June 10, 2024 • 18 mins
In recent years, drug busts at New Zealand’s border keep getting bigger, with record breaking hauls getting stopped by officials.
But drugs are still getting into the country -- and we all know that what people think they're buying on the street will not necessarily be what they get.
And some people may be consuming synthetic opioids without ever realising they're putting their health at risk.
Today on The Front Page, Drug Foundation Executive Director Sarah Helm joins us to discuss the new drug that has got her organisation worried.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Paddy Fox
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Cielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. In
recent years, drug busts at New Zealand's border keep getting bigger,
with record breaking holes getting stopped by officials. But drugs
(00:26):
are still getting into the country and we all know
that what people think they're buying on the street will
not necessarily be what they get, and some people may
be consuming synthetic opioids without ever realizing they're putting their
health at risk. Today on the Front Page, Drug Foundation
Executive Director Sarah helm joins us to discuss the new
(00:48):
drug that has got her organization worried. Sarah, we see
stories on the Herald website almost every week about a
drug bust in New Zealand. How many kilogram of drugs
do you believe actually entering and making it into the country.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh, I'm not sure if I know the volume of
drugs making it into the country off the top of
my head. But drug busts only do one part of
the job. And in fact, some would argue the way
that we're handling drugs, or we police them rather than
regulating them, contributes to a growing concern around potency and
(01:24):
unpredictability of our drug supply, resulting an increasing threat to
life because of our drug supply, and.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
In terms of the supply, I guess it's quite difficult
to get it into the country. Hey, so is a
lot being made and developed actually here in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
But no, it's spy and large important and comes from
a variety of places. Our drug supply over the years
has become more unpredictable, so there's many more novel substances
being created and increasingly potent. And there are different theories
around this, but basically, the idea that incentivizes the drug
(02:02):
supply chain to get the drug as small as possible,
suppotency lends itself to something being very small and therefore
much more easily able to be smuggled into the country.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And the new novel substances are.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Being created to try and get around drug law, so
they create a new drug that mimics the effects of
it an existing substance, and unfortunately, every time one of
those is created, we don't know what the impact on
the human body will be. And that's where we see
some really concerning impacts for people and their health in
their lives.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
What would you say is the most common drug on
the streets in New Zealand at the moment?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, alcohol ha, but still by far and away the
more common drugs that people use are alcohol not to
be too gg because it is a drug and some
of its effects are more harmful than many of our
illicit substances, and cannabis is the drug that most New
Zealanders have tried as well in the illicit side.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
And then other drugs are much less likely to be
being used.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's a small population that use other substances, and we
do continue to have methmphetamine and MDMA being quite common
in the much less common side of things.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
There were fears last year that fentanyl was starting to
get into New Zealand, but we haven't heard much since then.
Why do you think fentanyl hasn't really found a footing
here and we haven't had an epidemics, say, like the US?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, the US and North America more broadly so, Canada
has ended up with quite a significant issue with superpotent opioids,
specially fentanyl, and they had a particular set of situations
that arise in North America that I think helped to
create that situation, one of which was a pre existing
(03:48):
addiction to prescription opioids and then some changes around the
availability of those prescription opioids. The arrival of fentanyl really
spoke to a need in the community, but unfortunately has
had very dire consequences on the community, and we haven't
had the same prescription drug issues, and we haven't had
(04:10):
it arrived here. We are the bottom of the earth,
so it takes a long time for things to arrive.
