Police today amended a press release from November 25 after they wrongly attributed the dosage of the drug GBL, causing concern at a drug harm reduction organisation.
Information from drug and fact-checking agency Know Your Stuff was miscalculated in the press release relating to the largest recorded domestic seizure of GBL in New Zealand.
Justin Rankin, 36, was arrested in November 2020 and charged with the possession of 400 litres of Gamma Butyrolactone (GBL) and the supply of a further 1,800 litres of GBL over a three year period.
He was sentenced in the Wellington District Court to a period of seven-and-a-half years imprisonment after an investigation named Operation Skipjack, that started in August 2020 into the importation of GBL and Eutylone.
The press release from November said, “according to the website knowyourstuff.nz a standard dose of GBL is between 0.9mls and 1.5mls, which corresponds to between 4,600 and 7,800 individual doses of the harmful drug".
However this was incorrect and reflected a much higher dose.
Know Your Stuff flagged the mistake with police, saying in a social media post it created a dangerous view of the drug.
"In the original police release, there was an estimate of the number of doses the total amount of seized drugs would be if sold to the public. This estimate was incorrect, and implied a dangerously high amount as a single dose," a spokesperson for Know Your Stuff told 1News.
"With a substance like GHB/GBL it is very easy to overdose, so ensuring information about dosage is correct is very important. The police have recognised the miscalculation in their estimate and corrected their release.
“It appears that our data was used in a miscalculation of the total number of doses of GBL seized by police,” the spokesperson said.
“We are pleased that Police have corrected the article and have not asked for further action from them at this time.”
Police did not say how the mix-up happened and corrected the statement to say the standard dose is “1.5mls, which corresponds to 4,666,667 individual doses of the harmful drug”.
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