xxdr_zombiexx

34.8% marijuana patients
The Fiji Times | (Saturday, June 12, 2004)

OF the 482 persons admitted to the Saint Giles Hospital last year for substance abuse, 34.8 per cent were associated with marijuana abuse, Health Minister Solomoni Naivalu revealed yesterday.

Contributing to the debate on the Illicit Drugs Control Bill in Parliament, Mr Naivalu said that of the 168 patients admitted for marijuana abuse, 116 were Fijians.

There were 37 Indians and 15 of other races.

Mr Naivalu said trained and skilled professionals in the ministry use most of the drugs listed in the Dangerous Drugs Act for theurapeutic purposes under certain conditions.

However, he said the lack of skills for those administering drugs could be viewed as substance abuse as well.

In support of the Bill, Mr Naivalu said they recommended that the importation of narcotics to be restricted to the Government Pharmacist for better control.

Quoting from a World Health Organisation report, Mr Naivalu said the United States Food and Drug Administration estimated that counterfeit medicines made up more than the global medicines market and are present in both industrialised and developing countries.

He said there were estimations that up to 25 per cent of the medicines consumed in poor countries were counterfeit.

Mr Naivalu said trade in these medicines were more prevalent in countries with weak drug regulation control and enforcement.

He said counterfeit and substandard medicines were frequently detected in Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam and the problem seemed to be increasing.

[zombienote: Say what? Quite a schizm there between the titling and first bit of the article - standard ONDCP propaganda re-spouted by a Fijian paper - but then goes way off on a tangent about something a hell of a lot more serious than pot smoking - counterfeit medication.

Essentially they use reefer madness to hide the obviously more serious issue, burying it in this article rather than giving it it's own headline.

Again, talk about priorities....]

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Torture Good, Healthcare Bad, Marijuana Evil.

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

iGame3D

The headline is misleading.
If the hospitals only admitted pot users for treatment the headline would read "100% of people admitted for treatment of drug abuse, admitted for marijuan abuse".

Compare 168 persons admitted for treatment to how many persons arrested......... we also don't know how many people were turned away from treatment.

Don't they chew Kava-Kava in Fiji?