But actually fentanyl hasn't really had a big presence anywhere
in the world aside from North America. However, we are
internationally saying the rise of a newer potent opioid, a
group of potent opioids I should say called nitizines.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
New Zealand's seen illicit ventanyl use before seven people were
taken to wide it up a hospital in twenty twenty
two after taking it empowdered form a class B drug,
fentanyl can be prescribed for pain relief. In twenty twenty two,
more than eight thousand people accessed it, but in the
past year it's the emergence of nitizines, twenty five times
(04:55):
more potent than ventanyl, that has experts concerned.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, I was about to say, so.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Netazines are being called the new ventanyl in Europe. I
know that Bristol alone saw seven deaths and over eighty
hospitalizations in just one summer after the drug was found
in a heroin supplies supply. Can you tell me what
they are and do you agree with this definition that
they are the new fentanyl?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
You are They actually more potent than fentanyl, and some
as many as twenty five times more potent than fentanyl.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Again, we have a.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Different situation here than Europe, but we do have an
issue here. Europe has had a long standing heroin use
population and with Afghanistan no longer producing as much heroin
and the clamp down there, nitizines are arriving and are
unfortunately again having really dire consequences for a group of
(05:52):
people who have opioid addiction in particular. But we are
seeingnitizines both in Europe and in our out of the
world Australia and New Zealand entering into our drug market
in the non opioid side of things as well. So
particularly in Europe that from what I hear from people
on the ground, adulteration of benzo diazepines, which over their
(06:14):
street benzos are super cheap, and we've seen some of
that occur here as well, and in Australia. Nitizines are
turning up as methmphetamine and MDMA. So we're already experiencing
loss of life and we're very worried about what the
coming months or years might mean for us.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, I mean netazines. I read somewhere A dose as
small as a grain of sand can be deadly, especially
if you don't know if you're taking it. They're showing
up in more common drugs. People aren't going out to
seek netazines, are they?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
No, Well, for example, I visited Canada last year early
last year and saw and spoke to a number of
people working on the front line and a number of
people who had addiction and drug use experience.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
For lack of a better word.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Indeed, people had started to seek out ventanyl. They wanted
ventanyl rather than trying to avoid it. Over Here, by
and large, we still have a community that are wanting
to test for and avoid neitizines and ventanyl, which is
really great and what we hope to continue. But there
are always a group of people that have opioid addiction
that might be more inclined to seek out a drug
(07:25):
that might be cheap and very potent.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
So we also try not.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To judge people and provide harm reduction advice and testing
so people are best off when they know what it
is that they're taking. But by and large our community
here it's still looking to avoid potent opioids and we
have some new technology to support them. Much I could
tea about as well.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's the thing, hey, I mean, getting your drugs tested
isn't illegal.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, so it's great.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So New Zealand does have a couple of things on
our side that other countries haven't had the privilege of having.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
And one of what.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Is our fully legalized drug checking services, and another is
our early warning system, which unlike many other places where
they've even been able to have one, it's got government
involvement as well as civil society. So we're working together
on that early warning system and testing people substances to
better inform the community so that they can make decisions
(08:22):
get their drugs tested. Actually we give.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Them harm reduction advice when they come in and get
their drugs checked as well.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And another thing we recently got on board was something
called this is in test strips. So we also have
fentanyl test strips and they're free, so we can send
people a pack of test strips so that they can
test their own substances. If they haven't made it to
a drug checking clinic or aren't living close enough to one,
we at least can send them test strips so that
(08:50):
they can identify if they've got a very potent substance
in their drug, which I would rarely encourage anyone who's
taking illictit substances at this point, all counterfeit medications to
test with nitizine and ventical test strips.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Is it silly to think that because fentanyl hasn't had
a huge stronghold in New Zealand, that would be also
immune to netazines as well.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Okay, yes and no, we've got a very small population
who are opioid dependent. But I do think that there
are groups of our population that would be really severely
negatively impacted and face overdose fatalities as a result of
a growing presence of nitizines or potent substances.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And when I walked.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Through the streets of Vancouver and Toronto and saw people
overdosed and no one helping them, I grew very worried
about our communities.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
That will be more likely to be impacted.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And yeah, I really don't want that for our people
here in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Whether it's the.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Groups of university students that one of our staff members experienced,
a loss of a number of her friends at university
in Canada who had unwittingly taken ventanyl when they were
consuming ndmay, or the homeless people who are experiencing addiction there.
