Christchurch Mayoralty, Sex Education and STV

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Jim Mora, 

Radio New Zealand Afternoons.

What the polls tell us is Bob Parker will be about as popular as 2007 when four out of five voters didn't vote for him.  

The polls are telling us the same of Jim this time around.

Bring on STV, it will cure the media of the pretence to two horse racing. 

Neither Bob nor Jim have been tested in the public arena. 

Has the former Drug Czar ever been tested if he would ever deliver on core issues that were under his brief for so long. Safer Christchurch? on Climate Changing Christchurch, or even on Healthy Christchurch. 

Bob's an Alcohol Champion whose 2007 electoral campaign included touring with Police on cannabis busts.  (Press debates)

Now we learn Parker's SAFER Christchurch Crime-fighting and Emergency skills descended to dissing the "Emergency" Police out of a chopper ride to view the damage presumably to show his wife 'this is my life in fluoro'  (Canterbury Issues). 

If one thought Bob has done a wonderful job, one would either have amnesia, is star-struck or its a full moon. His term has been a travesty of civic governance.

As for Anderton, he's responsible for a drug policy mess that requires Dunne to lie about it to the Criminal Justice sector. 

Not that drug policy hasnt messed up teens in general. Eight hundred of the thousand young people who went through the University of Otago longitudinal study [CHDS]  would be in Anderton's Jails, suspended, expelled or taken from their parents, that is if we hadn't buggered their life with a lifelong Criminal/Justice record going by his rules.

Could former Health Minister Anderton (and likely chair of Healthy Christchurch) explain to us sceptics how Dutch teen pregnancy, STD's, trouble with the law and youth suicide is one fifth ours and convince us it has nothing to do with removing the double standards. 

And we want to make this man Mayor of Bob's BoyRacerville where we sit in wait and chase the young buggers down the busiest streets in town as fast as we can and not expect harm maximisation?  Turn out your pockets kids!

What Republic of Christchurch Mayoral candidate has expertise across the inter-sectoral policy base again?  The one kicked out of Healthy Christchurch or the one arrested and charged for talking about it? Or the one banned from Anderton's Wigram office because his own Ministry suggested he talk to me and he felt asking for the meeting was threatening behaviour? It's on parliamentary letterhead.

In August and September  we had two of the worlds experts here talking about youth and drugs (Prof Nutt and Sir Ian Gilmore) and no one noticed? They talked in the Rolleston lecture theatre at the med school. Drugs are about health. When a few days later Joe Boden PhD,  reported on cannabis and youth to the entire Canterbury health/alcohol/youth/drug sector telling us how bad we doing [its our data, not the Netherlands'] and NO hard questions are asked of these Mayoral public health pretenders...

Alcohol and other Drugs health promotion is deluding us all and media pretends it doesn't get it?
(I feel another Tui billboard coming on).

If Healthy Christchurch followed its signatory obligation to the Ottawa Charter much could be learned. (including attracting multimillion dollar research budgets)

But with either of these two canvassing clowns at the head of the table the next three years we will assuredly be asking why we still still be asking the same questions in 2013? 

Why should media care.. without dysfunction their wouldn't be news huh!

Both Parker and Anderton come with guarantees as good as gold. They are both blessed by this earthquake, teh focus on re-building saves them from confronting themselves.

To improve sex education and youth 'best practice' policy, spread STV.

 Blair Anderson  ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/

ph nz  (643) 389 4065   nz cell 027 265 7219

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• Enjoying drugs (drugwarrant.com)
• Drug Policy Science and the Blogosphere (drugwarrant.com)
• Earthquake destroying Anderton's chances - Parker expected to win Christchurch according to polls... (peter-petterson.blogspot.com)
• Anderton presses on with mayoral bid (nzherald.co.nz)
• Parker overtakes Anderton in mayoral race - poll (nzherald.co.nz)

As seen on Pundit

Image by strollerdos via Flickr

I'm wondering whether the punitive politics in New Zealand have become so ingrained in the way our politicians think, so powerful, that many in parliament have simply stopped looking at law and order through any other lens. - Tim Watkin

The single largest factor driving the prison industry is our drug policy....

