Kochie’s rant on pill testing only muddies debate on deadly issue
David Koch’s inept and inaccurate virtue-signalling rant in favour of pill-testing shows that radical leftists are gaining ground on a push to decriminalise dangerous drugs, writes Jack Houghton.
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David Koch’s inept and inaccurate virtue-signalling rant in favour of pill-testing shows that radical leftists are gaining ground on a push to decriminalise dangerous drugs.
The Seven Network’s intrepid breakfast presenter should be embarrassed after his heated interview with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday.
In the interview which went viral overnight, Koch told his viewers that taking MDMA without the supposedly more dangerous additives was safe.
This came just hours after the state’s chief toxicologist Professor Andrew Dawson warned it was the drug itself that was killing teenagers.
“Premier Gladys Berejiklian isn’t convinced that pill testing works, that’s despite Australia’s first pill testing trial in Canberra last year being declared a success,” Koch told his viewers.
Ms Berejiklian rightly responded that pill testing “doesn’t deal with overdoses” before an enraged Koch called Ms Berejiklian a hypocrite, yelling “kids are dying”.
Koch also insisted that pill testing “protects kids from taking poison from taking a product” and “tests for deadly ingredients that a young kid may not be aware”.
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So, who actually declared the Canberra trial to be a success?
The report Koch referenced was drafted by Harm Reduction Australia — the same people who organised the Canberra pill-testing trial. Objective stuff.
What HRA produced was a vague, 42-page report, which Koch should have mentioned, detailed several limitations of the tests.
Buried at the end was a flurry of legal disclaimers punters were forced to sign before the trial, which admitted the tests were inaccurate.
The teenagers were even forced to sign a death waiver to remove liability from HRA in the event that drugs their tests cleared later killed someone.
“No test results, regardless of findings provides evidence of purity … evidence of safety … evidence of dose,” the death waiver form warned.
The waiver even specifically warned punters not to act on the results of tests in any manner.
Which raises the question, if the tests are inaccurate and you can’t use the results to make an informed decision, what is their purpose?
The other myth that Koch propagated was that MDMA is safe if there are no dangerous additives. This is the nonsense being spewed by leftist politicians who want to see MDMA legalised.
In reality, the drug in high doses is deadly to the degree that Koch’s rant was not just inaccurate, but potentially dangerous.
"You're not listening, they're kids"@Kochie_Online takes on NSW Premier @GladysB over her dismissal of pill testing, which experts say will prevent drug deaths at music festivals. pic.twitter.com/a67EG4uHwR
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) January 13, 2019
Professor Dawson, who has been working on stimulant overdoses for the last 15 years, described to me what is actually killing these kids when they take MDMA.
The drug causes the body to release norepinephrine, which results in your body heating up significantly. Cutaneous vasoconstriction is the next phenomenon to set in, which means the body’s thermoregulatory response is altered.
Simply put, your body thinks it is cold even though it is hot.
“Normally, what will happen to people is that they will often get increasingly agitated, they can then become confused and that’s often a sign they already have a temperature,” Prof Dawson said.
“They may not always be aware that they’re actually hot. Once your temperature starts going above about 41C, you’re at a temperature where you start cooking an egg.
“So the proteins in the body start poaching and you get multiple organs shutting down. And that’s actually what causes the death.
“Patients can very rapidly deteriorate. They can get a temperature of 39 or 40 degrees and rapidly within 10-15 minutes to 40 to 43 degrees. And that’s life threatening.
“It’s very important to understand that individuals may not be aware that they’re actually unwell. It’s really important that bystanders and friends are looking out to make certain that people are all okay because the individual may not realise they’re unwell.”
Knowing the science behind what happens in a drug overdose should be enough to convince the public that pill-testing simply is not the answer.
But that won’t stop the likes of Koch or others borrowing talking points from NSW Labor and The Greens and muddying this important debate.
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