For example, the man I tended to on the street
(10:29):
in Vancouver who had passed out and gone blew, most
likely from ventanyl. Luckily I was able to help resuscitate him.
But I don't want that for our homeless community, our
community of people who take more of society's trickier substances,
nor our occasional recreational drug users to face fatalities. You know,
(10:50):
I know people who have lost people in North America
off the back of somebody accidentally taking the wrong thing.
So we need to do everything we can to prevent
being situation.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It's just heartbreaking. Hey, and I guess on your first
hand experience, you've seen what happens to communities when this
drug takes a stronghold. How prepared do you think New
Zealand is or are we completely unprepared?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, so we've spoken to the good things that we've done,
which I'm really happy that we have, but we've got
a long way to go. New Zealand's never really had
an overdose strategy or plan. We've ignored the overdose fatalities
we've had. We've rested on our laurels, thinking we don't
have as many as other people. Actually we're losing I
(11:33):
think from memories, something like one hundred and seventy New
Zealanders each year to overdose a couple each week, and
we could do better anyway. But in terms of being
prepared for more of a concerning presence of very potient opioids,
there's a number of things.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
That we could do.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We released a plan of types of overdose interventions that
we need to put in place, but I would point
to a few in particular. There's a medicine called na
lozone the Americans call it NACAN, and we have been
over several years whittling away at the system trying to
unlock that for the community. So where we've gotten to
(12:13):
is that there are some injectable forms of this iner
lockzone that are available at needle exchanges, but we still
don't have proper access to a nasal spray variety which
would be more able to be given out and used
by lay people. So we have put in a funding
application to pharmac and the committee that is in charge
(12:34):
of these things are recommended it be funded. Now we're
just waiting to see if it makes it into the budget.
That would be a big important thing to have because
you can imagine, say you have an event at a
university orientation and suddenly there are a bunch of people
overdosing having narcan or no locks on there on hand.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So it's not only the potence of the substance.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
That time that it takes with somebody to shift from
overdose to a fatality is very short, so waiting.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
For the ambulance can be too long that the person
may die.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
So having the lock zone on hand and available at
events of high risk or say a first responder who's
not an ambulance turns up, having them being able to
carry in a locks own, let alone the drug user
themselves and the people who love them and.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Are around them. So we'd really like to see that
made available.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Two things that I've seen over and over again that
many people can't believe if they're outside of the drug world,
is that people who use drugs are often buried, community
minded and also don't care about our health. When we're
able to the needland s fringe program in Australia had
saved four dollars for every dollar invested. When you extended
that beyond just a horizon of a few years and
then started putting in things like opening doors to mental
(13:51):
health skin infections that return balloons to twelve dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
We also don't have a number of the things that
other countries have created, for example, overdose prevention centers or
supervised drug use spaces.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
We created a.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Proposal for one in conjunction with a number of the
key players in Auckland and inner city Auckland. We'd really
like to see one at least tried in New Zealand,
particularly that will serve a population who regular users of
drugs and don't have anywhere else to be to safely
take the drug. If you supervise people, the evidence shows
(14:29):
it is incredibly effective at preventing fatalities, and it also
has a positive effect on fatalities on the neighboring area,
and it has a general uplift in those people's health
impact as well.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Tell me about that. So is it a designated space
for regular drug users to take drugs but they're supervised.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
So there's a famous one in our backyard, Sydney Uniting Church.
Melbourne's got one that are all over Canada these days
and a number of other place and there's tons of evidence.
