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Speaker 1: More insight into our drug habits. The latest New Zealand

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Speaker 1: Drug Trends survey shows the increasing use of social media

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Speaker 1: to purchase MDMA. This is so depressing, up from thirteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty four percent of the last four years via

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Speaker 1: the web. Most popular apps for purchasing your MDMA and

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Speaker 1: all your other drug Snapchat or the Facebook Messenger. Now.

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Speaker 1: Chris Wilkins is a drug researcher at Massi Universities. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's Chris, very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning.

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Speaker 1: Make is this any different to me purchasing anything using

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Speaker 1: an app? I mean, in other words, drugs is just

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Speaker 1: like a fridge.

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Speaker 2: Is like a car, That's right. So this is a

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Speaker 2: general implication of the revolution and social media and digital

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Speaker 2: online selling and shopping. But I think we need to

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Speaker 2: be aware. It's just unfortunate some of these apps are

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Speaker 2: particularly conducive to drug buying and selling, and that they

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Speaker 2: have encryption, natural networking, and self de eating messages. But

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Speaker 2: I just think we need need to be aware of

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Speaker 2: how that market has really changed, just like a lot

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Speaker 2: of other things, and it has implications for how young

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Speaker 2: people are engaged and become aware of drug use.

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Speaker 1: So, in other words, you would never as a sixteen, eighteen,

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Speaker 1: nineteen year old wander around the corner to find the

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Speaker 1: gang member to flick you a bit or whatever. But

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Speaker 1: you might stumble upon this online and then doing that,

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Speaker 1: you have down a slippery slope.

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Speaker 2: Yeah that's right. So I mean for older generations we

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Speaker 2: think about drug markets, is that the bad kid in

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Speaker 2: the class and getting to know them and you know,

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Speaker 2: behind the pub and stuff like that. So this is

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Speaker 2: much more insidious. And we've got an algorithm that's working

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Speaker 2: fishing for likes for people engagement, and that means a

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Speaker 2: broader cross section of young people, some young people that

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Speaker 2: wouldn't really expect to be exposed to drug use. Art

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Speaker 2: and through even things of like gaming apps are now

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Speaker 2: used for these kinds of deals.

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Speaker 1: How do you know who you're dealing with and what

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Speaker 1: sort of risky you're taking?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So and there's a whole new bunch

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Speaker 2: of risks. So even though you might buy drugs online

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Speaker 2: through social media, often you need to physically go and

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Speaker 2: pick up drugs or you need the drugs to be delivered.

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Speaker 2: And then suddenly you're moving away from that safe, digital,

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Speaker 2: anonymous environment to something that can be quite real and

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Speaker 2: there has been situations where people turn up to buy

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Speaker 2: drugs and they find a gang member instead of who

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Speaker 2: they were expecting.

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Speaker 1: Exactly are we outlies on this? Do you have any

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Speaker 1: sort of international flavor for whether we're a bunch of

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Speaker 1: drug addital losers or the whole world's into this?

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Speaker 2: I know the whole world is into this, and I

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Speaker 2: think this is something we already got to get a

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Speaker 2: handle in terms of drug supply and how drug markets

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Speaker 2: are changing, becoming digitalized, becoming global, and that really there

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Speaker 2: is some opportunities now to engage online, which is a

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Speaker 2: good thing to take, but really this is really ramping

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Speaker 2: up the level of drug market and the difficulty in

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Speaker 2: doing something about it.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, Chris, Always enjoy your company, Chris Wilkins, who's

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Speaker 1: the Messy University drug researcher.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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