Novel Psychoactive Substances
The Victorian Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Bill 2015 has not yet passed the Victorian Upper House. Parliament has completed sitting for the year and will return on February 9th 2016. The Bill has been drafted as part of Victoria’s Ice Action Plan which in turn was created off the back of a largely exaggerated […]
Yesterday, we told you that the Victorian Government would like to ban (certain) books. Today I’ll tell you a little bit more about the nonsense justification that is being used to drive the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Bill 2015. If moral entrepreneurs and interest groups manage to whip up enough fear and anxiety, they […]
The following piece is published as an act of civil disobedience to a Bill before Victorian parliament which seeks to ban the sharing of certain information. The information here in and of itself is nothing new. You can find information like this and far more detailed versions all over the internet, at websites like the […]
Novel Psychoactive Substances or NPS is a term used to refer to any drug that is considered to be new. The term is used inconsistently, with some organisations (including government departments) lumping in less known about older drugs to the NPS category. Harm Reduction Victoria are presenting a seminar on NPS, on Tuesday the 28th […]
A campaign was launched today in Queensland by the Police called: New Synthetic Drugs: Real Damage The campaign uses heavy anti-drug rhetoric to build its claims and distort the inconvenient facts about the products and substances they are attacking.
I’m reading a book at the moment entitled ‘Synthetic Panics‘, which goes through the various moral panics that have arisen around drugs since they were first synthesised and used for recreational purposes. Although we’ve recently heard a lot about ‘synthetic drugs’, the plants and fungi of the known psychoactive world have also turned up in […]
Around 80 years ago a campaign was mounted against cannabis, warning of the apparent moral degradation and psychological ills that would befall the consumer of this plant. A scare-campaign film was funded by a Church group and perfectly encapsulates the feeling of the time in its title: Reefer Madness. Much of the fear turned out […]
On Thursday the 15th of August 2013, a 60 day interim ban on various products generally labelled as ‘Synthetic Drugs’ came to completion. On Friday the 16th of August 2013, Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury decided to extend the ban by 30 more days. “The interim ban applies to the supply of certain consumer goods containing […]
The Daily Telegraph is Sydney’s Herald Sun. These News Limited tabloids have long been associated with ignorant and short-sighted journalism, though it should be noted that with weakening advertising revenues, they are attempting to expand their scope to draw in a wider spectrum of opinions. However, these are still the papers that pay money to […]
… and are you really surprised? The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) journalists Clementine Cuneo and Richard Noone put together an article, released on the 6th of December 2012, entitled, “Teenager Nick Mitchell’s LSD overdose – death, delusions and despair”.
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