.9 No tobacco industry logos, brand imagery Council Victoria, also published in April, percent in the amount of tobacco sold, or promotional text are allowed, and the came to a very different conclusion, finding making the consumption of tobacco the no change in the availability of illicit brand and product names are printed in the lowest ever recorded since 1959. tobacco following the introduction of plain same small font. And in a sign that plain packaging is packaging. The plain packaging laws are designed influencing smokers’ behaviour, a study by Cancer Control Victoria also raises to reduce the appeal of tobacco products to University of Sydney researchers carried concerns about the methodology of the young people, boost the impact of health out between October 2011 and April 2013 KPMG report and questions the warnings, and curb the power of retail found calls to the stop-smoking Quitline representativeness of two surveys, the 2013 packaging to gloss over harms caused by rose by 78 percent following the Roy Morgan Internet survey and the Empty smoking. Coupled with raising taxes on introduction of the new legislation. Pack Survey (based on cigarette pack litter cigarettes, the Australian Government aims The controversy across the Tasman is collected at particular locations), on which to bring down smoking rates from 16.6 particularly relevant to New Zealand. KPMG’s findings are based. It says its percent in 2007 to less than 10 per cent by The Government plans to introduce similar estimate of the size of the illicit tobacco plain packaging measures here soon, and 2018. market is likely to be substantially higher But big tobacco companies, who have than is warranted and points out that the the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco been aggressively campaigning against the amount of tobacco intercepted by Customs Products and Packaging) Amendment Bill plain packaging measures, including in 2012–13 was not substantially higher had its first reading in Parliament in lodging legal challenges, claim the new than in previous years. February. rules have not led to a fall in smoking rates The other tobacco industry argument is Earlier this year, a Philip Morris and instead have boosted the illegal that cigarette sales have increased despite representative warned a Parliamentary tobacco market at the expense of legitimate the introduction of plain packaging and committee that the introduction of plain manufacturers and retailers. graphic health warnings. The Australian packaging breached World Trade Philip Morris International’s website ran a front page story in June reporting that Organization rules and would affect touts research showing Australia’s law 59 million more cigarettes were sold in New Zealand exports of wine and dairy to changes are not working as planned: 2013 than the previous year (representing a Indonesia. “Consumers aren’t smoking less, they are 0.3 percent increase in sales) and The long-term effect of Australia’s plain just buying cheaper alternatives or turning suggesting the new regime may have packaging laws on smoking prevalence is to branded packs available on the black backfired. The 0.3 percent figure was still unclear, but official statistics suggest market.” sourced from a data analysis company they may already be having a positive That research is a KPMG LLP report on commissioned by the tobacco industry. effect. Mythbusters thinks tobacco industry illicit tobacco in Australia prepared for British American Tobacco Australia claims of a growing black market and rising Imperial Tobacco, British American spokesperson Scott McIntyre is quoted in tobacco consumption are a smokescreen Tobacco and Philip Morris Ltd and The Australian saying industry sales that doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.

www.drugfoundation.org.nz 37 A COM PLEX AGEN International Drugs and Symposium on Driving

DA12-13 Nov 14 “The absence of a complete A two-day ––event focusing on Register now and thorough understanding important drug-related road Wellington about the nature and extent safety issues. The korero will drugdriving of the drugs-and-driving be of great relevance to policy New Zealand problem should not be an makers, politicians, road safety .org.nz — excuse for inaction.” campaigners, researchers and — - REPORT FROM THE 1ST DRUGS AND enforcement officers. ––––DRIVING SYMPOSIUM, MONTREAL, 2011