Key launches war on P

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, April 22nd, 2016 - 89 comments
Categories: drugs, education, health, john key - Tags: , , , ,

In a stirring speech, PM John Key has launched a war on this major scourge:

John Key – Tackling ‘P’
…
I want to talk about a problem that is wrecking lives, wrecking families and fuelling crime. I’m here to speak about “P”. Methamphetamine, crank, ice, crystal. Call it what you will.
…
‘P’is a seriously addictive, viciously destructive drug. It’s hugely damaging to those who take it and the people who share their lives. It comes hand in hand with violence. It allows gangs and organized crime to flourish It entices young people into criminal careers.

P hurts not just users and their families but also law-abiding New Zealanders who suffer from the crime it creates.
…
My message to gangs is clear: this government is coming after your business and we will use every tool we have to destroy it. We will be ruthless in our pursuit of you and the evil drug you push. …

Strong leadership, a bold promise. The media are right to hail Key as the nemesis of P, liberal doubters can be safely ignored.

Oh wait! That was 2009. Unfortunately, the war’s not looking so good from 2016:

Are we losing the war on meth?

There are concerns New Zealand’s facing a methamphetamine epidemic, with claims it’s becoming cheaper than alcohol.

Rosemary Reece-Morgan is 17 years sober but she still calls herself a recovering drug addict. She now runs The Retreat treatment clinic in south Auckland. “We have reached epidemic proportions, we have serious problems with methamphetamine right now.”

She says the number of people needing help for meth addiction has shot through the roof in the past six months, and users are telling her it’s almost cheaper to get on the pipe than it is to drink alcohol.
…
Police and Customs seized three times more meth last year than in any other year, and reports show it’s easier to access than ever — more easy to get hold of than cannabis — and sources have told Newshub more and more drug users are switching to meth.

Nemesis Key has changed his tune too. His 2009 speech launching the War disappeared from his web site some time in the last year, and then there is this tweet…

Not with a bang, but a whimper. Maybe now we can have a rational discussion about drugs and how to manage them.

89 comments on “Key launches war on P ”

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  1. tinfoilhat 1
    22 April 2016 at 9:49 am

    Typical Key all noise and bluster and no substance.

    On the topic of methamphetamine it’s a vile wrecker of families and lives, those caught trading or dealing in it should be jailed for a very very long time.

    • One Two 1.1
      22 April 2016 at 10:11 am

      And the core ingredient is…

      And which industry legally sells the most ‘product’..

      There is the target

      • tinfoilhat 1.1.1
        22 April 2016 at 10:23 am

        Too obtuse for me …can you be more explicit.

        • Anno1701 1.1.1.1
          22 April 2016 at 11:12 am

          Psuedofed is already controlled here in NZ

          but everything else you need can be bought from your local mega mitre-10

          soooo pointless trying to stop this stuff, it was ALWAYS going to be popular here in NZ as its one of the few hard rugs we can actually manufacture in country

          they need to legalise some GOOD drugs like Cannabis and MDMA and the use of bathtub meth which is no where near as good/fun will just dry up naturally…

          why drink homemade hooch when you could be drinking fine whiskey would be one analogy…

          • Colonial Viper 1.1.1.1.1
            22 April 2016 at 11:56 am

            Psuedofed is already controlled here in NZ

            I think that’s why they now bring it in from China by the container…

            Any P facility making any decent kind of quantity will need pretty serious logistics to continue to manufacture enough output.

            • Anno1701 1.1.1.1.1.1
              22 April 2016 at 12:24 pm

              a good chemist/cook can get a 1:1 ration of Psuedofed to finished product

              thats if they have the right equipment of course, and considering they found a “superlab” in Fiji ( in an industrial building leased from Roger Douglas’s son of all people ! ) you can be pretty certain the right gear is in this country too

            • RedLogix 1.1.1.1.1.2
              22 April 2016 at 8:29 pm

              One word..opium.

            • RedLogix 1.1.1.1.1.3
              23 April 2016 at 4:47 am

              Question for you CV. Does China have a P problem? And if not,why not?

              • gnomic …
                24 April 2016 at 12:40 am

                No data here on any drug problems in China. Officially I doubt there are any. But I read that China is an ugly location to fall foul of the laws and prison is a nasty place. Execution is a common consequence of violation of the criminal code. Fancy a few years of thought reform on a bowl of rice per diem?