[http://pundit.co.nz/content/punitive-political-group-think-rules-jaccuse-too] 

It is creating the very problem it set out to solve.

It is undoubtedly a class war, racially applied by those imbued with white privilege, and largely at the behest of the USA for whom imprisonment is the gold standard of therapy....

Civic leaders and those sceptical of the level of expenditure and thus displacement of resources that could be better spent, I would direct them to consider (even if only to read) the Prague Declaration (or similarly, the Vienna Declaration on which it is primarily based)

see http://www.praguedeclaration.com/files/catalogue/2-PrgDeclEN.pdf

Blair Anderson  ‹(•¿•)›

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• AIDS 2010, and Three Former Presidents sign Vienna Declaration (drugwarrant.com)

Petrol heads? Alienated from rule of law, Hello!!

Image via Wikipedia Rachael Ford (Candor Trust) on targeted youth interventions creating worst case scenarios.

Road safety and police chases... turning over youth - going over cars, confiscating everything you've got.

TVOne Breakfast clip  (6min)

If your chasing someone for minor non-criminal infringements, esp alcohol and other drugs think again, what could be worse? a possibly stoned or drunk driver or one with his pedal to the metal experiencing a testosterone fuelled adrenaline inspired brain fart. 

Dead dogs and Cops....(yep its our issue too) 

Boy Racer legislation / Police complaints authority / Royal Commission / Road Safety quota's

Blair Anderson  ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/

ph nz  (643) 389 4065   nz cell 027 265 7219

Political Intelligence Lead to Deaths

Media Release:  no embargo

Blair Anderson, Christchurch Mayoral Candidate.

Friday, 3rd Sept, 2010

Inadequate Intelligence leads to Deaths.

The Police incident that resulted in the Coronial Inquiry into Napier Police Officer Len Snee's death and injury to others parallels the incident a year later in Christchurch that resulted in the death of Police Dog Gage and the wounding of two other police officers. 

The common but unresolved issue in both events is the failure by successive Governments to ensure SAFER COMMUNITIES TOGETHER by legally regulating the popular and seemingly  socially acceptable recreational psychoactive soft drug, Cannabis.

Lets all be "Intelligent" says the MildGreen Social Ecology activist and Christchurch Mayoral Candidate Blair Anderson, "and fix this anomaly."

Yesterdays (sept2) presentation in Christchurch to Community Health leaders regarding what is to be learned from NZ's world  renowned Multidisciplinary and Longitudinal health studies has informed us that cannabis is not just popular amongst youth (80% <25yrs) but its use remains prevalent into adulthood. It also shows that few come to any problem but identifies that it is also enforced disproportionally profiling males, young and those who have previously come into contact with the law clearly identifying that enforcement is problematic, ineffective and inefficient.  

For those that do experience the full force of the law, the science shows it doesn't do anything to deter use.

A scientific review by emminent Canadian epidemiologists completed in March 2010 following similar incidences involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police asking "Does drug law enforcment affect levels of drug market violence? (Werb, Rowell, Kerr, Montaner, and Wood, Urban Health Research Initiative, Vancouver)  shows such violence is a NATURAL CONSEQUENCE of drug prohibition.

So why do we do "prohibition" so badly, as demonstrated by the terrible cost borne by Police and their Dogs?

Time to Get Smart and apply some decent Drug Intelligence. No stab proof vests or extra supervision required.

"Perhaps my compatriot Mayoral Candidate and former Associate Minister of Health, Hon Jim Anderton can tell us why he ignored the science for change in the legal status from as far back as 2006 round table and answer this question, would Len Snee, Gage and Jan Molenaar be alive or dead today if he had made Cannabis a SAFERCHOICE alternative to to Alcohol under the provisions he passed by Order In Council gazetted in October 2008 - legally regulating recreational psychoactive soft drug sales, under the supervision of the Ministry of Health?"

see Misuse of Drugs (Restricted Substances) Regulations 2008 (SR 2008/373)  at legislation.govt.nz

If the answer is as the science suggests, Anderton does not deserve to be rewarded for failure with the golden chains to New Zealand's SAFEST CITY.  

