Get a Clue
(partae)
The NRMA-owned Manly Fast Ferry has confirmed it stood some deckhands down after they tested "non-negative" for illicit drugs on Monday, as revealed by the Herald's CBD column on Friday.
With fewer staff available, the NRMA said it had been forced to reduce the frequency of some of its tourist services that travel between stops including Taronga Zoo and Darling Harbour on Friday.
But a spokeswoman said Manly to Circular services were unaffected and it expects normal schedule times to operate across the weekend.
"Some deckhand staff returned non-negative results and others who did not make themselves available for the random drug test have been stood down indefinitely," a NRMA spokeswoman said.
"We’ve done this to give our passengers assurance around safety and that we have a zero tolerance policy around illicit drug use," the spokeswoman said.
The NRMA, which operates 11 fast ferry vessels through a subsidiary, is locked in a dispute with the Maritime Union over worker pay which has lasted for months.
About 80 fast ferry workers have gone on strike several times this year in a campaign for higher wages after an enterprise agreement was struck down in January.
An NRMA spokeswoman said the CFMMEU, of which the Maritime Union is a part, was notified when the staff were stood down.
But the spokeswoman declined to say how many ferry workers were stood down or what drugs were allegedly in their system because the company has not informed other workers. It is understood that will happen on Monday.
The Maritime Union declined to comment.
Popcorn lung is a rare condition that causes airway scarring due to inflammation and eventually lung damage. Popcorn lung is characterized by the lung tissue scarring and becoming narrow. This can lead to breathing problems. Popcorn lung is a rare medical condition that damages the bronchioles, the lung's smallest airways.
Breathing in harmful chemicals, particles, or toxins can lead to popcorn lung. Food-flavoring fumes produced during the manufacture of candies, potato chips, popcorn, and dairy products, are major culprits. The chemicals found in e-cigarette liquid, known as "e-juice," may be a potential cause of popcorn lung. According to the American Lung Association, using electronic cigarettes or vaping, particularly the flavored varieties, can cause popcorn lung.
While treatments exist to limit and manage symptoms, currently there is no cure for popcorn lung, and it is considered life-threatening.
Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction Among Adults: The use of e-cigarettes is associated with an increased risk of having had an MI. Dual use of e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes is riskier than the sole use of either product.
At a smart dinner party, where cocaine is passed around like canapes, the wealthy guests likely do not think about the class A drug’s dark origins.
Behind these decadent suburban scenes are the end result of a supply chain that involves environmental devastation, violence, high-level corruption and crimes including gang warfare, sex trafficking and terrorism.
And it is why Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told middle-class drug users that they had “blood on their hands”.
Police Federation deputy treasurer Simon Kempton heaped blame on wealthy middle class people for the boom in class A drug sales.
He said: “If you look at why there is a market for cocaine from South America it is because people who can afford it are buying it and fuelling the problem. “Street-level users are a problem because they steal to fund their habit. But on their own they will not support an organised-crime group.
“The big market is people with money to spend and they are often oblivious to the misery they cause because it is not on their doorstep.
“Middle-class drug users do not come across the radar of police because they are consuming it behind closed doors. There’s a lack of personal responsibility.”
Far from a victimless crime, taking cocaine leaves bloody footsteps and even death from the streets in our town and across the world.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/blood-hands-decadent-drug-users-16491263
It’s using the slick, high-tech disguise of vaping.
Twenty years ago, as a creative director, I helped create a commercial for the Truth campaign to introduce its effort to prevent cigarette smoking by young people. The spot was simply footage of tobacco executives all testifying, “I believe nicotine is not addictive.” All we did was add a laugh track.
The effect of my campaign and others was to help a generation of young people see the tobacco companies as they really were. Companies that lied not just to the government but the public, with misleading ad campaigns aimed at teenagers, their “growth market.”
Now they’re doing it again, but in a new, slick, high-tech guise that is harder to combat. And ad agencies, which had mostly left Big Tobacco’s side, are aiding the effort, lured back in by increasing fees for the work and decreasing fears the public will judge them for it.
While teenage cigarette smoking rates have recently fallen below 5 percent, America is now contending with an epidemic of young people using e-cigs, vapes and other “nicotine delivery devices,” as the tobacco industry christened them years ago in secret memos, searching for an official alternative to describing their products as cigarettes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says vaping rose by nearly 80 percent among high school students from 2017 to 2018, erasing previous progress in reducing tobacco use among teenagers.
The vaping industry exploits everything Big Tobacco was already good at. Grow the tobacco, extract the nicotine, provide it in concentrations even higher than found in cigarettes, put it in sleek packages and market it relentlessly.
Juul promotes itself as a health-conscious company, even as it develops potentially more addictive vaping products. According to Juul — a brand so popular that “juuling” has become its own verb — one of its “pods” has more nicotine in it than an entire pack of cigarettes on average.
If Juul were serious about marketing to adults, it could use pinpointed digital marketing to make sure that those seeing its ads are over 21. Stanford researchers found the company’s launch marketing “was patently youth-oriented.”
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