                Again without any personal knowledge it seems most likely that the triads still exist on the mainland.

                The current emperor doesn’t look ‘highly ethical’ to me but I may of course be mistaken.

            • Doogs 1.1.1.1.1.4
              23 April 2016 at 9:28 pm

              Much simpler really – Sudofed – it’s a brand name.

    • Anno1701 1.2
      22 April 2016 at 4:12 pm

      “it’s a vile wrecker of families and lives”

      you’ve anthropomorphized the substance, which IMO is dangerous….

      in reality its simply an inert chemical compound sitting harmlessly in a little zip-lock bag

      its PROHIBITION is dangerous for sure, very dangerous

      • Keith 1.2.1
        23 April 2016 at 6:46 am

        “Its a vile wrecker of families and lives”, yes the National Partys lies sure are!

    • Mosa 1.3
      23 April 2016 at 8:40 pm

      How tragic that a PM would make comments about an appalling problem and the effect on families with the intention of doing nothing!
      John Key is a despicable man who will lie and say anything even about something as evil as meth.
      Tackling this issue would have shown leadership
      But that’s not what Key is about its not as sexy as a flag change for a legacy too look back on.

  2. s y d 2
    22 April 2016 at 10:27 am

    Seems there is a whole interconnected web of crime, money laundering, drug importation, fake businesses, empty houses, property speculation, entry permits for the right kind of credit card holders and all round corruption.
    So much linked back to Sky City and cash coming out of China..e.g.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11626606

    But, hey, when this is getting you the 5% of votes needed for re-election then what’s the problem.

    • Keith 2.1
      23 April 2016 at 6:51 am

      You are so right Syd, the very secretive tax haven Key has set up, our unfettered property market and SkyCity are all excellent money laundering facilities. This is indisputable and the crooks of the National Party and their voters know this and could not care less.

    • save NZ 2.2
      23 April 2016 at 9:09 am

      +1 Syd. But I think you will find it is a lot more than 5%. Why do you think the National party keeps getting strong polls, it’s certainly not for their performance for normal Kiwis, but plenty of people are benefiting from their policies. The gravy train continues and those on it, might be more than a bit worried about what they have been up to, getting out.

      Also helping keeping a corrupt government in power is the PPP censorship and propaganda campaign with MSM (who’s offshore owners also benefit from our secret tax cheat, ‘ministry of truth’ and paid for content approach) to keep the masses, newbies, farmers and English as a second language users, in the dark.

  3. weka 3
    22 April 2016 at 10:30 am

    ha ha, nice post r0b.

    Perhaps we should be asking why people use P.

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      22 April 2016 at 10:53 am

      +1

    • Anno1701 3.2
      22 April 2016 at 11:12 am

      ” why people use P.”

      about 85-90% will use it simply for fun …

      • weka 3.2.1
        22 April 2016 at 12:27 pm

        I’m sure that is one of the motivations but I doubt that simply fun alone accounts for 85 – 90% of use.

        • Anno1701 3.2.1.1
          22 April 2016 at 1:17 pm

          like any drug the vast majority of people are recreational users

          dont believe all the drug war “hooked after one hit” BS . just like ANY drug it is completely possible to use Meth recreationaly and NOT become addicted

          • weka 3.2.1.1.1
            22 April 2016 at 3:23 pm

            I don’t believe the war on drugs bullshit. I also don’t believe the most people take drugs and it’s all benign thing from the other side either.

            Are you suggesting that the increase in P use in NZ is solely due to people wanting to have some fun?

            • Anno1701 3.2.1.1.1.1
              22 April 2016 at 3:33 pm

              more than likely its due to increased availability/lower cost , as police attempts to halt production (as im sure you know) as so ineffective as to be completely pointless basically

              as production ramps up , prices drop and the barrier to entry for users becomes lower

              No one can deny Meth is one of the more dangerous substances IF its misused/abused , but it certainly NOT a “scourge” like the media like to hype it up as ,

              Take your ADHD kid to the doctor as you may well get something very very chemically similar prescribed for them

              • weka …
                22 April 2016 at 3:41 pm

                Ok, so are you saying that things like poverty or stress or trauma/abuse aren’t factors in P use, and that most P use is simply people wanting to have fun?