Nor too should Mayor Bob Parker escape scrutiny, on the day Parker was accepting the UN accredited SAFER CITIES award, the very mechanism of 'drug market violence' was being perpetrated with Samuri Swords, Axes and Knives on a family 'for their stash' in Cashel Street. [They didn't even have any.]

Mayor Parker's corporate media machine touts his reelection stand for SAFER Christchurch, but he admonished Anderson for being disrespectful to Police before full council for positing community safety and SAFERCHOICE.ORG on the day that Len Snee was being buried.

"Parker deserves to be stripped of those chains for promoting inner city VintageTrams to and from Wine factories and (fmr Mayor) Garry Moore's Bar, past David Henderson's developments and 'the Strip' all the while being a pretender to public safety" says candidate Anderson whose last run in with the law, saw him arrested 'for daring to say so in public' resulting in Police Bail "forbidden from entering the Four Ave's for a month."  John A Lee would be spinning in his grave.

"Parker is a Champion for Alcohol all right;  must the underground advice he's getting from his almost academic wife, though for what they have in common he and Anderton would make a great couple."

Blair (for Mayor) Anderson  affiliation: http://blairformayor.blogspot.com ph nz  (643) 389 4065   nz cell 027 265 7219

note to all media: the affiliation is officially approved as evidenced on voter forms and election literature published by the Chief Returning Officer. It is democratically remis to fail to advise the electorate of ALL candidates affiliation. The writer's use of a 'webaddress' was pioneered in 2002, and upheld by the Justice and Electoral Committee after a formal complaint by Hon Jim Anderton. See Hansard. The writer is the only person contesting the Christchurch Mayoralty to have won the right (again) to use new media as an effective democratic tool. Anderson's campaigns are notable for the absence of visible street signage.

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Open Letter to Welsh Local Body Voter

Dear "A Voter".

 

It is the experience of this third time Mayoral candidate that it is media the governs the issues here in the local body hustings.

 

Ranging from ignoring, the prerogative to the down right dishonest reporting of this core issue. Pretenders to Community Safety and SAFER STREETS pander to the 40 year dogma of prohibition propaganda get the mind-share yet the local bodies are the ones left to not only pick up the burden of insecurity created by this misplaced policy, they also licence premises to sell alcohol and govern through other planning where tobacco can and cant be sold. It IS a local election issue.

 

Only yesterday one of our social scientists gave a analysis of the TWO longest running longitudinal and multidisciplinary studies that examine cannabis and outcomes. These are the same studies that feed into the reclassification of cannabis to Class B in the UK after the Royal College of Psychiatry and others failed to observe the clear evidence that the psychosis young people are experiencing is BECAUSE of the law. The alienation, mistrust and rejection of social mores indeed an entire matrix of dysfunction last longest on those at greatest risk. The clear targeting of young, male, ethnic minority and those who may have already transgressed (as there go by the grace go many of us) are caught with minor cannabis possession and enter the criminal gateway/spiral.

Yet, Alcohol gets a free reign.

I urge readers to consider a legislative framework recently passed into law  in NZ (thus UN compliant) but remaining for the moment an empty vessel, that Professor Nutt referred to in his presentation here in Christchurch as "beautiful" and where cannabis should be placed. Similar to the UK bill in 2001 Class D initiative, we have added a classification to the Misuse of Drugs Act for recreational psychoactive 'soft' drug use, that equitably manages sale, packaging, labeling, place of sale, advertising and age of consent (R18).

 

(Misuse of Drugs (Restricted Substances) Regulations 2008 (SR 2008/373)

 

Show this to your local constituency and ask... why not? If nothing else it will inform and encourage civic debate.
 
I wish Wales well in its deliberations on this vexing issue and encourage all and sundry to consider... if we want to protect youth we must give licence to adult use. We must remove the double standards and impediments to credible health promotion (Ottawa Charter stuff) and strike this anomalous prohibitive law  that serves us all poorly from the books.

see http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/201009021326/green/eco-news/drugs-in-wales-an-open-letter.html

 

--
 Blair Anderson  ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com
http://blair4mayor.com
http://efsdp.org

ph nz  (643) 389 4065   nz cell 027 265 7219