How much alcohol does it take to kill a person?

A man died after downing a pint of vodka in four seconds, an inquest heard.

Richard Davies, 29, from Thornaby, near Stockton, had been drinking with friends before the alcohol knocked him unconscious in January.

Mr Davies was found not breathing in a pool of his own blood, and died hours later.

Recording a verdict of misadventure, Teesside coroner Tony Eastwood said the alcohol in his system had killed him.

The hearing on Tuesday at Teesside Coroner's Court was told how the electrician's mate was five-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive limit and his body contained traces of the then-legal high mephedrone, which has since been banned.

However, Mr Eastwood said the alcohol in his system had killed him and that the mephedrone was not a contributing factor. (from BBC)

MDMA.... where have all the good drugs gone?

Remember when you used to take one little white pill and it would make your eyes roll back in your head as you came up so hard that you nearly fell backwards? Remember when you’d spend a whole night asking strangers for massages, combing other people’s hair, and convincing yourself dance music wasn’t crap? The clichés are now about as dated as the drugs are shit. An edgy twitch is not the same thing, and I’m sorry, if you’re under 21, you probably can’t understand what we’ve lost.

I was having this whinge to a dealer friend (who we’ll call Julio) about the current poor condition of the drugs market. Why Julio, I asked, is it not possible for your chemist brethren to create some pills that actually live up to their name? I want to actually feel ecstatic. I want joy in a pill. Give me “endless feelings of gooey warmth and happiness”. If I wanted a short-lived buzz followed by six hours of sleepless terror I would take speed.

Julio explained why it is that our pills are piss poor, and why MDMA has, for the last three or four months, taken on an uncanny likeness to speed. Shock, horror – they can no longer make MDMA. I wouldn’t have believed him if it hadn’t been confirmed by three additional dealers, all who advised me to ignore anyone claiming to be selling MDMA, unless they had buried it in a hole a year earlier only to sell it now in the high-demand market at inflated prices. One component of the compound 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, which was only legal to produce in China, has been made illegal to manufacture over there, making it near impossible to track down.

This has lead to every crooked chemist in the land coming up with shitty concoctions to feed us. That is why the MDMA is now mostly MDMC, tastes sweet and only gets you high enough to remind you how good real MDMA once was. Equally, they are packing those pills – which were already bulging with all sorts of non-kosher stuff like ketamine – with every possible substitute. Julio is just a dealer, not a politician, and doesn’t know when the situation will be sorted. I’ll leave the final words to Julio: “Just think about our kids, man. They’ll never know what the real shit was like.” (from Viceland)

Health warning... MDMA no longer exists.

Tik and risky sex linked

According to Andreas Plüddemann, Senior Scientist at the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Unit at the Medical Research Council (MRC), the common thread in many studies, is the strong link between methamphetamine use and sexual behaviour, with many users reporting that tik use enhanced sexual experiences and vice versa.

“A number of users report experiencing highly positive aspects of sexuality whilst under the influence of methamphetamine, more so than any other substance-dependent group,” he said.

This, he added, also often led to a higher level of sexual risk behaviour, including multiple partners, risky partner types (e.g. anonymous sex partners), and high rates of unprotected sex among users.

“The link between tik use and risky sexual behaviour is a great concern, given the epidemic of tik use in the Western Cape and the area's high HIV stats.

“The use of methamphetamines can further fuel HIV infection rates, compounding what is already a health crisis,” he said.(from News24)

Tik less harmfull than mothers of tikheads

MOTHERS with drug-addicted children stood up to support Ellen Pakkies during her sentencing in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court on Friday.

Ellen was found guilty of murdering her tik-addicted child, Adam, on Friday 24 October. Magistrate Amanda von Leeve requested additional witnesses from Ellen's home in Lavender Hill to explain the situation in the family at the time before the murder to inform her sentencing.

Last year, 12 September, Pakkies turned herself in at the Steenberg Police Station, telling officers that she had strangled her son, who she said was addicted to tik and Mandrax.

On Friday, Adrian Samuels, Ellen's defence lawyer, presented Von Leeve with a range of mothers who had also suffered under the abuse of their tik-addicted children.

Vanetia Orgill from Mitchell's Plain took the stand to talk about her son, Troy (27), who had been a drug addict for over ten years.

Troy committed suicide at a friend's home at the start of the year. He had apparently stopped taking drugs for two years before his death, but had developed schizophrenia as a result of his drug abuse.

Orgill told the court that her son had on numerous occasions tried to kill her in his drug rages, and that on one occasion, in his drugged state, he had asked her and his sister for sex. Troy was forced to live outside the family home in a car as he could not be trusted in the house.