                • Anno1701 …
                  22 April 2016 at 4:04 pm

                  “Ok, so are you saying that things like poverty or stress or trauma/abuse aren’t factors in P use,”

                  in some instances of course

                  to be fair though Alcohol is actually much better for “washing away” these kind of problems temporarily , Meth will make these kinds of feelings more acute, Meth isnt a soporific substance, its quite the opposite & for most people @ a low recreational dose it actually drastically increases lucidity

                  but i stand by statement that the majority of Meth (and ALL drug ) use is recreational ,simply to have a good time

                  • weka …
                    22 April 2016 at 4:37 pm

                    I don’t think so, but then my experience is with recreational users, addicts, and people self medicating. Lots of recreational users are also self medicating.

                    People have drugs of choice, and people self medicating choose the drug that suits them and what is available and affordable. The fact that so many people self medicate and recreate with illegal drugs suggests you are wrong about alcohol bring best for self medicating.

                    Most rec users I know use cannabis, alcohol, e, lsd and shrooms. They might try P but it’s not the the kind of high they’re after.

                    I think the recreational use and self medication has big overlaps. I really don’t but the idea that most P use is just for fun, although obviously that’s a major factor including for people self medicating.

                    Culture is a factor too. Both subculture, and the broader culture promoting and supporting certain kinds of highs.

                    I agree access will increase use.

                    • Anno1701 …
                      22 April 2016 at 4:47 pm

                      “e, lsd”

                      these are now both rare as hens teeth

                      they are more likely to be ingesting NBOMEs or M-CAT or some other toxic amphetamine derivative

                      and if they are getting the real deal

                      hook a brother up 😉

                      (Disclaimer: that was a joke ! )

                    • weka …
                      22 April 2016 at 5:00 pm

                      Lol. Not my scene. Some of the rec users I know use cannabis and alcohol routinely, and the others on occasion. They’re not going to get strung out if they can’t get something. I don’t think they’re the majority though.

            • Anno1701 3.2.1.1.1.2
              22 April 2016 at 3:36 pm

              “Are you suggesting that the increase in P use in NZ is solely due to people wanting to have some fun?”

              its also worth noting that on today drug market in NZ, its probably one of the few hard drugs that is what is as sold as and is relatively unadulterated Eg : any ecstasy tablet you may buy/consume has about a 5% chance of having any ACTUAL MDMA in it at all,

              thanks prohibition for making drugs more dangerous !

              • weka …
                22 April 2016 at 3:43 pm

                Do you mean that many people choose P over Ecstacy because of adulteration issues?

                • Anno1701 …
                  22 April 2016 at 3:51 pm

                  Meth does exactly what it says on the tin and it very hard to substitute

                  most other hard drugs on the market in NZ certainly do/are not

                  even traditionally “safe” drugs like LSD blotter are no longer guaranteed to be what they are being sold as

    • joe90 3.3
      22 April 2016 at 11:16 am

      To attain master of the universe level awesomeness.

      /

    • maui 3.4
      22 April 2016 at 12:50 pm

      Not many want to ask that question though, that would mean owning up to the fact we stil treat certain groups as sub-human. And living inside the matrix money hungry society we’ve created has some really negative outcomes.

    • Expat 3.5
      22 April 2016 at 3:45 pm

      Weka

      “Perhaps we should be asking why people use P.”

      It’s a “recreational” drug, the same as alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, opiates and all the rest, humans have been using and experimenting with these drugs for thousands of years, and probably will for another thousand or so, that is if the planet survives that long.

      • weka 3.5.1
        22 April 2016 at 3:49 pm

        That doesn’t answer the question though.

        • Expat 3.5.1.1
          22 April 2016 at 5:08 pm

          Read my post on 14 then, I hope this answers it for you. If you need to know why “P” specifically, then the similarities to cigarette smoking behind the bike shed with the boy’s, is how many started their habit, peer pressure, association with others involved in it’s use, pleasure from the effect is the one guaranteed assurance that they try it again, lets be real, if “P” did not provide a pleasurable experience, then there would not be that many customers lining up to purchase it, it’s no more addictive than tobacco, but gives the user a great deal of pleasure, heroin used to give users the feeling of utopia, yet anyone who lived through the 70,s will know someone who died from a heroin overdose, it wasn’t the heroin that killed them, it was the variation of purity that was lethal, but it didn’t stop others from using.