I've been around for a very long time at this point,
so the fact we don't have one is political, historical
anomaly and a bit of a pain really. So the
(15:13):
spaces where the people who might otherwise be at risk
of overdose can come and take their drug, somebody like
a nurse or indeed in some a doctor supervises their
consumption and then they're able to administer CPR and a
lockzone whatever is needed if the person overdoses. They're very
effective at preventing death, which is the key thing. And
(15:35):
you can imagine coming into a service like that might
increase your expectation for your health and wellbeing, encourage you
to have conversations with people and have a positive effect
over above staying alive.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Which is one of the goals of harm reduction. Responses
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
You can see why it's controversial though, Hey, I mean,
I guess it's just a hop, skip and a jump
away from decriminalizing drugs altogether, but it seems like it
has good evidence that it works and is at least
a gateway for people to get help. Hey, should we
be thinking about decriminalizing some drugs?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, just to touch on that, Sydney's had an overdose
center a uniting.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Church for decades now and.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
They haven't legalized or decriminalized, so it is possible to
do these things without controversy. They did it in response
to the level of fatality they were experiencing back in
the I can't remember which decade it is, eighties or nineties,
Sorry for that.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
And yes, we do think that we need to look
at our drug laws.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Our drug laws have found a number of things from
happening and prevent people seeking help. They prevent them having
conversations with people, and in truth, there's things that we
could do on both the regulation side when we think
about lower harm substances, for example, or putting people on
prescription medication instead. But in terms of law reform, we
(16:55):
badly need to look at law reform and criminalizing people
certainly help and it has no evidence of working to
discourage drug use or is a prevention against addiction or
anything of the sort. In fact, it's easier and New
Zealand sadly to land yourself in prison than it is
to get help because of the long waiting lists to
(17:16):
get help. So yeah, we're a fan of shifting our
resource and attention back in the direction of help and
harm reduction.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
And finally, I guess we've touched on this a little bit.
What can the government do to protect us from experiencing
something like an opioid epidemic like that in the US
and what we're seeing emerge in Europe.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Okay, I think there's a number of protective things I
could do to prevent the.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Fatalities or other really negative impacts occurring. If we actually
want to prevent the drugs from arriving, we need to
look at changing our drug laws and having some sort
of regulated approach to substances rather than just ban and police.
But there's a number of things we could do to
prevent mass fatalities like have occurred overseas, and we're very
(18:00):
thankful for the few things that we do have here.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Thanks for joining us, Sarah. That's it for this episode
of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co
dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles
with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
(18:25):
the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Cielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. In
recent years, drug busts at New Zealand's border keep getting bigger,
with record breaking holes getting stopped by officials. But drugs
(00:26):
are still getting into the country and we all know
that what people think they're buying on the street will
not necessarily be what they get, and some people may
be consuming synthetic opioids without ever realizing they're putting their
health at risk. Today on the Front Page, Drug Foundation
Executive Director Sarah helm joins us to discuss the new
(00:48):
drug that has got her organization worried. Sarah, we see
stories on the Herald website almost every week about a
drug bust in New Zealand. How many kilogram of drugs
do you believe actually entering and making it into the country.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh, I'm not sure if I know the volume of
drugs making it into the country off the top of
my head. But drug busts only do one part of
the job. And in fact, some would argue the way
that we're handling drugs, or we police them rather than
regulating them, contributes to a growing concern around potency and
(01:24):
unpredictability of our drug supply, resulting an increasing threat to
life because of our drug supply, and.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
In terms of the supply, I guess it's quite difficult
to get it into the country. Hey, so is a
lot being made and developed actually here in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
But no, it's spy and large important and comes from
a variety of places. Our drug supply over the years
has become more unpredictable, so there's many more novel substances
being created and increasingly potent. And there are different theories
around this, but basically, the idea that incentivizes the drug
(02:02):
supply chain to get the drug as small as possible,
suppotency lends itself to something being very small and therefore
much more easily able to be smuggled into the country.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And the new novel substances are.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Being created to try and get around drug law, so
they create a new drug that mimics the effects of
it an existing substance, and unfortunately, every time one of
those is created, we don't know what the impact on
the human body will be. And that's where we see
some really concerning impacts for people and their health in
their lives.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
What would you say is the most common drug on
the streets in New Zealand at the moment?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, alcohol ha, but still by far and away the
more common drugs that people use are alcohol not to
be too gg because it is a drug and some
of its effects are more harmful than many of our
illicit substances, and cannabis is the drug that most New
Zealanders have tried as well in the illicit side.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
And then other drugs are much less likely to be
being used.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's a small population that use other substances, and we
do continue to have methmphetamine and MDMA being quite common
in the much less common side of things.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
There were fears last year that fentanyl was starting to
get into New Zealand, but we haven't heard much since then.
