Blair for Mayor 2010

Light Rail Feasability Study For Four Million?

2011-10-22T10:22:00.001+13:00

LIGHT RAIL FOR WHOM?

If I was a city councilor I would be very very concerned that such decisions are being called for before all submitters on this subject were fully explored. If I was media, I would be digging very very deep into this and asking why is this 'study' being rushed and at these levels of expenditure if it is not to ensure the decision parameters suit some options over others. If we are to internalise the benefits of any form of light rail/steel wheel decision we had better begin from first principles and evolve a needs based rather than an aspirational 'build it and they will come' design. Such a needs based "City Tram" proposal was submitted. Indeed, a rates neutral approach should be one of the design, build and expand criteria. The Christchurch City Council's hasty decision smacks of grift and electoral self interest.

Can Youth 'card' Benefit Money be Guilty?

2011-08-23T10:30:00.001+12:00

Any benefit received upon which the IRD considers it (a) taxable income and (in this case) deducts PAYE is and should be the absolute end of the matter. The governments restrictive determination of the end use impacts upon self-will.

We may as well lobotomise youth.

I find it particularly insidious that we should be doing this 'collectively'.

When WE do it to THEM there is a price to pay....

I also find it galling that there was no policy impact statement prepared (and made public) so that proper determination of the cost effectiveness and outcome 'delivery' can be tested against benchmark objectives. It smacks of electioneering populism (and othering) over pragmatic governance.

It is about as logical as prosecuting someone for spending 'profits of selling some cannabis' on bread.

That some money (mine) has a different inherent quality than other money (yours)... and that someone (govt) has a (a) the right to know the difference (b) define that difference and (c) the circumstance in which that arbitrary difference is applied.

It leads to the legal assumption that property including 'cash' can be guilty after the fact, or could be/might be 'suspicious' creating an unwarranted 'need to police'.

That 'we already do it for....' still doesn't make it right, sustainable, good or civil.

Perhaps the National Party should check this 'targeted policy' against its own party principals?

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

Mika came to stay.

2011-08-15T13:12:00.001+12:00

it's husky weather

Joined up Thinking: Busway First for (CH)^2

2011-08-12T10:23:00.001+12:00

LR is a curve ball inclusion, talk about it feed the 'memes' of submitters but dumbs down what could really be done....

Rather than a point to point LR starting point, where the benefits are to few, does little to change the traffic or urban landscape or has redeemable carbon 'credits' or (even) just looks cool on CHCH marketing.... a civic minded solution "with some joined up thinking' might start with whole city network 'rebuild' with a focus on eastern suburbs that REALLY need to be included and redesigned. (So Ilam has a few chimneys down).

Begin with enhanced dual carriage rapid/express busways to/from existing and new nodes. Build the rateable infrastructure and population base around these (ie high-schools/density living/light industrial/commercial) and we could have a REAL city transport network that not only looks cool, it will be a favoured solution BECAUSE it is a network. You don't have to get in your car to go to the LR. Once the dual carriageways are in place, being used and is self sustaining (of course there will be cross subsidy, there is now) then smart(er) steel wheel technologies can be placed on the same network at low entry cost.
This way we can use existing technologies (buses) and investment, where buses still course the suburbs as they do now but enter and egress rapid transit protected corridors that become the LR of the future....

Such thinking allows us to place occasionally used 'event based' activities 'on the routes' rather than take up valuable inner city living space..(ie: swimming facilities) integrates all existing facilities into the network from the get go...offers better regular services, less constrained by traffic density and notably can be used by everybody 'as soon as' .
With unit construction of concrete forms such a network can be rapidly implemented for special events, repaired expeditiously, home grown and not held to ransom by overseas vendors/suppliers and still be very very 'green' - we just need to stop and think. If we want light rail (and I do) how best do we [all] get there.

Remember... where point to point rail/skytrain solutions have been rolled out they have been the LEAST successful as they cater for and become tourism priced or become white elephants 'propped up' by ratepayers who never get to see the supposed benefits....

Do not be duped by the cute visuals of 'how nice it would be' - set that aside and think about what a 'joined up cityscape' with a light rail that was so cheap, convenient, and close driving your car just wasn't an option might look like... and YOU have to look at 'building a network'. not a P2P dinosaur the next km costs a bazillion to add on you still have to catch a bus too.
Roll out of a 'bus-way' concept can begin right now...and unlike steel wheel, we have the technology/design and build capacity right here. I would begin 'in the east' and stop pretending that the CBD is where its all at. The dominant greenscape/garden of CHCH isn't even yet scoped... and will not be until we have 'determined' where and what we can rebuild....

Lets stop playing trains and think what is it we need to do for people...FIRST.

--

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

Sister City Gets It.

2011-03-07T14:56:00.000+13:00

Image via WikipediaSome drugs have such horrible effects on the human body that the costs of prohibition may be worth it. Not marijuana. This state’s experience with medical marijuana and Seattle’s tolerance policy suggest that with cannabis, legalization will work — and surprisingly well.

Not only will it work, but it is coming.

According to Seattle Times editorial page editor Ryan Blethen, the public’s reaction to the paper’s pot-friendly position was overwhelming.

Urban planning 'Evolutionary'

2011-03-03T00:24:00.001+13:00

The word for Christchurch has to be 'evolutionary'. It will evolve, just as it evolved to become what we liked about it (and there were lots to not like too) and it will evolve into what our kids will make it. Athfieild and some of the others I have seen discuss this fail to understand that it is not his or his design committee's city. It is not Parker's or Council's. You can wish for what you want but if Bankers, Insurers and Investors are not lined up around 'risk' of both financial and physical (read: natural forces) nothing will come of these grandiose plans.

The place to start is not in the central CBD of the city at all, rather it is to rethink what it is that creates a city around its people.

Image via Wikipedia

I would begin by scrapping the tram and relegating it to beachside tourism or better still, turn it into a cable car for Lyttleton. It is a USELESS piece of non-essential (and expensive crap) that no longer is fit for purpose dominating a new cityscape...

Never before have we had the potential to redesign urban transport and create a public people (and stuff) mover across the fabric of the city like we have now. Put people on the move cheaply (and this will never be cheaper to implement than now) and commerce will follow the networks.

Image via WikipediaAs a mayoral aspirant I spoke of the merits of guided bus ways evolving into light rail. As events unfolded with Sept and Feb I have seen and critical observed how bus ways would have been durable, efficient movers of people as well as priority corridors for ambulance, fire and police 'around and bypassing' the traffic. That alone gives the idea merit.... get over this talk of rebuilding what is broken... when in all honesty, it wasn't working very well before. The Commercial developers ie: Ballantine et al vision for the city is a shopping experience..... in a world where people want to buy less and less.

Get over it, the old school is deadwood. The focus for the city 'ratepayers' should be on what benefits the ratepayer... and to do that we have to rapidly increase the rate base across the city... high value commercial property with high social values. I would progressively ring the city with high-speed guiderail bus routes feeding into the four avenues from hub stations at the existing mall developments, university airport, hospitals, etc I would open the idea of hubbing light freight by autonomous 'carriers' and as this network enhances the city hotels and service centers etc could grow peripheral too the CBD.

Integrated use of land available (under emergency provisions and townplanning etc) creates a tourism and service centre on hte south side of Hagley integrating the heavy rail networks... (yep, the saleyards! take em back... they used to service 52 regional railway stations...100 years ago).

The only way to Green this city is to tackle the hard stuff now... get the networks right and the added value to the city will come....

Be vigilant and carefully scrutinize the burgeoning political and civic epithets...they are covers for 'I used to be relevant'.

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

Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water

2010-11-12T19:22:00.001+13:00

A letter [12th of October] to The Hon Greg Combet MP Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water in Australia from Alan Marshall of Climate Change Answers in Tasmania: -

www.climatechangeanswers.org is at: -
www.climatechangeanswers.org/campaign/LessonsFromCopenhagen.pdf

makes a good case for Contraction and Convergence [C&C].

"Contraction and Convergence"

Built on the ideal of per-capita emissions rights, the model is practical in its implementation. Because the emissions cuts required by developed nations are so deep, convergence to a per-capita solution is only possible over time.

In contraction, the total annual emission of greenhouse gases reaches a ceiling, and then gradually contracts. The convergence mechanism facilitates the distribution of emission entitlements across the world to converge on equality. At the end of the convergence period countries receive entitlements in proportion to the size of their population.

Developed countries are the first to make large cuts in their emissions levels, whereas developing countries are permitted to keep increasing their emissions levels for a period before also beginning to cut their emissions.