          • weka 3.5.1.1.1
            22 April 2016 at 6:00 pm

            Do you think socioeconomics, poverty, stress, trauma/abuse etc might be factors?

            • Foreign waka 3.5.1.1.1.1
              22 April 2016 at 6:38 pm

              And yet, many are choosing not to take drugs despite the most horrendous experiences they had. It is a choice and on the top of this pyramid are drug lords, gangs and criminals skimming of those who are most vulnerable.

              • weka …
                22 April 2016 at 7:44 pm

                Trauma doesn’t affect all people the same, so suggesting that because some people don’t take drugs that everyone else who does is simply choosing too ignores a whole raft of factors eg genetics, internal and external resiliency, environmental issues like how well they’ve been nurtured or their nutrient intake as they grow up (all those things affect brain function). Lots more, the list is probably endless.

                Likewise stress, poverty, etc.

            • Expat 3.5.1.1.1.2
              22 April 2016 at 7:36 pm

              Weka

              There is statistically a higher ratio of people in low socioeconomic communities, but this factor is not directly the reason for using “P”, unemployment is an added risk for the young, you know the saying about “idle hands”, but stress, trauma or abuse are not really factors for “P” use, as “P” accelerates the activity in the brain rather than sedate, like alcohol, helping to diminish the memories.

              P, used to be called “speed”, except the rate of purity has increased from 20 to 30% up to over 90% purity, hence the letter P, for purity, it enables the brain to process information many times faster than normal, the direct opposite to sedatives, there are no psycho active effects, just over alertness, lack of appetite and unable to sleep, and the combination of the last two is the most damaging.

              • weka …
                22 April 2016 at 7:41 pm

                I’m not suggesting there is a single reason for taking any drug.

                If socioeconomic factor aren’t relevant why are the rates higher? You think higher unemployment is it?

                People will use uppers or downers depending on what they want and need. I don’t think you can say that people dealing with stress or trauma are seeking only sedation.

              • mikes …
                22 April 2016 at 9:10 pm

                “and the combination of the last two is the most damaging.”

                Yep, it’s not the meth high itself that causes possible psychosis for some users, it is the sleep deprivation.

                Most illegal drugs can be perfectly safe if their usage is managed correctly and if their purity is guaranteed (pharmaceutical grade).

                Any older doctor will tell you that heroine was regularly prescribed for all kinds of ailments and that heroin addicts could lead perfectly normal, working lives whilst still taking heroin throughout their lives.

  4. dv 4
    22 April 2016 at 10:32 am

    So Key is a’ substance’ abuser.

    Abuses the the making of statements of substance.

  5. TC 5
    22 April 2016 at 10:37 am

    Distract, diffuse, then wait for him to blame labour.

    Predictable and tired from the dealer in chief who should be asking his police force why they use armed forces resources searching for green rather than devote more in his war on P.

  6. Colonial Viper 6
    22 April 2016 at 10:40 am

    Clever National.

    Picking a pre-election campaign initiative that both the law and order righties and the pro-community lefties can agree on.

    Expect more of this kind of positioning to come out over the next few months.

    • risildowgtn 6.1
      22 April 2016 at 11:16 am

      his politiking for scourge of p bla bla bla from 2009

      = horse has bolted dont u think?

      theyve lost

      • Colonial Viper 6.1.1
        22 April 2016 at 11:23 am

        You think that National have already lost 2017?

        Nah, they’ve barely started. I expect their current poll ratings to bottom out in the next couple of months, but to recover when they start rolling more of these initiatives out.

        If Key and English keep acting arrogant, superior and bulletproof however they will fuck themselves. So I expect their advisors will be schooling them pretty hard right about now.

    • aerobubble 6.2
      22 April 2016 at 12:08 pm

      Gangs in Oz are a natinal security threat, obviously due to the fact they are sending kiwis home for associating with gangs. The question is how far is this to go, what threat are they really, and is it targetting at the worst gang to send a message.
      Key however has to answer these questions too, simple its only a matter of time before a govt uses such a reckless policy to remove other undesireables and not for criminal, or ecinomic reasons but polticial and abuse of power. See this what they warned after 9-11 laws, the slippery slope, Key got on the slide. Innocent until proven out of the window, messing up a persons life, cinsiderable additional costs, family breakup, removing breadwinner, its all for political grandstanding and should be stopped befiore it gets much much worst. The stasi would have loved Englishedatabase and Keys new laws against arguable govt created problem, P is a product of the war on drugs, so Keys answers more war on drugs! Wait, the crimes will print drugs before long,from everyday chemical and we will all be worse off.