Why do you think fentanyl hasn't really found a footing
here and we haven't had an epidemics, say, like the US?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, the US and North America more broadly so, Canada
has ended up with quite a significant issue with superpotent opioids,
specially fentanyl, and they had a particular set of situations
that arise in North America that I think helped to
create that situation, one of which was a pre existing
(03:48):
addiction to prescription opioids and then some changes around the
availability of those prescription opioids. The arrival of fentanyl really
spoke to a need in the community, but unfortunately has
had very dire consequences on the community, and we haven't
had the same prescription drug issues, and we haven't had
(04:10):
it arrived here. We are the bottom of the earth,
so it takes a long time for things to arrive.
But actually fentanyl hasn't really had a big presence anywhere
in the world aside from North America. However, we are
internationally saying the rise of a newer potent opioid, a
group of potent opioids I should say called nitizines.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
New Zealand's seen illicit ventanyl use before seven people were
taken to wide it up a hospital in twenty twenty
two after taking it empowdered form a class B drug,
fentanyl can be prescribed for pain relief. In twenty twenty two,
more than eight thousand people accessed it, but in the
past year it's the emergence of nitizines, twenty five times
(04:55):
more potent than ventanyl, that has experts concerned.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, I was about to say, so.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Netazines are being called the new ventanyl in Europe. I
know that Bristol alone saw seven deaths and over eighty
hospitalizations in just one summer after the drug was found
in a heroin supplies supply. Can you tell me what
they are and do you agree with this definition that
they are the new fentanyl?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
You are They actually more potent than fentanyl, and some
as many as twenty five times more potent than fentanyl.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Again, we have a.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Different situation here than Europe, but we do have an
issue here. Europe has had a long standing heroin use
population and with Afghanistan no longer producing as much heroin
and the clamp down there, nitizines are arriving and are
unfortunately again having really dire consequences for a group of
(05:52):
people who have opioid addiction in particular. But we are
seeingnitizines both in Europe and in our out of the
world Australia and New Zealand entering into our drug market
in the non opioid side of things as well. So
particularly in Europe that from what I hear from people
on the ground, adulteration of benzo diazepines, which over their
(06:14):
street benzos are super cheap, and we've seen some of
that occur here as well, and in Australia. Nitizines are
turning up as methmphetamine and MDMA. So we're already experiencing
loss of life and we're very worried about what the
coming months or years might mean for us.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, I mean netazines. I read somewhere A dose as
small as a grain of sand can be deadly, especially
if you don't know if you're taking it. They're showing
up in more common drugs. People aren't going out to
seek netazines, are they?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
No, Well, for example, I visited Canada last year early
last year and saw and spoke to a number of
people working on the front line and a number of
people who had addiction and drug use experience.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
For lack of a better word.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Indeed, people had started to seek out ventanyl. They wanted
ventanyl rather than trying to avoid it. Over Here, by
and large, we still have a community that are wanting
to test for and avoid neitizines and ventanyl, which is
really great and what we hope to continue. But there
are always a group of people that have opioid addiction
that might be more inclined to seek out a drug
(07:25):
that might be cheap and very potent.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
So we also try not.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To judge people and provide harm reduction advice and testing
so people are best off when they know what it
is that they're taking. But by and large our community
here it's still looking to avoid potent opioids and we
have some new technology to support them. Much I could
tea about as well.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's the thing, hey, I mean, getting your drugs tested
isn't illegal.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, so it's great.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So New Zealand does have a couple of things on