The model has widespread support from scientists, businessmen, politicians, and faith groups. (see http://gci.org.uk) It has received endorsement from a long list of luminaries, including: -

Raul Estrada, Chairman Kyoto Protocol Negotiations
Nick Clegg, UK Deputy Prime Minister
Ed Milliband, Leader of the UK Labour Party
Sir David Attenborough, Naturalist
Dr Tim Flannery, Australian of the Year

(and we are left to wonder why the media pretended if you werent Jim or Bob, your contribution to the civics of Christchurch could only be limited to the merest by-line. /Blair)

Results are in... 850+ to Anderson

2010-10-10T03:47:00.000+13:00

Image via WikipediaAnother 850 votes from Christchurch City.

Not too bad given the media blackout on issues, no debate and the earthquake. Oh and a budget of less than 20 dollars.

It should be noted that despite an increased turnout, the incumbent Mayor, Bob Parker was returned but his popularity is still tempered by >74% of Christchurch Citizens over 18yrs not voting for him. Barely a mandate.

Retiring MP, Jim Anderton proved to be 'yesterdays man' with about 1 in 5 support.

(*still some specials etc to come in)

Government Responsibility for the Drug Culture

2010-10-09T19:30:00.000+13:00

Image by Tony the Misfit via Flickr

(and we wonder why James Webster suffered from 'double standard impediments to credible anti-alcohol/drug education. /Blair)

Exposing the Fraudulent Criminalization of Marijuana.

The harm caused by the war on pot extends beyond its 15 million prisoners; its cost has exceeded a trillion dollars.

For almost 40 years, the United States has waged a war on its own citizens who have used marijuana as a part of a drug culture originally encouraged by the government. The war was commenced despite the government's own findings that marijuana posed less of a risk to American society than alcohol, and that the greatest harm that would result from criminalization would be the injury caused to those arrested for possession and use. The harm caused by the war extends beyond its 15 million prisoners; its cost has exceeded a trillion dollars, and it has benefited only those who profit from the illegal cultivation and sale of marijuana. see Government Responsibility for the Drug Culture

Community Safety led "harm minimisation"

2010-10-08T11:30:00.001+13:00

Leading International Scientific Body Supports Call for Legalization and Regulation to Reduce Cannabis-Related Harms

http://stopthedrugwar.org/trenches/2010/oct/07/new_report_us_government_data_de

Lest we forget, NZ's 'tax and regulate' legislation was passed into law the day John Key became right and honourable.

--
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

1% goes to Anderson, not bad for $20

2010-10-03T01:39:00.002+13:00

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker has stormed to a decisive lead in the mayoral race a week out from election day, a Press poll shows.
The survey of 400 voters, conducted between September 24 and 29, showed that of those who had voted or planned to vote, Parker had 36 per cent support to Jim Anderton's 20 per cent. Another 28 per cent had not decided, 16 per cent would not disclose and 1 per cent opted for Blair Anderson.

(of course Jim will be saying I have been out stealing his votes)

--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Nailing Jelly to Trees.

2010-10-02T23:06:00.003+13:00

Image via Wikipedia

Elevated Police chase statistics and poor outcomes began when we introduced the poorly thought out Boy Racer Bill. This legislation had its roots in Christchurch and Mayor Parker. This is deserving of further thought (before all you red-neck bigots start trashing my letterbox).

see Christchurch Press: Pursuits vital to stop 'lawlessness'

An old time British cop, former head of London Metro/Scotland Yard Det Chief Super Eddie Ellison whom I hosted here back in 2004 said "never give an offender nothing left to lose". So what if all they have is their car? Look at what this young man (whose life is pretty much screwed now too) said. The clue is right there. Yes he was speeding. Yes he broke the law. Other people speed and break the law too including, notably several Prime Ministers but we don't take their cars off them. Do we. Get the picture folks...

It just might be the laws specifically targeting this 'age/sex' demographic is at fault and creating the outcomes we wish to avoid.

We have urban dog policy that is counter productive. We have urban drug policy that is counter productive... could it be we have yet again fallen in the same trap?

Consider: Sept 23rd, Commentary by the BBC's Mark Easton.

Perhaps the most radical idea in today's report on police and anti-social behaviour is the call for a "refocusing on what causes harm in communities, rather than what is or is not a 'crime'".

Instead of police resources being driven by what the criminal justice system regards as serious, we should put the effort into what does most damage to society and our quality of life. So where would that lead us?

The Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Denis O'Connor believes that, too often, "we sanctify anything that happens to be badged by some legislation as a crime" and dismiss incidents and activities which are "a blight on the lives of millions" but are not defined as criminal offences.

Harm comes in different forms: direct harm to the victim; harm to the community; harm to the perpetrator from the criminal justice response; harm to the economy - and on and on.

[Snip ends]

Frankly, we need an open and unprejudiced re-assessment from the ground up, lets look at the chase stats, lets look at the social factors and lets stop bullying young people. A couple driving home from the gym paid a very dear price for us to maintain an intolerance closely resembling stupidity. Now society is going to pay a very dear price to keep this young man in jail. And the outcome will be?

Mayor Parker (and regrettably his only possible alternative, Anderton) cannot rationally talk about harm minimisation as they are both of a mind they can nail jelly to trees 'if we only try harder'.

--
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

Christchurch Mayoralty, Sex Education and STV

2010-09-30T23:23:00.002+13:00

Image via Wikipedia

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

As seen on Pundit

2010-09-27T22:04:00.002+13:00

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 ‹(•¿•)›

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

2010-09-22T09:08:00.002+12:00

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

2010-09-03T19:58:00.002+12:00

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.

Open Letter to Welsh Local Body Voter

2010-09-03T11:12:00.001+12:00

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

If Hypocrisy Was Capital

2010-08-23T11:08:00.000+12:00

Image via WikipediaIf the hypocrisy that underpins our ‘all drugs’ policy was capital we would be in surplus.

No adjustment to alcohol ‘regulation’ can be made effective while the double standards that apply to cannabis (NZ most popular other drug) exist. Ramping up youth targeted partial prohibition of alcohol will serve ony to drive that demograph to illicit alternatives with contingent downsides, just as prohibition of the SAFER cannabis drives people to drink.

Third Wheel or Third Rail Issues?

2010-08-23T08:55:00.003+12:00

Wanted: Better Stories about a Policemen and their Dogs.

If ANY of the candidates running for mayor were given 1/10th of the exposure the Jim/Bob show has been given they might have had half a chance. Passing muster at the Media 'approval' gateway seems to be the greatest hurdle to getting ANY traction on issues largely defined by Media. (SEE Press Online : Do we need a third wheel? )

This fellow has contested elections against BOTH Jim and Bob, whereas no one else has.

This fellow has been acknowledged as one of the most well known activists around the hustings for social ecology and out classes ANY of the remaining mayoral others in contributing to debate around best practice administration.

And, laughably even when reporting the "Grey Power" meeting the Press still couldn't get it right in suggesting I was somehow anti-drug, when I pointed out it was Hon. Jim Anderton who "legally regulated psychoactive recreational soft drug use, sale, storage, manufacture, advertising, premises, labelling and age of consent R18" and ASKING BEFORE THE AUDIENCE if cannabis had been put into those regulations would Gage the Police Dog be Alive or Dead today?.... or for that matter Napier Officer Len Snee (Bob Parker declared it a central gvmt issue at the Long Term District Plan hearings when I was submitting that such rules would make the street SAFER - it was the day Len Snee was buried. I said it would happen here and a year later it did!)

Now if Councils are to determine the process and approval for liquor licencing purportedly to protect the public health, and the rules above were passed by the Associate Minister of Health and administered under the Ministry of Health, one could reasonably expect that MIGHT BE a reasoned debate since it IMPLICATES both candidates.

The PRESS dumbed down and thus endangered the next Policeman and his Dog.

The rules are there. They were made by the contesting candidate to manage BZP (A Christchurch problem and focus of previous Mayoral issues) and as CANNABIS is clearly and indisputably a soft drug, if these rules cannot be applied in Christchurch under the stewardship of their very author (and LABOUR party ) then where....?

Think about it, any other policy on the council agenda that "kills Policemen and their Dogs" ?

Why would media want to shut that debate down?

Or is such collateral damage OK to send messages to children, in a PEACE CITY.

-- http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/blogs/campaign-chatter/3965799/Do-we-need-a-third-wheel?comment_msg=posted#post_comment

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'

http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/

http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/

http://efsdp.org/

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

"Smart City, Clever People"

2010-08-22T01:57:00.001+12:00

As seen on PRESS.CO.NZ "A Day With Bob"

The election, as portrayed by the fourth estate has become a farce, efforts to establish a rapport with the community by earnest candidates where all voices are at the table and fresh thinking 'tested' is regarded quite cynically by notably, younger voters in particular. If increasing participation in the election is considered fundamental, then the media driven "Jim/Bob" show as it stands has little to offer.