      End the war on drugs stop the govt abuse before it starts.

  7. whispering kate 7
    22 April 2016 at 10:51 am

    On the day he is spouting his mouth off about getting heavy on P distributors there is announcement that god knows how many neighbourhood police stations are going to be shut off to the citizenry. How about this Government put more cops on the ground in our neighbourhood public places and just let them get on with what they are good at, getting to know what’s what in our local areas. Ears to the public and what is concerning them. They may find a few P operators while they are at it. God this Government takes the cake for hypocrisy, they have starved our police of funds ever since they have become Government and the population still keeps growing and they still expect the poor sods to have their heart and soul in the business. It leads to low morale, corruption as police gets pissed off and malingering. Why wouldn’t they? and its us, the poor citizens who miss out with non call outs, robberies which go unattended, you name it.

    How about they up the tax intake on higher incomes and get on with governing this country they way it deserves to be governed, as a functioning healthy society. What a bloody laugh that is.

    • weka 7.1
      22 April 2016 at 12:31 pm

      Less police

      Permanent unemployment rate

      Policies that create an underclass

      Posturing on the war on drugs

      Private prisons

      Gated communities

      Welfare for the rich.

      I think the hypocrisy is just part of the PR for the underlying plan.

      • Sabine 7.1.1
        22 April 2016 at 1:53 pm

        and sharing all this information indiscriminately among the government agency that would of course never abuse that information.
        never. really.

        look over there, a really shiney object.

      • North 7.1.2
        22 April 2016 at 2:52 pm

        Bloody Hell Weka @ 7.1 ya make me wanna cry for our country.

        • weka 7.1.2.1
          22 April 2016 at 6:14 pm

          ae, the political view from whare weka is grim at the moment. They won’t last though, it’s just a matter of time now. Then it becomes a matter of how much we can repair, and what the new govt will do.

      • gnomic 7.1.3
        24 April 2016 at 1:04 am

        Yer pretty well right. Why are our fellow citizens washing windows at the lights? The first place I encountered this was in Thailand circa 1977. Yes, a ‘3rd world’ country. Of course we always pretty well were one, a few islands depending on cutting down trees, digging for gold and coal, and getting in massive numbers of tourists to enjoy our clean green crap, illusory though it was.

        Not to mention dumping toxic rubbish just about anywhere and letting cows shit and piss copiously into waterways. Otherwise we couldn’t have idiotphones, right? And social media is essential yeah right?

  8. Peter Archer 8
    22 April 2016 at 11:03 am

    What a pathetic SICK JOKE!

    The “War” has been lost. A new appraoch is needed. There are no easy answers, but one of the elephants in the room, that is being resolutely ignored is WHY are so many of our citizens turning to addictive substances? Why are their lives so SHIT that they even consider going down this self-destructive track?

    Maybe it is something to do with the destruction of hope, for those atthe bottom of the heap, that is the ineviable result of 30+ years of extremist market fundmantalism? But, of course, that topic is a FORBIDDEN subject. So, Key will just throw some $$$ at the police, pass a few more repressive laws (Hello, Singapore and Indonesia! Death penalty for deaers?), and carry on with the FAILED policies.

  9. mickysavage 9
    22 April 2016 at 11:50 am

    Interesting that Key is hiding his speeches. It used to be that you could search them by key word. I did this searching for “surplus” and was able to pull out a number of quotes (http://thestandard.org.nz/the-magical-disappearing-surplus/)

    Pretty sneaky if he is trying to prevent easy access to his old speeches.

    • Graeme 9.1
      22 April 2016 at 1:04 pm

      Pretty dumb I would have thought. Some bright spark will have made a copy, or they’ll be cached somewhere. It’ll be really entertaining when it comes back and bites him on the arse.

  10. Magisterium 10
    22 April 2016 at 1:46 pm

    Because wars on drugs are so universally successful and productive endeavours.

  11. lprent 11
    22 April 2016 at 2:16 pm

    Odd. I can’t read this post on the mobile version. There is no content in the post. I can read it on my phone in the desktop version.