our side that other countries haven't had the privilege of having.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
And one of what.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Is our fully legalized drug checking services, and another is
our early warning system, which unlike many other places where
they've even been able to have one, it's got government
involvement as well as civil society. So we're working together
on that early warning system and testing people substances to
better inform the community so that they can make decisions
(08:22):
get their drugs tested. Actually we give.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Them harm reduction advice when they come in and get
their drugs checked as well.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
And another thing we recently got on board was something
called this is in test strips. So we also have
fentanyl test strips and they're free, so we can send
people a pack of test strips so that they can
test their own substances. If they haven't made it to
a drug checking clinic or aren't living close enough to one,
we at least can send them test strips so that
(08:50):
they can identify if they've got a very potent substance
in their drug, which I would rarely encourage anyone who's
taking illictit substances at this point, all counterfeit medications to
test with nitizine and ventical test strips.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Is it silly to think that because fentanyl hasn't had
a huge stronghold in New Zealand, that would be also
immune to netazines as well.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Okay, yes and no, we've got a very small population
who are opioid dependent. But I do think that there
are groups of our population that would be really severely
negatively impacted and face overdose fatalities as a result of
a growing presence of nitizines or potent substances.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And when I walked.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Through the streets of Vancouver and Toronto and saw people
overdosed and no one helping them, I grew very worried
about our communities.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
That will be more likely to be impacted.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And yeah, I really don't want that for our people
here in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Whether it's the.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Groups of university students that one of our staff members experienced,
a loss of a number of her friends at university
in Canada who had unwittingly taken ventanyl when they were
consuming ndmay, or the homeless people who are experiencing addiction there.
For example, the man I tended to on the street
(10:29):
in Vancouver who had passed out and gone blew, most
likely from ventanyl. Luckily I was able to help resuscitate him.
But I don't want that for our homeless community, our
community of people who take more of society's trickier substances,
nor our occasional recreational drug users to face fatalities. You know,
(10:50):
I know people who have lost people in North America
off the back of somebody accidentally taking the wrong thing.
So we need to do everything we can to prevent
being situation.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It's just heartbreaking. Hey, and I guess on your first
hand experience, you've seen what happens to communities when this
drug takes a stronghold. How prepared do you think New
Zealand is or are we completely unprepared?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, so we've spoken to the good things that we've done,
which I'm really happy that we have, but we've got
a long way to go. New Zealand's never really had
an overdose strategy or plan. We've ignored the overdose fatalities
we've had. We've rested on our laurels, thinking we don't
have as many as other people. Actually we're losing I
(11:33):
think from memories, something like one hundred and seventy New
Zealanders each year to overdose a couple each week, and
we could do better anyway. But in terms of being
prepared for more of a concerning presence of very potient opioids,
there's a number of things.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
That we could do.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We released a plan of types of overdose interventions that
we need to put in place, but I would point
to a few in particular. There's a medicine called na
lozone the Americans call it NACAN, and we have been
over several years whittling away at the system trying to
unlock that for the community. So where we've gotten to
(12:13):
is that there are some injectable forms of this iner
lockzone that are available at needle exchanges, but we still
don't have proper access to a nasal spray variety which
would be more able to be given out and used
by lay people. So we have put in a funding
application to pharmac and the committee that is in charge
(12:34):
of these things are recommended it be funded. Now we're
just waiting to see if it makes it into the budget.