Orgill said her son had constantly been in and out of jail for theft.

Ellen's son Adam had likewise been forced to live in a shack in the family's back yard because he constantly stole from the house.

Orgill said her son would often throw rocks at the house, breaking all the windows; Adam had apparently done the same thing.

At one stage, said Orgill, she came close to breaking down, and forced a gun into her son's mouth. It was a family friend, apparently, who convinced her not to pull the trigger that night.

She said that "close to the end", she started wishing that her child would die. She told Von Leeve that she had given Troy a rope to hang himself with.

"People can call me hard and cold because I told my son: 'You pig, why don't you just hang yourself?'." And Troy did end up hanging himself.

Von Leeve asked Orgill what she thought when she first heard about Ellen's murder trial. "I thought, 'I hope she gets away with it,'" she replied.

Von Leeve stopped Samuels from presenting any more mothers, saying that the evidence would be too repetitive. Ellen's sentencing will continue on Thursday.

- Peoples Post

Central Drug Authority admits failure in war on drugs

The 2008 Central Drug Authority Annual report (p81) reads as follows:

"On the basis of comparing the baseline data contained in the CDA Annual Report 2006/2007, the NDMP mission of a measurable reduction in the supply, consumption and harm associated with substance use and abuse in South Africa has clearly not been achieved.

Current indications are that despite the work done by the CDA and it's incomplete implementing infrastructure, the drug problem has grown."

There it is in black and white. You might think that the CDA might ask why its policy is failing, but no. That doesn't happen.

The Western Cape war on drugs

The Western Cape has set about clamping down on illicit drugs. The arrests made for "drug related crime" make for interesting reading year on year:

2003 - 19,940
2004 - 30,432
2005 - 34,788
2006 - 41,067
2007 - 45,985
2008 - 52,781
2009 - 60,409

That would be 285,402 arrests in 6 years. Is this success? Does this mean fewer people are taking drugs? The answer to that is a resounding no. The war on drugs has FAILED and badly too. In 2002 there was no tik for sale on the streets. Now it's everywhere.

Success? No.

It's an easy way for the police to pad their statistics and please the politicians. All these arrests are lives ruined, but it's not by the drugs, but it's through the policy, the arrest, the criminal record. People who are addicted to drugs have a medical condition. I've never seen a medical condition successfully treated by incarceration, but that's the "policy" of the government.

War on drugs blows up in Western Cape's face

Nearly half of South Africa's reported drug-related crime between April last year and March this year was in the Western Cape.

Out of 134 840 incidents recorded nationally, 60 409 were in the province - an increase of 14.5 percent over last year's figures for the region. The number is also 200 percent higher than in the comparable period to March 2004.

The area with the most cases in the region, Mitchells Plain, recorded 6 572 drug-related crimes, up from 5 705 last year. Elsies River, Bishop Lavis and Manenberg were also drug crime hotspots.

The Medical Research Council's (MRC) Andreas Pluddemann said Mitchells Plain, with a population of 1.2 million, was the province's largest suburb and cautioned that this should be taken into account when analysing the area's high drug crime

Each sector patrol vehicle was expected to conduct a minimum of 20 stop-and-search operations each day, he said.

According to MRC figures, tik is still the most commonly used drug in the province.

Pluddemann said tik, crack cocaine and heroin were the drugs of choice for Western Cape users.

Speaking about the police's efforts to get drugs off the province's streets, Pluddemann said there remained more than enough drugs for users.

While there were a large number of drug-related arrests, "they are not really getting to the manufacturers", he said (IOL)

You have to wonder where you'd have to look to find evidence of success in the clampdown we see here? 60409 people in the Western Cape get criminal records. Now how are they supposed to get jobs? Ruining lives forever because someone has a medical problem never solved anything. Drug addiction is a medical, not criminal issue. Criminalizing drugs drives it underground meaning addicts do not get the treatment they need. The incarceration of addicts is a total misallocation of resources. Why not spend the same money on providing rehabilitation rather than wanting to put people in prison. The prohibition has failed, since there are more than enough drugs! South Africa has maintained a prohibitionist policy in it's National Drug Master Plans. Since 1998 tik and heroin has appeared from nowhere. Now it's ubiquitous. Kids in Khayelitsha are smoking it. If this is success for a prohibitionist I'd hate to know what failure looks like. From where I stand I just see the state failing out people.

International FASD day

Today is International Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder day.

Alcohol advertising is well funded. Too well funded. £60million for a pretty Peroni ad campaign for instance!!!

