Party Vibe

Was a bit surprised to see Dancesafe from the USA being mentioned in the article rather than Trimbos (NL) or the UK Green Party, both of which were strong advocates of drug testing as harm reduction; though Trimbos has in recent times become more prevention focused (especially the English language material) – and the Green Party’s current policies (published for the 2015 elections) had not been updated since 2006 and only advocated an independent testing lab which charged for the service, unlike NL ones which do the tests for free but are only available in some areas although they have managed to expand the regions covered and introduce new testing methods that provide quicker although marginally less accurate results (still enough to unearth PMA and other nasties)

The Greens thus came across as either unaware that WEDINOS (which is funded by the Welsh NHS/GIG and some Councils in Wales) had been operating a similar service to NL regions (albeit within the constraints of a relatively hostile environment) for a good few years or unwilling to credit an organisation which (according to its opponents) is allegedly linked to the Labour Party.

Then again I once had to explain the 1990s MDMA/rave culture to a local Green Party candidate; he was to be fair way too young to have experienced any of it but I was slightly surprised the older generations in Suffolk had not discussed drugs policy with him (some areas are full with middle aged hippies and even elect Green councillors in otherwise Tory strongholds)

I had a look at recent results and it is unclear what WEDINOS are and aren’t accepting even with the policy change (which appears to be to prevent NPS vendors trying to use them as a cheap testing method).

There are oddities in the numbering schemes (two different ones being used) and a strong bias towards Welsh postcodes being accepted but there appear to still be some English and Scottish samples getting through although considerably less than I have seen on previous visits to the published results section.

Although the UK viewed by the EU, UN, NATO etc as a single country it is to some extent 4 separate countries in one (possibly the only nation in the European continent to have this status since the fall of the Soviet Union).

The NHS in each UK country is funded and run separately giving some autonomy to what services are available. Although the NHS to provide services to any UK or EU national who requires treatment; there is a grey area over whether WEDINOS actually has to test samples from England, Scotland or NI; although I don’t think anyone working there wants to reject “foreign” samples I wouldn’t be surprised if they are coming under pressure to only accept “non civillian” submissions from the other countries (government agencies/police have always had other internal mail/despatch services independent of Royal Mail) and funding pressures – the Dutch testing groups have had the same problems particularly in the Calvinist Protestant areas (similar to Southern USA) that elect more right wing parties (which not surprisingly then seem to end up with folk keeling over from the PMMA pills).

TBH this plagues any research, data collection that involves “science or maths” carried out in England and Wales irrespective of whether it is the public or private sector.

Two jobs I’ve had over the years involved working on fairly large teams dedicated to trying to exact some useful information out of years of raw data containing all manner of flaws so it could be transferred to other databases; whilst at the same time dealing with budget cuts and/or market changes.

I worked at one place for about 6 years and 4 at the other (until I found more interesting jobs) and neither of them had completed the task satisfactorily – the private company ended up downsizing much of its entire UK operations and shifting the remains to Bangalore where much was automated by software and has since improved performance and not even had any data breaches – but this is not allowed under UK/EU law for public services (or feasible in healthcare; the situation being worsened by paranoia over “immigrants” which makes team work harder as well as recruiting staff who have some clue what they should be doing and want to provide a useful service).

Even if the whole lot were made legal tomorrow and testing centres were funded across the UK this end of the country would still likely have the same problems (you’d at least be more likely to be able to send samples to Edinburgh or further North and get some sensible results)

As they still seem to be pubishing Welsh results I suspect they have indeed been instructed to restrict services to Wales or even a certain part of it.

However Welsh postcodes including those of more populated areas also are missing; the ones which do get through seem to be very near the hospital which runs the service (maybe via rehabs/heddlu?) and only samples from bits of NW England and a fraction of London suburbs are getting through. The form does have various small sections at the bottom in which the absence or presence of certain data could well be used as a selection criteria if they wanted to do so (otherwise they would not be included in the first place).

This surely contravenes various EU and UN recommendations or laws for both healthcare and human rights (the “postcode lottery” for health services is seen globally as a big flaw of the NHS in comparison to similar services worldwide). Then again our country still appears to make it more difficult for young women to access family planning services (not just terminations) on religious grounds if they are in NI.

If suspect if anyone in charge at Cardiff(?) admits to it they probably would be stitched up by Tories in London and accused of shit-stirring before the Brexit votes and not just WEDINOS but other healthcare in Wales could be put at risk. I’ve noticed even Scotland which presumably could just as easily set up a similar service (they have enough smart people to run it) and more autonomy from England has not done so….