I appreciate everyone being patient and giving me time to consider my position on the future of providing product testing.
I have given considerable thought to the entire thing; and the following is what I have decided:
1) From this point forward I will only accept raw material samples from sources for analysis. It has been said, countless times, that finished product testing from sources is considered worthless because of the possibility of exactly what has happened recently. Additionally, source raw material testing has been demanded by MESO many times.
2) Customer samples of finished products will only be done on entire packages of the product. This means that capsules, pills, creams, solutions, suspensions, suppositories, and vials will need to be sent in their original, unopened packages. I realize it will inconvenience some people; but honestly this whole thing is an inconvenience to me. The inconvenience will have to be now distributed to the community as a whole because I don’t have time for it. Replacement for items sent for testing will be between customer and source. My opinion is that maybe you should reconsider the purchase if the source is not willing to replace the package that is sent for testing.
3) I will maintain an archive of test results that can be reproduced for any MESO member upon request. This will be available to any MESO member; but will require some specificity. For example: You would need to request the report by sender, compound, and date. Vague requests asking me to do things like “Please show me all the results for Joe Blow’s tests” will not be entertained. You will have to know what you’re looking for if you want me to reproduce it.
4) Prices will increase by $25 across the board for this. I have had to come up, again, with money I don’t have in order to ensure my security from sources or others who may seek retaliation for dissemination of results that are not flattering. Let’s face it: this is an illegal drug trade; and I am in the position to cost a source some significant lost revenue. I’m not going to incur the risk for free. The maintenance of the result archive and reproduction of results at request are acts of labor on my behalf; and again, I’m not going to do it for free.
Basically, confidentiality no longer exists here.
There can be no confidentiality in harm reduction; and it has taken me this long to realize that my expectation of ethical behavior in the masses is naïve and unreasonable.
With that said, I have also seen evidence of the same values I live by in a source; so I know it is possible. I believe that these policy changes will help to further the effort of maintaining MESO as the place with the one thing we all came here for: physical AND financial harm reduction.
Where I come from, the scenario that happened last week is unheard of; so I was unprepared. All of the negative experiences I have encountered through this testing effort thus far have actually been intellectually rewarding in ways. I didn’t come here with a great deal of “street smarts”; but the few completely terrible people I have encountered have given me priceless lessons in interpersonal associations. So to them I say, “Thank you and I hope you contract Ebola”.