Week 9 ; Drug Policy Lecture Flashcards
What should drug policy be based on?
- was an in class brainstorm
- evidence
- drug harms
- benefits (eg. medical applications)
Over-reporting of ecstasy related problems in media
*Systematic overreporting of ecstasy-related problems
*Scottish press from 1990 to 1999 reported
*1 of 265 deaths from paracetamol
*13 of 36 deaths where amphetamine was detected
*26 out of 28 deaths where ecstasy was reported
Ecstasy and the media frenzy
*Ecstasy – MDMA – already illegal in the UK
*Introduced widely to the public in the 80s via the club scene – dance parties or raves
*Produced two problems
*Users were followed by criminal gangs who supplied the drug
*Users didn’t drink much alcohol – problem for club owners
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*Event organizers began planning large events at free spaces
*Fields and warehouses
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*These events were dangerous
*Thousands of people mixing drugs in remote locations
*Difficult for emergency services to respond
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*Although users weren’t usually violent, some of the criminal element could be
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*Posed a real health and safety risk
*Political pressure came because “rave culture” was seen as counter cultural
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*Specifically, users were viewed as protestors against conservative politics
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*They were demonized by the government and the media
*Similarly to anti-Vietnam protestors in the 60s and 70s in the US
Paper released on long term damage to serotonin and dopamine neurons in monkeys from recreational doses of ecstasy
*In 2002 a study was published in Science showing long term damage to serotonin and dopamine neurons in monkeys from recreational doses of ecstasy
Results ;
Whilst previous researchers had found that only extreme ecstacy use caused harm, this paper suggested that low doses of ecstacy could cause harm to the brain.
Looked like there was more SE in the control brain scans than MDMA and there was a loss of SE in the MDMA group. Same findings were exhibited for the dopamine scans
Implications
Media had a field day
*Several high-profile reports
*New York Times
*Washington Post
*Associated Press
*Paper retracted in 2003 because two vials of drugs had been mixed up
*Changes attributed to MDMA were caused by methamphetamine
*Much less media attention to the retraction
What’s the current approach with drug policy and how does this fail?
*Policies are based on a “tough on drugs” or “tough on crime” approach
*Focused on reducing prevalence
*Fail to take into account the different types of harms produced by the illegality of drugs
*If they did, the government’s policies would not be supported
*These data are generally not collected
Nutt et al., 2010
*Attempted to rank drug harms using a multicriterion analysis
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*Conveyed a panel of experts
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*Broke down harms related to drugs into 16 categories
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*Considered the actual data-based harms of drugs
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*Ranked drugs based on a weighted harm score
Results;
Alcohol is by far the worst drug out
Example of Ecstasy and Horse riding in terms of relative risk - the backstory
- David Nutt used the example of ecstacy and horse riding to show the double standard when it comes to drugs
- he was the advisor to uk government on drugs but not anymore rip
Nutt in his practise had a patient with the following symptoms;
*She had experienced a head injury, after which her personality had changed drastically
*She was irritable, anxious, and occasionally aggressive
*Her impulsive and difficult behavior had led to her children being taken away and put into care
*She was banned from the local pub because of her disruptive behavior
*She had left her job, and was unable to work
*Her behavior change was not caused by drugs but a bad fall from a horse
– this shows the ‘stereotyped effect’ of drugs and how this can parralel other conditions that don’t have such a negative stigma around them
*Nutt began to research and compare the harms associated with horse riding with those from ecstasy, a drug which had been the focus of media and government attention
Equasy - an overlooked addiction with implications for ht ecurrent debate on drug harms - explained
in this statistical analysis nutt compared the risks of horse riding to ecstasy
Nutt interpreted his results as indicating that
*A harm-based approach that fails to take into account drug harms relative to the harms of other activities is problematic
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*Any rational approach to drug law based on harms must take into account harms across a number of domains
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*Drug policy is not based on rational inquiry
A health based approach to drug policy
*NZ Drug Foundation – Te Tūāpapa Tarukino o Aotearoa
*Released a drug policy based on treating drugs as a health issue
- Whakawatea Te Hurahi - is a model drug law to 2020 and beyond
Promotes removing criminal penalties for possession use and social supply
promotes a regulated cannabis market
and promotes resources being used for prevent education and treatment
Expected results
*Regulation of cannabis takes it out of the illegal bracket, reducing criminality associated with it
*Would bring in money the government could spend on health approaches to addiction or other issues (est. $150 million per year; save $400 million per year on law enforcement)
*Te Tūāpapa Tarukino o Aotearoa commissioned a review of the economic impacts of their proposed drug policy
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*Decriminalization and increased education and harm reduction
*A government investment of $159m leads to from $244m to $1.1b social benefits per year
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*Legalisation and regulation of cannabis
*$186m in tax revenue
What’s next for drug policy in NZ?