Public, especially those whom under current standards may feel they are being feed a 'Hobson's choice' decision are urged to express this shortcoming to regional media AND make the public meetings as few as there are, dynamic.

Ask tough questions of your ALSO RUNNING. And for gawd's sake, lets gets some earnest heckling back into the audience. Live politics is better than reality TV. It's your city. Be the media. You ask the questions... create a new ecology of mind. Network, tweet and talk up, adopt even, your favourite 'also ran' and get the contest of ideas you deserve.

Blair Anderson - "Smart City, Clever People"

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

As seen on Yardly's Blog

2010-08-20T14:50:00.003+12:00

Mark Ross

A question for your two candidates tomorrow on the yardstick

Just a simple question for the two of you from a former Christchurch Mayoralty Candidate. Personalities have become the essence for elections over the past decade, so Bob, Why shoul...d I not vote for Jim, and Jim, Why should I not vote for Bob.

Mark RossSee More

15 hours ago ·

Blair Anderson

Bob will make the Jim mistake and vote for Anderson instead

Given the bile (see Hansard) Anderton spat over my name vs his name post 2002 (Having, according to Anderton purportedly deliberately confused his voters and thus stolen 500 of his votes) I cannot be sure Jim didn't vote for me then! He banned me from his office, hit over the head with a wet parliamentary letterhead. Crikey, he might even Vote for me in error again.

Mark Ross Don't want to get i trouble but i heard a few years ago that he is the dumbest MP in parliament.

13 hours ago ·

Meg Henry Mmmm the truth WILL out..and you only said "he"..

Blair Anderson

Hardheaded yes....Logroller, yes. Strategist, yes. But does being a logroller make for good mayoral stock? The notion that Anderton was cajoled into standing to be rid of Bob is frankly laughable.

The previous mayoral aspirant from that ...side of the fence was part of the strategy. If I was a logroller, this is just what I would do.

Christchurch could be governed by leader of 'the PROGRESSIVE COALITION PARTY' [PCP] and here we are complaining about the Government eating ECAN (IMHO). The JIM/BOB show suits who the most?

Lots of Candidates running. But only one who has stood against Garry, Bob, and Jim. [One didn't even know he was going to do it until two hours before.] How many more fresh faces like him?

Search & Surveillance Bill 'fundamentally flawed'

2010-08-15T23:11:00.001+12:00

Image by Infrogmation via Flickr

Revised Search and Surveillance Bill still fundamentally flawed [link]

"There will be an urgent public meeting on Monday 30 August at 7pm at St Joseph's Church (Basin Reserve) in Wellington to address the just returned Search and Surveillance Bill. An interim report on the Search and Surveillance Bill was issued by the Justice and Electoral Select Committee last week. The report is an admission that the bill will confer enormous new powers onto approximately 70 government agencies," said Campaign Spokesperson Batch Hales.

"The report confirms that police will get a load of new powers: video surveillance where police trespass onto private property will be made legal; the circumstances in which audio bugging will be legal will be dramatically increased from what it is at present. The threshold for warrantless searches is being lowered, as are the circumstances for setting up roadblocks."

"Speakers at the public meeting will be Michael Bott from the Council for Civil Liberties speaking against the bill next to Select Committee chairman Chester Burrows, government MP for Whanganui, who will be there to try and justify the vast expansion of state power. At the meeting, the Campaign group will be urging people to make submissions and get involved in political action on the streets to stop the bill."

"Despite the modifications to the bill, the fundamental issues remain. It makes on-going 24-hour-a- day surveillance equivalent to a one-off search. Secondly, the bill makes video and audio surveillance the first and primary means of law enforcement and crime solving. The current law says that audio surveillance can be utilized effectively as a last resort when other methods have not worked or are not available. The privacy implications for ordinary people from video and audio surveillance are profound.

Thirdly, the bill makes no differentiation between video and audio surveillance. Again, most people would not agree with that conclusion. The old adage, 'A picture speaks a thousand words' illustrates well why video surveillance is indeed a far greater invasion of privacy than audio surveillance. It is without hyperbole to say that legalising police trespass to install video surveillance would be ushering 'Big Brother' into people's living rooms."

ENDS

For more information, check out our website http://www.stopthebillnow.blogspot.com/ or email us at stopthebillnow@gmail.com

St Mary's Mayoral Debate

2010-08-11T17:56:00.003+12:00

The media, despite advice to the contrary`, has by omission of fact been playing the "Blair Anderson" is not standing for Mayor

Complicity of media and those with a vested stake hold in who gets mindshare is assured by perpetuation of the Jim/Bob show - one could be forgiven for believing Socialism versus Elitism is the only debate in town.

In keeping with the tenor of óffsettingbehaviour there was only one candidate at today's (08/08/10) debate at St Mary's (N. Brighton) prepared to call in resolved drug policy (ie: Class D) as key to improved public safety, STV to improved governance and contraction and convergence for better frameworks to manage climate mitigation and protection.

That said, Anderton did agree that water fluoridation had not improved Australian Rugby, whereas Blair Anderson said evidence showed it had not improved dental caries in Hong Kong, rather it had markedly degraded.
--
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

Put Jim Anderton in Jail for his Crimes Against Humanity.

2010-08-11T01:59:00.003+12:00

Image via Wikipedia On Sunday last I was speaking at St Mary's Catholic Church Hall in New Brighton launching informally my third Christchurch City Mayoral campaign... just as the UK's Guardian/Observer was publishing an opinion piece that cited LEAP colleagues of mine. [retired judge Maria Lucia Karam]

Amongst other things of high import to the October postal election I argued that Hon Jim Anderton has no place being rewarded with the Mayoralty of my home town for the legacy of failure that he had both responsibility for (assoc Min of Health) and under his watch saw the ramping up of drug prohibition. (like banning BZP despite 'best practice' recommendations to put it in Class D)

I was applauded for having the courage to postulate, were cannabis put under Anderton's "restricted substances regulations" [cf: Class D], would the Police dog "Gage" be alive or dead today? If the answer is ALIVE, then you cannot vote for and thus reward failure.

An excerpt:

Class D for Christchurch 'Brilliant'

2010-08-04T01:20:00.002+12:00

NZ Regulated "Soft" Drugs?

Image via Wikipedia

This civic minded fellow didn't notice any of the 'other' mayoral candidates at Professor Nutt's lecture held at the Otago School of Medicine this evening... although some curious fellow asked David Nutt if he supported SAFER communities using Anderton's Class D for the regulation of cannabis?

Nutt thought regulating psychoactive recreational drugs "Brilliant" and an idea so clever that he wished he had thought of "Class D" himself. [After acknowledging that he talks about it often and was surprised to learn media (or other commentators) haven't discussed its potential.]

Despite its homegrown origins, its a 'world class' idea more recognised outside of New Zealand than within, it seems.

Well that Anderton guy has something to live up to 'these elections' - lets see if he has electoral integrity or is just Mere talk.

And since Bob Parker's boy-racer "youth justice" intersects with drug policy, (and as both he and Jim probably get a briefing on whats going down on "Canterbury Public Issues Forum") they might note the quote below from a Social Justice paper another Professor I like, another peer of mine.. Prof David Goldson.

If there is a lesson from Professor Nutt it must be that no amount of campaign investment in media and merchandising of image can overcome sheer bloodyminded and populist stupidity.

"At the root of such activity lies a core tension between measured reason and punitive emotion; between an expressed commitment to ‘evidence-based policy’ and a populist rhetoric of ‘tough’ correctionalism." - see http://crj.sagepub.com/content/10/2/155.abstract

"...this article advances an argument that the trajectory of policy has ultimately moved in a diametrically opposed direction to the route signalled by research-based knowledge and practice-based evidence. Moreover, such knowledge—policy rupture has produced a youth justice system that ultimately comprises a conduit of social harm. All of this raises serious questions of
knowledge/evidence—policy relations and, more fundamentally, of democracy, power and accountability. "

- Professor Barry Goldson, University of Liverpool, UK

You should have listened when you had the opportunity JimBob!

Fatal crash in Christchurch

2010-07-12T12:50:00.002+12:00

There has been a fatal crash following what appears to have been a police chase in Christchurch. [10/07/2010 ]

It happened early this morning at the intersection of Moorhouse Avenue and Manchester Street. Police say a Mitsubishi Lancer with six people in it was pulled over, but the driver drove off at speed as an officer approached it. It went through a set of red lights before crashing into a concrete power pole. One person was killed in the impact, two others are critical and one is in a serious condition in Christchurch Hospital.