SAB, the main driver of the problem, has provided a million rand sponsorship for a thousand FAS children. A R1000 per retarded child? That is what SAB are buying the silence of FASFACTS with.

Read more about FAS here.....

The alcohol industry itself is in denial. The ARA don't mention Fetal Alcohol Syndrome on their industry view points page or anywhere else for that matter.

In the meantime... "drink responsibly"... whatever that means.

Smoking laws to be tightened

Smoking outside, within five metres of your office door, will soon be illegal and companies found guilty of contravening the rule could face fines of up to R50,000

The Department of Health is poised to gazette new smoking laws, including those governing smoking outside, which could come into effect early next year.

Dr Yussuf Saloojee, director of the National Council Against Smoking, said yesterday: "Regulations for smoking within prescribed distances of entrances is coming pretty soon. Exact distances are still to be decided but it will probably be five metres."

But regulating smoking in public areas is not enough for Saloojee.

"Having smoking and non-smoking areas is like have peeing and non-peeing areas in a swimming pool," he said.

Speaking at a conference on cancer in Johannesburg yesterday, Saloojee said the link between smoking and cancer is "so well established that we don't need to do much more work on that".

"The real challenge is what do we do about it?"

Cigarettes, which Saloojee said contained the same products used to make paint stripper, ant poison, vinegar, rocket fuel, mothballs and disinfectant, were linked to an increased risk of contracting 15 types of cancer. They also predispose smokers to medical conditions like impotence, reduced semen quality, and reduced fertility in women.

"But I don't recommend smoking cigarettes as a method of birth control," Saloojee joked.

He said that regulating smoking in the workplace should also apply to domestic workers whose workplace was inside a home.

"There has been a deliberate decision by Parliament to exclude smoking legislation in the home," he said.

During the World Cup, every stadium was a designated non-smoking zone, which Saloojee said was only "partial victory" because right outside stadiums many football fans lit their cigarettes.(Timeslive)

In a ridiculous move the government is now making people walk 5 meters from their workplace's front door to have a smoke. South Africa has had some arbitrary rules in its past. Sticking pencils in people's hair? Welcome to the FIVE METER RULE! I hope the government realises that fining a company in the middle of a world wide financial recession R50000 will bankrupt most small firms. Good luck with that! What happens if a person walks 5 meters from where they work, but now it's right in front of another person's front door? Talk about making one's "own problems" someone else's. Personally I am not particularly fond of people smoking really near me, but this is crazy. Nuts. LOCO. The "doctor" is showing signs of paranoid delusions. No need to joke about unborn children Dr Saloojee... I wish the man would move on and "establish the link between cannabis and cancer", or not as the case may be..

Drunk British tourist falls to his death after night out

A British tourist's last night in Cape Town ended in tragedy when he fell to his death walking up the stairs to his lodgings.

Neil Anthony Woodcock and friends had returned from a celebration at a nearby restaurant to a double-storey Gordon's Bay house at about 11pm on Tuesday when he apparently lost his balance and fell 3.5 metres.

Police spokesman Gert van der Merwe said his friends reported he had been drinking, but didn't say how much, adding: "They also said that he had had heart problems." (from IOL)

Alcohol is JUST ANOTHER DRUG and a dangerous one at that. A heart attack might have killed him, but it's best to just look at the most obvious 3.5metre fall?

Forensic backlogs years long

Backlogs in toxicology testing at South Africa's three skills-strapped forensic laboratories are measured in years, Parliament's health portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.

Briefing members, health department cluster manager Melvyn Freeman said a "reasonable" time frame for toxicology analysis - a service provided to the SA Police Service and National Prosecuting Authority, essential in the investigation of so-called non-natural deaths - was two months.

But responding later to a question from Democratic Alliance MP Mike Waters, he conceded that the actual backlog was much longer than this.

Waters, who paid a visit to the three forensic laboratories in April this year, said the toxicology backlog at the Cape Town laboratory was seven years long; at Johannesburg, eight years; and at Pretoria, four years.

Waters also gave figures for the backlogs in the three laboratories' other key functions - blood alcohol analysis, mainly involving drunk driving; and food analysis.

"On drunken driving... it's between 12 and 16 weeks in Cape Town. In Johannesburg it's three years... By that time the court's thrown the case out and the guy's got away with it. And in Pretoria, it's 16 to 18 weeks.(from IOL)

Netherlands closing prisons due to lack of criminals

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty. (nrchandelsblad)

IF only they were to indulge in a war on drugs like the South African government I am sure they could fill all those empty cells.... It's not as if they don't have enough dope smokers!