    Bad tag maybe

    • Draco T Bastard 11.1
      22 April 2016 at 2:26 pm

      Get the same on my phone:

      Samsung Galaxy S2
      Firefox browser
      Cyanogenmod OS (Android 4.4.4)

    • r0b 11.2
      22 April 2016 at 4:20 pm

      Huh, same for me. Moto G2, Android 5.0.2, Firefox & Chrome both fail.

      I don’t see any bad tag. Only unusual thing in this post is a link to archive.org which has a nested http link?

      • stunnedmullet 11.2.1
        22 April 2016 at 4:27 pm

        1st world problems..

        • r0b 11.2.1.1
          22 April 2016 at 4:30 pm

          Not at all. Technical problems. An entirely different kettle of fish (for a certain kind of mind).

        • lprent 11.2.1.2
          22 April 2016 at 7:34 pm

          Nope. Pointer to a possible systematic problem with the website.

          Something that needs to be sorted out so that the rapidly increasing 30+% of the readers who use mobile to read posts and comments can actually read the posts.

      • lprent 11.2.2
        22 April 2016 at 7:32 pm

        Ok. I suspected the wayback as well – wasn’t that.

        Turned out there was a baddish tweet plugin, but which has been happily working all of these years. Replaced it with a better ‘official’ one. Posts came back including the housing one.

        However the tweet for the newshub in that post didn’t reappear? That looks more like twitter and/or newshub not supplying it.

  12. Tiger Mountain 12
    22 April 2016 at 3:13 pm

    War On Drugs!! what a great idea, hold on…

  13. Expat 13
    22 April 2016 at 3:36 pm

    The WAR on drugs has been raging for the last 40 years, and hasn’t made a single bit of difference to outcomes, the ideology does NOT work, and NEVER has, every argument I’ve heard has stated the same results, nill, zero, none, the experts propose a more social approach, which experimentally has had reasonable success, but hardliners don’t like the “sound” of taking a proactive, understanding approach.

    Probably less than 50% of meth users end up on the bottom of the heap, resulting in increased crime and other mister mina’s, but the other 50%, sometimes just occasional users and some using daily are able to perform absolutely normally, perhaps even better than normal, there are many who use Meth who you would not expect to be using, hold down executive and prominent positions in society.

    There is significant profits for the manufacture and distribution of meth, the main ingredient, pseudo ephedrine, is mass produced in countries like China and India where the Govts of those countries do nothing do stop or reduce the manufacture or export of the product. Part of the solution is to nip the source in the bud, at the manufacturing stage, but money corrupts most humans. The exporters have become incredibly resourceful, suspending the product in all sorts of fluids, and solids, distilling it out after arrival at the destination, making detection incredibly difficult for border security and there is also evidence of wide spread corruption at the borders to allow the product to arrive.

    Interestingly though, alcohol has been identified as the leading cause of family violence, a serious issue in NZ and Aus, yet where are the harm reduction policies for the abuse of this drug, a drug that has a wider social harm than meth, pollies need to throw their ideologies out the window and investigate what other countries have found as reasonably successful initiatives and adopt, modify as required.

    • North 13.1
      22 April 2016 at 6:50 pm

      Key doesn’t give a fuck about that. The important thing is what he looks like in the whole business not what it all actually is. He’s an empty man. That’s always been obvious to other than cargo-cult wannabes.

      • Nick 13.1.1
        22 April 2016 at 7:08 pm

        That’s exactly right North, ShonKey doesn’t give a shit….. This is brand marketing.

      • Expat 13.1.2
        22 April 2016 at 7:45 pm

        Agreed! but that statement ( doesn’t give a fuck) has always applied to everything Key say’s or does.

        He’s only pandering to the “suckers”

  14. Expat 14
    22 April 2016 at 4:47 pm

    The common question of WHY they take P or any drug, is that it’s a “recreational drug” and there fore simply used for pleasure, whether P or Alcohol or Opiates or any of many others, people get pleasure from their effects, if they enjoy the effects, then they will probably to continue using, some find the pleasure so great that overindulgence occurs, resulting in addiction, you could say, even tobacco falls into this group as well, and a lot of you will know just how difficult it can be give up cigarette smoking and more recently their saying sugar is addictive and can cause withdrawal symptoms, and we all know how much we like sweet things that provide our taste buds with pleasure.