Could someone please explain 'deviancy amplification' to the proponents and espousers of 'boyracer' legislation.

Minor deviancy, in this context, can be amplified by the mechanisms designed to control it. Deviance amplification was proposed by Leslie Wilkins and ...social.jrank.org/pages/1826/deviance-amplification.html

/Blair

Municiple Waste to Energy in Blairstown!

2010-07-01T10:49:00.002+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

In Iowa, Fiberight announced that it commenced production at the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant to enzymatic conversion technology and industrial / municipal solid waste (MSW) as feedstock.

Fiberight recently completed its initial stage development by converting a former first generation corn ethanol plant in Blairstown, Iowa to cellulosic biofuel production which incorporates specialized waste treatment and biochemical technologies to efficiently turn MSW into biofuel.

Fiberight has retained Source Capital Group, Inc of Westport, CT to complete a financing led by Venture Cross Partners of Great Falls, VA to provide expansion capital for the Blairstown biorefinery.

Following a total $24 million investment, the facility will be scaled to final commercial production capacity of approximately 6 million gallons of biofuel per year in 2011.

(A curious development notably that NZ's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry For the Environment and Christchurch City Council said, couldnt be done... and look where is is "Blairstown", sheese, ya couldnt make it up if ya tried! and all on the day ETS is being held to account! )
--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
ph nz (643) 389 4065 nz cell 027 265 7219

Smart City, Clever People

2010-06-24T00:14:00.000+12:00

Post subject: Mayor Blair on "A Smart City" - Christchurch

Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:07 pm

I had been asked, "Should you be elected to council how will you improve Christchurch ?"

My name is Blair Anderson. I am 53. I am a technology consultant focused on the energy and transport sector and a well known social policy commentator across a wide interest range.

I ran for mayor 3 years ago. I was described by the PRESS's human resources consultant as having a "bewildering array of science and environmental knowledge". However, as a 'none the less earnest' candidate this time round journalists seem to be left reeling and dumbfounded by the clear and erudite vision statements I have released.

As a Mayoral Candidate with a clear and deliverable vision including but not limited too climate change beyond Kyoto and vision of evidence based reductions in crime, expenditure and enhanced public safety I challenge any other Mayoral candidate to do better than the deliverable benefits that I bring to the table.

I bring a science and evidence based policy analytic approach to addressing emerging concerns on Air and Water quality, on transport integration and in urban living environments strategy. What art is there in design if safety and security is compromised.

For example, I question visions of light rail absent a progressive guided bus terminus integrated to existing rail capability.

This means stopping the proposed new bus terminus, it entrenches and locks in road network failure.

I propose a transitional move to restrict city ommuter buses to the four avenues and to the one way networks and have the inner city serviced with expanded 'yellow' free low emission's buses pending a demand lead transition to 'light rail' tha links heavy rail and intercity and satellite communities 'work and ride' coach networks.

I would do this by recovering the Adding ton Sale Yards and building the integrated 'civic facilities into an iconic carbon neutral transport hub for the city the binds the airport to the seaport seamlessly. Using guide rail buses we can build the civic corridors of the future while capitalising the infrastructure that will eventually scope a multi modal light rail when passenger levels and carbon/climate make it viable or necessary.

I would enhance participatory democracy ensuring Christchurch elects a mayor and council with no less than 50% of voter support to enable consensus and expeditious board decisions in changing times.

I would engage Christchurch citizens and institutions into the international community surrounding climate change as an antipodean center of expertise and to advocating the southern hemisphere's special cultural and climatological needs. ("contraction and convergence" is the key. go on 'google it' and be empowered! informed and a master of OUR destiny.)

I would engage our sister city relationship with Seattle where 'drug policy' has matured into a crime reducing health delivering, safety enhancing cost saving initiative.

I would question the efficacy inner city development that needs more and more 'bars' to fund developer returns. (its an environmental issue too!)

I would protect Christchurch water by ensuring the territorial authorities re-examine from first principles the first come first served RMA/Environment Court imperatives.

I would move to ensure the Urban Development Strategy of our city, continues to protect its special character and history while ensuring the highest design standards in brown field recovery, in green building and green space provision aimed at community's of interest (again consistent with best practice and consultation)

I would move to capitalize on our Garden, Peace and anti-nuclear international reputation by committing resources to investigating high altitude wind, plasma waste to energy and the incredible utility of Banks Peninsular as a carbon sink to meet at a minimum the 90% required carbon equivalent reductions before 2050.

I would ensure the inner city and arterial networks reduce particulate emissions to levels that make Christchurch a SAFE city to bicycle and walk in all year round. I would do this by making our city clean fueled and license vehicle operators privileged access to the city networks and parking with positive reinforcement for EURO standard emissions.

It is by ensuring that ratepayers get value for their continuing investment in their city that I would make ALL expenditures accountable on a clear cost benefit return basis. Non-core activities such as events management (such as the $30,000 budgeted for Akaroa French festival or the $19,000 for outgoing councilor nosh up) are self sustaining or quite simply, they don't happen on my watch. Clear directives, standards and accountability....

I am here to internalise the benefits of a 'smart city and the rich tapestry of people who live in it'.

And that's just a beginning... enable the outcome! Vote Blair here.

Finally... elected or not, your call for STV in Christchurch will make a difference. Bit don't expect councilors selected under FTP to ask for STV, [turkeys voting for Christmas comes to mind.] It's up to you. You call the shots.

If you want to know more, just ask via this forum. I welcome hard questions!

PS: If elected I would continue to be accessible in Cathedral Square on Fridays, to follow in Garry's tradition would give me great pleasure. Come and kick my metaphorical shins anytime!

"Mayor Blair"

Last edited by blair4mayor.com on Sat Oct 06, 2007 10:39 am; edited 1 time in total

BBC News | Sci/Tech | Cannabis 'safer than alcohol and tobacco'

2010-06-18T22:29:00.000+12:00

Image by E-Mans av8pix.com via Flickr

BBC News | Sci/Tech | Cannabis 'safer than alcohol and tobacco': (and firearms and explosives. /Blair )

Key Bank and World Trade Centre

2010-06-06T11:25:00.001+12:00

A Political Image?

"Key Bank and World Trade Centre"
(C) Blair Anderson 2009

(It is really an original photo I took while visiting Denver, Colorado)

First Come, STV and Water.

2010-04-18T10:29:00.002+12:00

"It's a Central Government issue, Blair." Image via Wikipedia

(as commented on STUFF in reference to ECAN / Water debacle)

Some will recall the 'water' question at the 2007 Town Hall Mayoral debate. Few will recall one Mayoral candidate who pre-empted the most important issue for Canterbury backing in 'Save Our Water' for ECAN, but more importantly denounced the unseen flaw in water management - the historical legacy of the 'first come - first served' provision of the RMA. No matter who runs for and wins the golden chains or how many commissioners are at the behest of Ministerial whim, until that anomaly is fixed the resource is at grave risk.

As a third tilt Mayoral candidate I shall continue to place reason and science before aspirational goals and misplaced ideology and hold any other candidate to a very high ethical standard by way of robust debate. Notably, in 2004 and 2007, neither Garry Moore nor Bob Parker would rise to debate 'this fellow' on any issue. Perhaps the public should be better informed and ASK media to give ALL candidates given a fair crack of the whip if only to improve the lackluster voter participation.

Single Transferable Vote would enable a this city to elect a real 'champion' with NO LESS THAN a 50% proportion of all votes cast. Such a Mayor would not treat the council of twelve with such fickle regard. And a council similarly elected under STV would be a council 'of proportional consensus' and divested of the political ideology manifest in FPP. Only by accurately reflecting the community in which it serves is a council able to deliver best practice and efficient governance.

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
ph nz (643) 389 4065 nz cell 027 265 7219

Transparency Required in Wall Debate

2010-04-06T13:09:00.005+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

Councillors say, "build protective childproof fences around all brick walls. If it only saves one child it would have been worth it."
A small inconvenience but likely to be supported by public. (no need to go to consultation). The costs are 'just an investment in our youth'. Stiff compliance penalties to encourage support for the safety initiative is suggested. Unfenced walls are just premeditated 'child abuse'.
Urban Health Research Initiative commentator, Blair Anderson acknowledges "that these walls were originally built to protect kids from themselves, but the evidence shows it is the walls themselves that place kids at risk"
The experienced consultant in civic policy when pressed for comment said "A lot of folk think walls should not be solid, rather 'see through' to prevent stranger danger." Some citizens on talkback are pressing for Brick walls to be phased out if not banned altogether. "we wouldn't tolerate such 'obstruction' in a public space, why should the public have to put up with such barriers on private land. If they have nothing to hide they must be, at a very minimum, transparent".