That would be a big important thing to have because
you can imagine, say you have an event at a
university orientation and suddenly there are a bunch of people
overdosing having narcan or no locks on there on hand.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So it's not only the potence of the substance.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
That time that it takes with somebody to shift from
overdose to a fatality is very short, so waiting.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
For the ambulance can be too long that the person
may die.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
So having the lock zone on hand and available at
events of high risk or say a first responder who's
not an ambulance turns up, having them being able to
carry in a locks own, let alone the drug user
themselves and the people who love them and.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Are around them. So we'd really like to see that
made available.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Two things that I've seen over and over again that
many people can't believe if they're outside of the drug world,
is that people who use drugs are often buried, community
minded and also don't care about our health. When we're
able to the needland s fringe program in Australia had
saved four dollars for every dollar invested. When you extended
that beyond just a horizon of a few years and
then started putting in things like opening doors to mental
(13:51):
health skin infections that return balloons to twelve dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
We also don't have a number of the things that
other countries have created, for example, overdose prevention centers or
supervised drug use spaces.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
We created a.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Proposal for one in conjunction with a number of the
key players in Auckland and inner city Auckland. We'd really
like to see one at least tried in New Zealand,
particularly that will serve a population who regular users of
drugs and don't have anywhere else to be to safely
take the drug. If you supervise people, the evidence shows
(14:29):
it is incredibly effective at preventing fatalities, and it also
has a positive effect on fatalities on the neighboring area,
and it has a general uplift in those people's health
impact as well.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Tell me about that. So is it a designated space
for regular drug users to take drugs but they're supervised.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
So there's a famous one in our backyard, Sydney Uniting Church.
Melbourne's got one that are all over Canada these days
and a number of other place and there's tons of evidence.
I've been around for a very long time at this point,
so the fact we don't have one is political, historical
anomaly and a bit of a pain really. So the
(15:13):
spaces where the people who might otherwise be at risk
of overdose can come and take their drug, somebody like
a nurse or indeed in some a doctor supervises their
consumption and then they're able to administer CPR and a
lockzone whatever is needed if the person overdoses. They're very
effective at preventing death, which is the key thing. And
(15:35):
you can imagine coming into a service like that might
increase your expectation for your health and wellbeing, encourage you
to have conversations with people and have a positive effect
over above staying alive.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Which is one of the goals of harm reduction. Responses
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
You can see why it's controversial though, Hey, I mean,
I guess it's just a hop, skip and a jump
away from decriminalizing drugs altogether, but it seems like it
has good evidence that it works and is at least
a gateway for people to get help. Hey, should we
be thinking about decriminalizing some drugs?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, just to touch on that, Sydney's had an overdose
center a uniting.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Church for decades now and.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
They haven't legalized or decriminalized, so it is possible to
do these things without controversy. They did it in response
to the level of fatality they were experiencing back in
the I can't remember which decade it is, eighties or nineties,
Sorry for that.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
And yes, we do think that we need to look
at our drug laws.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Our drug laws have found a number of things from
happening and prevent people seeking help. They prevent them having
conversations with people, and in truth, there's things that we
could do on both the regulation side when we think
about lower harm substances, for example, or putting people on
prescription medication instead. But in terms of law reform, we
(16:55):
badly need to look at law reform and criminalizing people
certainly help and it has no evidence of working to
discourage drug use or is a prevention against addiction or
anything of the sort. In fact, it's easier and New
Zealand sadly to land yourself in prison than it is
to get help because of the long waiting lists to
(17:16):
get help. So yeah, we're a fan of shifting our
resource and attention back in the direction of help and
harm reduction.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
And finally, I guess we've touched on this a little bit.
What can the government do to protect us from experiencing
something like an opioid epidemic like that in the US
and what we're seeing emerge in Europe.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Okay, I think there's a number of protective things I
could do to prevent the.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Fatalities or other really negative impacts occurring. If we actually
want to prevent the drugs from arriving, we need to
look at changing our drug laws and having some sort
of regulated approach to substances rather than just ban and police.
But there's a number of things we could do to
prevent mass fatalities like have occurred overseas, and we're very
(18:00):
thankful for the few things that we do have here.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Thanks for joining us, Sarah. That's it for this episode
of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co
dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles
with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
(18:25):
the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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