    Susceptibility to addiction varies considerably by individuals also, and to the type of drug, some family genes determine addiction, often in families where their is an alcoholic, other family members will develop an addiction as well, not always alcohol, a friend who is an alcoholic, once told me that if it wasn’t alcohol, it would have been heroin or something else, alcoholism ran in his family, I think he meant, that susceptibility to addiction ran in the family, he’s nearly 65 now and albeit, hasn’t managed to give up the grog, funny though, he never smoked.

  15. reason 15
    22 April 2016 at 6:08 pm

    John Key had the perfect plan from his ‘expert’ man to destroy and dismantle the P cartels and their non-sleeping armies …..

    But then Mike Sabin had to leave parliament ………….

    Ex police dog bite trainer and current nat mp Mark Mitchell could be our next savior in waiting…….. Using some of his expertise that won the war on terrorism and made the middle east peaceful is simple logic.

    KDS has been the only thing stopping the nats from delivering us a P free country with no gang members ………..

    Jk was right and the rest of you are mental………. you support the P cooks and headhunters.

    • Paul 15.1
      22 April 2016 at 7:07 pm

      I hope that was satire.

    • lprent 15.2
      22 April 2016 at 7:36 pm

      I am sure that must have been satire.

      Either that of this person has gone beyond the KBLS (Key Butt-Licker Syndrome) and has engaged in a personal inspection of his heroes large intestine.

    • mikes 15.3
      22 April 2016 at 9:18 pm

      what does a “police dog bite trainer do”?

      • reason 15.3.1
        22 April 2016 at 11:14 pm

        what does a “police dog bite trainer do”? …….. Fight Evil of course …. http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560 ** warning graphic photos of good versus evil ….. and also note that there is no evidence that Mitchell ever worked with or visited the good guys at Abu Ghraib when he was in Iraq doing his bit.

        And I should apologize as satire is getting pretty hard to recognize and differentiate from the actions or pronouncements of this government.

  16. beatie 16
    22 April 2016 at 9:47 pm

    It’s causing a lot of damage here in my small provincial town. Rising use is directly related to the recent scarcity of cannabis. The local police seem to be more interested in chasing cannabis growers and users than combating P although the P dealers are well known. Very sad to see young women get into it and in some cases lose their kids to Cyfs. It was around when I lived in Aus in the 70’s but didn’t seem to take off like it has now.

    • Descendant Of Sssmith 16.1
      22 April 2016 at 11:39 pm

      Unintended consequences of drug testing for cannabis.

      Some of the young people here take P on Friday night, whereas they used to use cannabis, cause it’s pretty much out of their system when they go to their drug tested workplace on Monday.

      Plus it helps them party all night.

    • save NZ 16.2
      23 April 2016 at 9:19 am

      Neoliberalism.

      The political system that makes coca-cola cheaper than water and P is cheaper than alcohol and a fun night out.

      When you only have a few pennies left over or not even that, people just take whatever they can to feel good.

      Of course those individuals and corporations making the products always say, it’s harmless in moderation” and ‘we all have choices’.

      Maybe the youth losers that Bill English was calling pretty hopeless, being written off by their own government at just 20 years of age, just don’t care anymore. If they are not included into society and have been pushed into an underclass without a hand up, then this is what happens.

      And on P they don’t care. They will go on a rampage and the rage comes out.

  17. Sabine 17
    23 April 2016 at 8:53 pm

    Jo Bageant comes to mind,
    another writer i miss sorely
    (and someone once said that meth in the middle america is the thing that gets people through working three jobs a day for 7 days a week)

    http://bageant.typepad.com/joe/2009/08/how-much-freedom-can-one-man-stand.html

  18. gnomic 18
    24 April 2016 at 1:20 am

    Obviously it would be totally wrong to speculate that the smirking/scowling weasel is nothing more than a scumbag mirror image of the gang bosses who push P totally obsessed with wealth and power, right? Kissing the rings of Chinese gangsters is cool yeah?

  19. Jack Ramaka 19
    24 April 2016 at 2:40 am

    JK and the authorities need to target the source of the methamphetamine, which is Asia where you can buy it for a pittance, it is being imported mainly by the Asian nationals and fed into the the existing gang networks. It is destroying NZ Society.

    These new Asian immigrants who have come into New Zealand under the Tories Immigration Scheme are destroying this country, through drugs and dubious property acquisitions?