Some city councillors supported a precautionary principal-led 'trial' forbidding climbing over brick walls. The danger 'in this tragedy' has been obvious for all to see.

Whereas public sentiment has been quiet, an unnamed CYPS psychologist has been reported saying that Children must be protected from illusionary 'otherside' thinking, ('grass is greener') as risk taking is associated with propensity to drug abuse, truancy and deviancy and when mixed with 'walls', even solid ones, to self harm, often [ even mistakenly] attributed to gravity.

The Commissioner for Children's spokesperson for quality parenting notes that the unforeseen and potentially tragic consequences have been known about for some time laying the blame at the feet of nieve parents and ignorant officials, noting "it all started with clearly immature young people making 'bad choices'.

The horse has bolted, we have to fence off these walls immediately."

--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Urban Health and Drug Policy intersect at Lies Police tell.

2010-03-29T10:12:00.000+13:00

Image via Wikipedia

The latest social (urban health) research suggests the Police complicity in 'creating crime' makes NZ's BERL report on measureing drug harms and subsequently the National Drug Intelligence Bureau, look like anus heads.

" legal interventions to disrupt the drug market may actually boost rates of drug-related violence"...

see http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/images/Documents/violence_summary-eng.pdf

(full report at http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/images/Documents/violence-eng.pdf )

This of course is not the only supporting evidence that drug policy is skewed. New Zealands appearance in the 'murder rate' runoff should be no surprise.

And as for Greg O'Conner's dismisal of the United Nations reports on TASERS, "look at yourselves, Greg." When you lie and cheat in court and out, dont expect the public to fawn at your feet. They hate you and yours for your double dealing ways.... Get honest with drug policy in particular alcohol and cannabis and redeem yourselves. Bad policy causes dead cops.

Would Len Snee be alive or dead today if cannabis was a regulated and controlled 'class D' drug...

Instead we get "D" for not thinking about it... D for Dead.

Canine Aggression and Community Safety

2010-02-05T07:34:00.000+13:00

Breed specific legislation [BSL] is no answer to this apparent and ill-defined problem. BSL comes about from asking the wrong question. If a 'pit-bull' (insert dog of the moment) caused a problem, then (why not) ban them. Problem solved. The 'here and now' problem is best addressed by asking 'has what we are doing solved the problem or are we getting increased incidences?'. The research and thus 'answer' is instructive. The problem is, that research has not been carried out. Despite collecting tens of millions in dog fees no concrete research budget for social policy formulation is currently allocated. This is socially irresponsible. It is also poor administration and leads to the policy by panic to largely satiate the public thirst for simple and populist solutions.

We must commence any inquiry from first principles... What "do" we know? And a good place to start might be to first acknowledge that (1) Dogs provide a valuable role in society and (2) 600,000 dogs in New Zealand never bit anyone today.

That is why I asked Local Government Minister Hon Rodney Hide to consider an appropriate research budget at the New Zealand Companion Animal Conference in Auckland last year. There cannot be any good management without good measure.

To fail to do the hard stuff, we will be left to have policy made up on the fly as touted by those puppy-killing Invercargill City administrators and the balance of 'noisy' local government grifters who utterly depend on dog fees for their jobs.

As a both handler/trainer (http://nakeddog.co.nz) and social policy wonk, it has been my experience that the higher we build our fences and the shorter we keep dogs on lead the more we generate the very problem we set out to solve. As few as one in five dogs in New Zealand get their required daily walk (Massey, Palmerston North).

And we thought micro-chipping was going to help?

I would commend those 'tough on pit-bull' folk to consider this issue carefully. If they wish to get some good advice from a man with experience in such issues, World renowned behaviour expert and vet, Dr Ian Dunbar (http://dogstar.doglinks.co.nz) is addressing canine 'aggression' during his visit to Auckland and Christchurch this month.

One can only hope that he will attract the media attention that pit-bulls do.

--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

School fo the Naked Dog

50 Wainoni Road, Christchurch

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

Bono Goes Mild Green on Climate!

2010-01-06T10:44:00.000+13:00

Image by Oxfam America via Flickr

An Equal Right to Pollute (and the Polluter-Pays Principle)

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2010/01/04/the-best-news-on-climate-change-for-months-maybe/

"In the recent climate talks in Copenhagen, it was no surprise that developing countries objected to taking their feet off the pedal of their own carbon-paced growth; after all, they played little part in building the congested eight-lane highway of a problem that the world faces now.
One smart suggestion I’ve heard, sort of a riff on cap-and-trade, is that each person has an equal right to pollute and that there might somehow be a way to monetize this. By this accounting, your average Ethiopian can sell her underpolluting ways (people in Ethiopia emit about 0.1 ton of carbon a year) to the average American (about 20 tons a year) and use the proceeds to deal with the effects of climate change (like drought), educate her kids and send them to university. (Trust in capitalism — we’ll find a way.) As a mild green, I like the idea, though it’s controversial in militant, khaki-green quarters. And yes, real economists would prefer to tax carbon at the source, but so far the political will is not there. If it were me, I’d close the deal before the rising nations want it backdated." - BONO

heads up to Aubrey Meyer,
GCI.ORG.UK
57 Howard Road
LONDON E17 4SH
Ph 0208 520 4742

Seattle Mayor Thinks It's Time To Talk, Christchurch's Doesnt.

2009-12-30T15:13:00.000+13:00

Seattle Mayor-elect supports marijuana legalization

Seattle Mayor-elect Mike McGinn as quoted in a recent radio interview on NPR: "If every elected official who ever smoked marijuana voted to legalize it would probably be legalized in an instant. We recognize that, like alcohol, it's something that should be regulated not treated as a criminal activity and I think that's where the citizens of Seattle want us to go."

Perhaps he should invite Mayor Bob Parker to come over and see what a 'SAFER CITY' really looks like....

Could there be an honest admission in the future of our incumbent?

/Blair

IMECHE C&C - implications for ChCh & NZ

2009-11-15T07:42:00.001+13:00

The UK-based Institute of Mechanical Engineers [IMECHE] have just published a new report entitled: - CLIMATE CHANGE HAVE WE LOST THE BATTLE?

www.imeche.org/NR/rdonlyres/77CDE5E4-CE41-4F2C-A706-A630569EE486/0/IMechE_MAG_Report.PDF

In it they say: -

"The [UK] Government's targets and budgets have been set using a top-down approach based on the principle of contraction and convergence.

Effectively calling for a war-time economy,

IMECHE also say: -

"The Institution of Mechanical Engineers supports the principle of contraction and convergence."

From: Aubrey Meyer aubrey@gci.org.uk

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
ph nz (643) 389 4065 nz cell 027 265 7219
USA ph/cell/txt 213-3006861

Govt urged to ease up on cannabis (>10 years ago)

2009-10-29T14:27:00.002+13:00

Title:

Evening Post article (NZ)

Published On:

1997-07-22

Source:

The Evening Post (Wellington)

Fetched On:

2008-09-08 14:11:32

Govt urged to ease up on cannabis

Outlawing cannabis is wrong and the Government must change strict cannabis laws, says a highpowered group of doctors and scientists.

The Drug Policy Forum Trust today released a discussion paper, offering four

new ways to control cannabis use.

It says freeing up the use of cannabis would have little adverse impact on public health it could even be "mildly positive" because alcohol and tobacco use would fall.

The group concluded that cannabis appeared to be harmless for about 90 percent of the people who used it, and that adverse effects were "substantially" less severe than those associated with excessive alcohol and tobacco use.

"We do not believe that cannabis is completely safe far from it" says the paper. "However, the health effects of cannabis are largely irrelevant to the problem of deciding which cannabis control policy to adopt.

"Indeed the more harmful we judge cannabis to be, the more important it is to exercise control over its distribution. Such control cannot be exercised in a prohibition environment, which in effect abdicates control to the black market."

The paper urges the Government to take control of the problem.

Forum director David Hadorn, a former Ministry of Health policy analyst, said while he expected the Government to try to push aside the paper, he doubted it would be ignored.

Its conclusions have angered and excited people on both sides of the cannabis debate.

Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party leader Michael Appleby, a Wellington lawyer, said the party had long supported partial prohibition. He was delighted with the paper.

He believed it would add momentum to the slow shift in attitudes towards cannabis and hoped the Goverment would be "brave" enough to listen.

But cartoonist Tom Scott, author of an antidrug book which was slated [criticized] by the forum, dismissed the conclusions as "bogus."

