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Speaker 1: Now it looks like a significant number of kiwis using

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical drugs to party, or at least not for the

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Speaker 1: reason that the drugs are meant for. This is the

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Speaker 1: second set of findings from that big New Zealand Drug

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Speaker 1: Trend survey, and it's found four in one and four

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Speaker 1: kiwis are doing this with the old pharmaceuticals. Massive University

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Speaker 1: drug researcher Chris Wilkins is with us. Now, Hey, Chris,

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Speaker 1: good morning morning. What kind of drugs are we talking about?

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Speaker 2: All kinds of drugs opioids, ADHD medications and also bends

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Speaker 2: that die depends on some of the most common and

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Speaker 2: what are they?

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Speaker 3: What are people doing with them? Is this to have

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Speaker 3: a good time to get high?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to keep in mind that

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Speaker 2: this is a really complex issue, so motivations for use

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Speaker 2: can vary from just even things like I can't get

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Speaker 2: to the doctor myself or I can't afford to go

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Speaker 2: to the doctor, so I've got medications hanging around all

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Speaker 2: the way through to as you said, supplementing illegal drug

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Speaker 2: use for purely recreational And how are people.

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Speaker 3: Getting their hands on it? Is it that they're getting

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Speaker 3: it from their mates who've got ADHD pills prescribed to

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Speaker 3: them or what.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is very much kind of a network social

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Speaker 2: network supply issue. So nearly all of these drugs originally

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Speaker 2: came from legitimate pharmaceutical sources through the medical system, but

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Speaker 2: then they're just exchanged around within personal friend networks.

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Speaker 3: Are you worried about them?

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Speaker 2: I think so. I mean sometimes people can have a

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Speaker 2: false sense of security that they're using a pharmaceutical medication,

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Speaker 2: that it's lower risk. But some of these drugs, particularly

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Speaker 2: opioids and benzodiazepines, have a very high addiction potential, and

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Speaker 2: people just should be really aware that a lot of

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Speaker 2: these pharmaceutical drugs are very close to the legal drug variety,

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Speaker 2: and they should be aware that mixing drugs, in particular

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Speaker 2: with illegal drugs or for recreational purposes can result in

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Speaker 2: an increased risk.

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Speaker 3: Chris, how much of this is being driven by the

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Speaker 3: fact that it is fashionable again to try things to

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Speaker 3: you open your mind up for you know, for I

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Speaker 3: guess therapeutic reasons.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the really interesting things we found this

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Speaker 2: year was that of the people that are saying they

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Speaker 2: were using psychedelics, a quarter of them said they were

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Speaker 2: using it for therapeutic reasons, and this is something that

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Speaker 2: is globally you may have heard of a lot of

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Speaker 2: countries are now adapting some of their psychology counseling to

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Speaker 2: allow use of psychedelics and controlled, supervised situations for some

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Speaker 2: mental health conditions. But I think there's been a long

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Speaker 2: standing kind of feeling within with psychedelic users that this

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Speaker 2: can increase well being, change their state of mind and

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Speaker 2: maintenance sea problems differently. So there's still a lot of

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Speaker 2: research to go with that, but there is positive findings

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Speaker 2: in terms of some types of mental illness under supervision,

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Speaker 2: psych alects can really help people.

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Speaker 3: All right, Hey, Chris, thanks very much, really appreciated this.

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Speaker 3: Chris Wilkins, Massy University Drug researcher. For more from the

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Speaker 3: Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd be

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