*We’re overdue for a new government drug policy
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Major parties on drugs;
*National – nada - no policy
*Labour
*Meth treatment programme
*Alcohol and drug treatment court in Hawke’s Bay
Minor parties on drugs;
*ACT
*Doesn’t support prohibition
*establish a Mental Health and Addiction NZ system; commissions provisioning of services
*Green
*Repeal and replace Misuse of Drugs Act 1975
*Decriminalization
*Regulate personal cannabis use
*Increase rehab support
*Phase out alcohol advertising and sponsorship
*Improve medicinal cannabis
*Regulate vaping
*Roll out overdose prevention services
*Māori
*Decriminalization
*Overturn low level drug convictions
*Provide support for rehab
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What is drug perceptions based on
*Media frenzy – fuels public perception about the harms of drugs
*Very inaccurate reporting
*Exaggerates the harms of illegal drugs
*Ties social problems to drug use and blames users for their problems
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REcent policy successes in NZ
*These policy approaches focus significant resources on criminal justice
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*Divert resources from health issues related to drugs
*New Zealand has had some reforms to the drug law in recent years
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*Discretion Amendment (2019)
*Codified into law the Police’s option to only prosecute for possession or use “if required in the public interest” (so not even the drug users best interests lol)
*Police have to decide whether to take a health or therapeutic approach vs prosecution
Outcomes;
*Prosecutions for low level offences have dropped
Problems with NZ data on Drug Harm research
*Useful information but only deals with illegal drugs
*Need to assess the impacts of all drugs, including alcohol and tobacco
Example of policy designed to decrease drug use, actually increasing harm
*Policy focused on reducing prevalence increases harm
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*In the late 1990s the UN became frustrated
*Ecstasy had been made illegal 20 years earlier
*Ecstasy use had not been eliminated and was not declining
*Decided to ban the precursor
*If no one can get the precursor, chemists can’t synthesize MDMA
*Banned unlicensed production, distribution and sale of sassafras oil in 1999
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*Chemists now had to make ecstasy using something else
*Aniseed oil – readily available and pretty similar to sassafras oil
*Synthesis of ecstasy using aniseed oil produced PMA and PMMA (which is very different to MDMA)
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*Both of these drugs are very different pharmacologically then MDMA
*Are absorbed more slowly
*Block the breakdown of serotonin
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*Significant increase in lethality
*By 2012 60 deaths – much more than MDMA had ever caused
*The failure of policy to reflect actual harms increases harm
*Fentanyl as an alternative to heroin
*Synthetic cannabinoids as an alternative to cannabis
Rawstorne et al. (2020)
Illustrates how Media focuses the discussion on criminal justice and misrepresents users as dangerous criminals
*Rawstorne et al. (2020) examined media reporting on methamphetamine users from 2014 to 2016 in Australia
*Looked at reporting from 16 newspapers
*Analyzed the way that methamphetamine use and users were reported
- found in 1,364 articles that crisis fraing tends to be more popular so media use it more frequently.
Implication of crisis framing;
*Makes people think criminal elements are endangering their kids and neighborhoods
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