He said his primary concern was the teenagers whose lives were "wrecked" by cannabis. A law change would do nothing to help them.

A spokeswoman for Justice Minister Doug Graham said no plans existed to decriminalise cannabis. She had not seen the paper.

The forum, an independent group which says it is dedicated to raising the level of debate about illicit drug use in New Zealand, formed its conclusions after studying international and local research.

Its paper says in the past 25 years no "scholarly" body has endorsed cannabis prohibition. It blames prohibition for creating a lucrative and often violent black drugs market, for blocking effective education programmes, increasing the appeal of cannabis to young people, creating disrespect fot the law, breeding police corruption and oppressing young people and racial minorities.

It rejects arguments that freeing up cannabis laws would increase the number of people who use cannabis. It says any increase would be small and largely limited to adults.

The group says it is imperative that effective education programmes be developed in conjunction with any reform of the country's cannabis control system.

It is calling for public submissions on the paper and says it will then make a specific recommendation early next year.

Dr Hadorn released part of the paper at a public meeting yesterday and said it was time scientists and professionals had the courage to speak up about drugs and not allow "people who don't know what they are talking about to drum up hysteria."

A copy of the paper is available on the New Zealand Drug Foundation Internet website (http://www.nzdf.org.nz) as of today.

The forum trustees are Druis Barrett, Maori Women's Welfare League; Dr Robin Briant, Auckland Hospital senior physician, Dr Peter Crampton, Health Services Research Centre research fellow; Professor Fred Fastier, University of Otago emeritus pharmacology; Amster Reedy, Maori scholar, Professor Norman Sharpe, Auckland Medical School medicine department head; Helen Shaw, educationalist; and Professor Warren Young, Victoria University professor of law and assistant vicechancellor for research.

[Sidebar]

At a Glance

The Drug Policy Forum Trust's four alternative cannabis control systems:

* Total prohibition but with exceptions, as practice in Holland since 1976, where the Government agrees not to enforce the law under defined circumstances.

* Prohibition but imposing civil penalties, such as fines, rather than criminal penalties for minor offences, as operates in parts of Australia, Europe and America.

* Partial prohibition which would legalise limited possession and cultivation for personal use, but ban forprofit sale. This operates in Alaska, Spain, and Italy.

* Regulation in which cannabis would be treated much like alcohol and tobacco where growers would be license by a cannabis control board. Some personal cultivation could be permitted. No country operates this system.

* The forum rules out the option of free availability as insufficiently realistic to warrant discussion.

Who would have thought that National would preside over world first declassification 'Partial Prohibition' regulations and say nothing.

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'

http://mildgreens.blogspot.com (currently in dispute with Google who removed it!)

http://blairformayor.blogspot.com

http://blair4mayor.com

http://efsdp.org

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

"Rapid Increase In Illness" From The H1N1 Influenza Virus

2009-10-29T12:22:00.001+13:00

CNN Reports President Obama Declares National Emergency To Deal With The "Rapid Increase In Illness" From The H1N1 Influenza Virus; Cannabis Science Continues Progress On Its Research To Show Cannabis Can Reduce Risk of Death from "Swine Flu"

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Oct 26, 2009 -- Cannabis Science Inc. (NASD OTCBB: CBIS | Quote | Chart |News | PowerRating) an emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company, is urging that US government recognize that phytocannabinoid pharmaceutical products can help reduce Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)-associated deaths from both the Avian and Swine Influenza infections, as President Obama declares a national emergency. President Obama signed the declaration late Friday and announced it Saturday. We urge readers go to: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/24/h1n1.obama/index.html to read the whole story on the CNN website.

President Obama stated, "The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities." President Obama continued with, "Thus, in recognition of the continuing progression of the pandemic, and in further preparation as a nation, we are taking additional steps to facilitate our response." Cannabis Science, Inc. President & CEO Dr. Robert Melamede stated, "Clearly, there is little time to gear up the mass production of pharmaceutical cannabis products to meet the immediate needs of this national emergency. However, President Obama's new policy of federal tolerance of medical marijuana where is it legal under state laws, makes it possible for Cannabis Science to work with the medical marijuana patients and providers in some states to help develop products to meet patients' needs. If the situation is dire enough to justify calling it a "National Emergency", then surely medical ethics require that we work diligently with all relevant research." Dr. Melamede also deplored efforts in Los Angeles and other areas to close dispensaries and/or ban edibles. "It is hard to imagine a more wrong-headed approach or a worse time to deprive people of access to cannabis edibles. Again, we recommend, based on sound scientific principles, that medical marijuana users should switch to edibles if they come down with an influenza infection. We believe that the irritation associated with the pulmonary route, when a person has an influenza infection, may lead to unnecessary deaths. In contrast, oral administration may prevent many deaths. We hope that due to the magnitude of this pandemic threat, that the FDA will fast track our proposal." Please visit our website www.cannabisscience.com in the next few days as we will be posting a survey for those who encountered the H1N1 and other influenza symptoms and experiences. This Cannabis Science Survey will be designed to acquire anecdotal human data regarding the effects of Medical Marijuana on influenza infections. The company plans to monitor activity, collect data, and report findings in its reports to the FDA.

Cannabis Science H1N1 Swine Flu Formulation: Dr. Melamede explains, "We now know that the endocannabinoid system plays a critical role in maintaining human health. The human body produces Endocannabinoids on demand when they are needed. They help restore homeostasis (biochemical balance). The Cannabis plant produces Phytocannabinoids. When the human body has endocannabinoid deficiencies, it cannot effectively restore the healthy biochemical state needed to counter a particular illness. Phytocannabinoids from the Cannabis plant can replace the deficient endocannabinoid activity in the human body to restore a health-promoting level of cannabinoid activity. Cannabis Science will test its pharmaceutical products with FDA guidance and oversight to determine if it will reduce ARDS-associated deaths from both the Avian and Swine influenza infections."

--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com (currently in dispute with Google who removed it!)
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com
http://blair4mayor.com
http://efsdp.org

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

It is my cultural belief, in respect of use of the 'H'

2009-10-23T15:29:00.002+13:00

To: afternoons@radionz.co.nz

that to preserve and protect the historical foundations of the South Island's pre-european history I respectfully petition for restoration of the 'H" in signage and reference to Whanaka, its region, its geographic features and the literature and language of its territorial authority and dominion of New Zealand...

I premiss this petition noting the following authority;

according to James MacKay, Assistant Native Secretary

THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE MAORI, HIS MYTHOLOGY AND TRADITIONS. NGA-TI-WHATUA [VOL. IX]

LETTER FROM JAMES MACKAY TO MR. H. SMITH, OCTOBER 1859

I was told that those wild or uncivilized Natives belonged to a tribe called Ngatimamoe, that they had been one of the strongest and most numerous of the aboriginal tribes of the Middle Island, but from the incessant wars which raged between them and the Ngaitahu they had become so reduced in numbers, that the remnant, amounting to about thirty (chiefly men) withdrew to the mountain fortresses, west of Lakes Hawea and Whanaka (Oanaka on charts), from which they could not be driven.

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Whi09MAnci-t1-front-d3.html

--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/ (currently in dispute with Google who removed it!)
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Drinking Age Debate Flawed.

2009-10-12T11:52:00.001+13:00

The lowering of the drinking age was done for very good reasons. These reasons are conveniently being dispensed with as if they have nothing to do with the current debate... Is one left to presume that alcohol has got more intoxicating, or human genes made us more susceptible to alcohol in these intervening years?

see http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/2954674/Lowering-drinking-age-a-mistake-poll

No... but one thing has changed. Drug Policy! When the 'drug we drink' was separated from the National Drug Policy formulation processes where highly recommended best practice was to treat ALL drugs 'independent' of legal status. Intense lobbying from the liquor industry saw the separation occur contrary to ALL the best advice, expertise and science.

Our DRUG POLICY FRAMEWORK is flawed. The Law Commission examination of Alcohol in separation from other recreational drug use needs to be more fully explored by the public and MEDIA has an important role to play in doing this. Cannabis for example, is SAFER than alcohol. On that fact alone the social policy on alcohol needs to be informed by cannabis policy. Likewise cannabis policy (also subject to scrutiny by the Law Commission) needs to be informed by Alcohol policy.

The new Restricted Substances Regulations (Oct6 2008) represents an opportunity to have that conversation but MEDIA have steadfastly avoided the implications of having R18 legally regulated recreational psychoactive soft drugs for sale under administration of the Ministry of Health while alcohol is all but banned. (Not that some folk wouldn't agree with...) Such a rule... as NOW exists would to all intents and purposes suggest that such drugs that should be regulated (ie: cannabis, khat, ecstasy, lsd) are indeed SAFER than Alcohol and this use of regulation and thus control would represent an informed, intelligent, science based approach that does more to solve the methamphetamine problem than symbolic bans on pseudoephidrine cold remedies or empty promises that 'treatment', if compulsory, will curtail problematic drug use.

Marijuana For Binge Drinkers?

2009-10-03T23:03:00.002+13:00

Image by ian boyd via Flickr

Pubdate: Mon, 28 Sep 2009
Source: Tufts Daily (MA Edu)
Copyright: 2009 Tufts Daily
Author: Derek Schlom

New Study Explores Possible Benefits Of Marijuana For Binge Drinkers

A controversial new study found that smoking marijuana may improve brain functions.

Before you down that fifth shot of Jagermeister, you might want to fire up a joint. Research shows that compared with alcohol, marijuana causes less brain damage.

In a study completed at the University of California, San Diego, the results of which were published in the current issue of the scientific journal "Neurotoxicology and Teratology," researchers examined the white brain matter of 42 teenage participants. The participants were placed into three groups: those classified as binge drinkers (defined in this case as males who consume five or more drinks in one sitting and females who consume four or more), binge drinkers who also smoked marijuana "regularly" and a control group of those who neither drank nor smoked.

The binge drinkers displayed lower fractional anisotropy (FA) scores - indicating white brain matter damage - in all eight sections of the brain than the control groups, whereas the second group (those who also smoked marijuana) had lower FA scores than the control in only three sections. Additionally, in a finding the researchers termed "surprising," the second group had higher FA scores than the first in seven of the brain sections.

So, how are the experts reacting to these findings? Mason Tvert, co-author of "Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?" and executive director of the marijuana legalization advocacy group Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, sees validation in the results.

I find it ironic that marijuana can actually protect you from alcohol," he said. "It's just one more way in which marijuana is safer than alcohol, and I hope this dispels the myth that marijuana kills brain cells when it's actually protecting brain cells from damage. Marijuana gives a temporary euphoric effect, whereas binge drinking causes long-term permanent damage."

MEDIA, LIES and SOFT DRUGS

2009-09-26T23:35:00.001+12:00

Image by publik16 via Flickr

5 THINGS THE CORPORATE MEDIA DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT CANNABIS

Writing in the journal Science nearly four decades ago, New York State University sociologist Erich Goode documented the media's complicity in maintaining cannabis prohibition.

He observed: "[T]ests and experiments purporting to demonstrate the ravages of marijuana consumption receive enormous attention from the media, and their findings become accepted as fact by the public. But when careful refutations of such research are published, or when later findings contradict the original pathological findings, they tend to be ignored or dismissed."

A glimpse of today's mainstream media landscape indicates that little has changed -- with news outlets continuing to, at best, underreport the publication of scientific studies that undermine the federal government's longstanding pot propaganda and, at worst, ignore them all together.

Here are five recent stories the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about pot:

1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia

Over the past few years, the worldwide media, as well as federal officials in the United Kingdom, Canada and the U.S. have earnestly promoted the notion that smoking pot induces mental illness.

Perhaps most notably, in 2007 the MSM reported that cannabis "could boost the risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life by about 40 percent" -- a talking point that was also actively promoted by U.S. anti-drug officials.

So, is there any truth to the claim that pot smoking is sparking a dramatic rise in mental illness? Not at all, according to the findings of a study published in July in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

Investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain compared trends in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Researchers reported that the "incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining" during this period, even the use of cannabis among the general population was rising.

"[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10-year period," the authors concluded. "This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. ... This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence."

As of this writing, a handful of news wire reports in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. have reported on the Keele University study. Notably, no American media outlets covered the story.

2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn't Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco

Everyone knows that smoking pot is as damaging, if not more damaging, to the lungs than puffing cigarettes, right?

Wrong, according to a team of New Zealand investigators writing in the European Respiratory Journal in August.

Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand compared the effects of cannabis and tobacco smoke on lung function in over 1,000 adults.

They reported: "Cumulative cannabis use was associated with higher forced vital capacity [the volume of air that can forcibly be blown out after full inspiration], total lung capacity, functional residual capacity [the volume of air present in the lungs at the end of passive expiration] and residual volume.

"Cannabis was also associated with higher airways resistance but not with forced expiratory volume in one second [the maximum volume of air that can be forcibly blown out in the first second during the FVC test], forced expiratory ratio, or transfer factor. These findings were similar amongst those who did not smoke tobacco. ... By contrast, tobacco use was associated with lower forced expiratory volume in one second, lower forced expiratory ratio, lower transfer factor and higher static lung volumes, but not with airways resistance."

They concluded, "Cannabis appears to have different effects on lung function to those of tobacco."

Predictably, the scientists' "inconvenient truth" was not reported in a single media outlet.

3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain

Does smoking pot kill brain cells? Drinking alcohol most certainly does, and many opponents of marijuana-law reform claim that marijuana's adverse effects on the brain are even worse. Are they correct?

Not according to recent findings published this summer in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology.

Investigators at the University of California at San Diego examined white matter integrity in adolescents with histories of binge drinking and marijuana use. They reported that binge drinkers (defined as boys who consumed five or more drinks in one sitting, or girls who consumed four or more drinks at one time) showed signs of white matter damage in eight regions of the brain.

By contrast, the binge drinkers who also used marijuana experienced less damage in 7 out of the 8 brain regions.

"Binge drinkers who also use marijuana did not show as consistent a divergence from non-users as did the binge drink-only group," authors concluded. "[It is] possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death."

To date, only a handful of U.S. media outlets -- almost exclusively college newspapers -- have reported the story.

4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a 'Gateway,' to Hard Drug Use

Alarmist claims that experimenting with cannabis will inevitably lead to the use of other illicit drugs persist in the media despite statistical data indicating that the overwhelming majority of those who try pot never go on to use cocaine or heroin.

Moreover, recent research is emerging that indicates that pot may also suppress one's desire to use so-called hard drugs.

In June, Paris researchers writing in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology concluded that the administration of oral THC in animals suppressed sensitivity to opiate dependence.

Also this summer, investigators at the New York State Psychiatric Institute reported in the American Journal on Addictions that drug-treatment subjects who use cannabis intermittently were more likely to adhere to treatment for opioid dependence.

Although a press release for the former study appeared on the Web site physorg.com on July 7, neither study ever gained any traction in the mainstream media.

5. Government's Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use

Sure, many of us already knew that the federal government's $2 billion ad campaign targeting pot was failing to dissuade viewers from toking up, but who knew it was this bad?

According to a new study posted online in the journal Health Communication, survey data published by investigators at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania found that many of the government's public-service announcements actually encouraged pot use.

Researchers assessed the attitudes of over 600 adolescents, age 12 to 18, after viewing 60 government-funded anti-marijuana television spots.

Specifically, researchers evaluated whether the presence of marijuana-related imagery in the ads (e.g., the handling of marijuana cigarettes or the depiction of marijuana-smoking behavior) were more likely or less likely to discourage viewers' use of cannabis.

Messages that depict teens associating with cannabis are "significantly less effective than others," the researchers found.

"This negative impact of marijuana scenes is not reversed in the presence of strong anti-marijuana arguments in the ads and is mainly present for the group of adolescents who are often targets of such anti-marijuana ads (i.e., high-risk adolescents)," the authors determined. "For this segment of adolescents, including marijuana scenes in anti-marijuana (public-service announcements) may not be a good strategy."

Needless to say, no outlets in the mainstream media -- many of which donated air time to several of the beleaguered ads in question -- have yet to report on the story.

-- MAP Posted-by: Richard Lake

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n885.a01.html

Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too.

Alcohol, Cannabis... Sandals, Jandals.

2009-09-23T14:42:00.001+12:00

Image by Kalense Kid via Flickr

"Evidence for the effectiveness and cost–effectiveness of interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm"

WHO "European" keyword list.. (see http://www.euro.who.int/document/E92823.pdf )

ALCOHOL DRINKING – prevention and control
HARM REDUCTION
COST–BENEFIT ANALYSIS
EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE
PUBLIC POLICY
HEALTH PROMOTION
INTERVENTION STUDIES

Why CANNABIS cannot have the same best practice applied to it as ALCOHOL (a hypnotic sedative) beggers me. The underlined keywords 'for addressing and understanding alcohol' seem not to apply to the cannabis policy formulation. Yet the 'drug use' particularly amongst youth remains a 'spectrum' issue.

Doh! When something is made illegal do we all turn stupid?

On state controlled and regulated cannabis and alcohol.

2009-09-19T21:39:00.001+12:00

"Texass Blonde Geowrge, jew bwing any?"

Image via Wikipedia

State Controlled and Regulated Class D,

Cannabis under Class D would be 'state' controlled but community trusts could administer and local bodies enforce. (No more difficult than licensing trusts for alcohol, indeed easier if community has buy in to solutions under ambit of Class D regulation.)

Empowering Communities to fix what is broken.... revenue stream should be fiscally neutral.

If cannabis isn't the problem its shouldn't be bearing the (cost) burden.

Cannabis SHOULD compete with Alcohol, and displace the serious 'demon drink' harms economically.

To raise the cost and decrease availability of of alcohol without lowering sanction on cannabis will lead to more sanction related harm > ipso facto more police resources required to fix emerging problem. [Changing Alcohol laws/regulations may make the problem worse to more people ]

for example in Sellman's 5+ solution, blanket age of 20yrs for alcohol is proposed. Whereas Class D is 18yrs. (IE: practice with safe drugs and less will abuse alcohol at 20yrs)

Remove anomalous double standards that are an identified impediment to 'all drug' health promotion

Yadda yadda /Blair

Copenhagen Considers Legalizing Cannabis - By User

A debate over legal marijuana has been raging in Denmark this summer because of an unpleasant gang war. Denmark has had a liberal attitude towards cannabis since the 1970s. The open sale of hashish. ... The report refers to the Beckley Foundation Cannabis Commission report in several places. In short, the report concludes (like Arnold Schwarzenegger) that there are no examples of state controlled and regulated cannabis, but that it could nevertheless be an alternative to ...
420 Magazine - http://www.420magazine.com/forums/

Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too.

School Bus, Full Life

2009-09-18T01:29:00.005+12:00

Post my presentation to Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer (President, Law Commission) on "Alcohol in our Lives" the cosmos provided the following photo opportunity on my drive home down Woodham Rd outside Avonside Girls High School.

(NB: One of the past Principals of AGHS became Labour MP, Hon Marian Hobbs, now retired).

Dunedin Mayor sees SAFER alternatives required for Undies.

2009-09-14T12:03:00.001+12:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2860202/Undie-500-aftermath-madness-PM

see comment #122

/ Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

911, a function of drug policy?

2009-09-11T10:40:00.000+12:00

Age of Consent.

2009-09-01T08:00:00.001+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

As seen on Trademe Opinion.

This judge must be a mate of Phill Goffs.... he wanted the age of consent lowered to 12!

And not without good reason.

Such a move would demonstrate a far more enlightened justice/health approach than is evident now.

While Goff was shot down by one-sided media storm better described as a moral panic, no one seemed to notice that our age of consent laws are 'Victorian' by world standards. They smack of intolerance (that is the USA model after all) and protect youth poorly. Further evidence [such] laws do a very poor job of defining 'morality'. Most of Europe and 'educated' countries like Canada understand this issue. We collectively do not. And because of that, we endanger our children in the mistaken belief 'if it just saves one kid'.

I look forward to a more informed debate surrounding age of consent but doubtless we will lurch on jaw gnashing 'morality in hope' the law if only applied with more retributive 'get tough' teeth - will work eventually.

It will not.

(Canada, AOC is 14 with 2yr difference rule same as proposed by Goff. )

--
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

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

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

SAFER Choices (for Christchurch/New Zealand?)

2009-08-29T21:51:00.004+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

New Videos from Safer Choice

Denver could see $1 fine for marijuana possession

Denver goes for Safer Communities ~ Huh? Surely not... The Mayor of Denver chairs this committee!

So why would Christchurch's Bonny Prince Bob Parker [and his fiefdom] not want to discuss why so?

He's for SAFER communities, or is he just a media savy pretence on two legs?

And this on Cancer Society Day....

2009-08-29T00:40:00.002+12:00

Tashkin Defends His Findings

Investigators from New Zealand recently got widespread media attention for a study contradicting Tashkin's results. "Heavy cannabis users may be at greater risk of chronic lung disease –including cancer– compared to tobacco smokers," is how BBC News summed up the New Zealanders' findings.

(extract from http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/142271/smoking_marijuana_does_not_cause_lung_cancer/?page=entire )

The very small size of the study –79 smokers took part, 21 of whom smoked cannabis only– was not held against the authors. In fact, the small New Zealand study was given much more coverage by the corporate press than the large UCLA study that preceded it.

Image via Wikipedia

The New Zealand study was portrayed as the latest word on this important subject. As if scientific inquiry were some kind of tennis match and the truth just gets truthier with every volley.

Tashkin criticized the New Zealanders' methodology in his talk at Asilomar: "There's some cognitive dissonance associated with the interpretation of their findings. I think this has to do with the belief model among the investigators and –I wish they were here to defend themselves– the integrity of the investigators… They actually published another paper in which they mimicked the design that we used for looking at lung function."

Tashkin spoke from the stage of an airy redwood chapel designed by Julia Morgan. He is pink-cheeked, 70ish, wears wire-rimmed spectacles. "For tobacco they found what you'd expect: a higher risk for lung cancer and a clear dose-response relationship. A 24-fold increase in the people who smoked the most… What about marijuana? If they smoked a small or moderate amount there was no increased risk, in fact slightly less than one. But if they were in the upper third of the group, then their risk was six-fold… A rather surprising finding, and one has to be cautious about interpreting the results because of the very small number of cases -- fourteen— and controls -- four."

Tashkin said the New Zealanders employed "statistical sleight of hand." He deemed it "completely implausible that smokers of only 365 joints of marijuana have a risk for developing lung cancer similar to that of smokers of 7,000 tobacco cigarettes… Their small sample size led to vastly inflated estimates… They had said 'it's ideal to do the study in New Zealand because we have a much higher prevalence of marijuana smoking.' But 88 percent of their controls had never smoked marijuana, whereas 36% of our controls (in Los Angeles) had never smoked marijuana. Why did so few of the controls smoke marijuana? Something fishy about that!"

Strong words for a UCLA School of Medicine professor!

As to the highly promising implication of his own study –that something in marijuana stops damaged cells from becoming malignant— Tashkin noted that an anti-proliferative effect of THC has been observed in cell-culture systems and animal models of brain, breast, prostate, and lung cancer. THC has been shown to promote apoptosis (damaged cells die instead of reproducing) and to counter angiogenesis (the process by which blood vessels are formed —a requirement of tumor growth). Other antioxidants in cannabis may also be involved in countering malignancy, said Tashkin.

Of course, a certain 'anti-cancer in society public speaker" standing on Christchurch's High Street this afternoon, brought this, and more, to the notice of an engrossed public gallery. All while the 'city ambassadors' continued to ask said offending soapboxer to cease 'standing on the furniture'. The Police were called. The right to stand on the furniture was upheld. As was the right to be anti-cancer!

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

The Lion of Waipapa was my friend...

2009-08-28T01:36:00.005+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

and always there for me (and anyone else I took there. )

Endangered New Zealand sea lion shot

17/08/2009 10:19:49

Image via Wikipedia

An endangered New Zealand sealion has been shot dead.

Image via Wikipedia

Southland's sea mammals slain
August 2009. A New Zealand sea lion and a leopard seal have been found dead on the same stretch of Southland coastline. Both animals died as the result of being shot, leaving staff from the Department of Conservation shocked and saddened.

"It makes no sense why these animals were gunned down and left on the beach to rot," said Department of Conservation Biodiversity Programme Manager Jessyca Bernard. "To find a sea lion at Waipapa Point and then a leopard seal at Waikawa Harbour only a few days later that had been killed in the same way defies explanation."
The New Zealand sea lion is one of the world's rarest sea lion species and fully protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act 1978. Offences under the Act carry penalties including fines up to $250,000 or a prison sentence of six months.

The Department of Conservation would like to hear from anyone who could help identify persons responsible for the shootings

PM’s Q/A? precursor drug ban or good science?

2009-08-18T15:33:00.006+12:00

One Response to “..PM’s adviser recommends P precursor drug ban..”
MildGreens Says: August 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

Peter Gluckman’s brief was as predictable as it was political. While the words all sounded good on 9-noon Radio New Zealand this morning, there has been no question of applied science to understanding how come it is so prevalent?

Or how come, with hundreds of labs having made all this potent stuff and so many who have tried it, so few people are presenting with problems?

Or what is the connection between violence, unintended consequences and burden on those who have nothing to do with the drug? And what proportion is attributable to the pharmacology and/or the set and setting?

What factors limit access to treatment is impacted by stigmatisation, and how might that affect outcomes?

And of interest to economists in particular, what relations does the illicit status of cannabis have in the prevalence of and direct harms attributable to more harmful drugs?

How might the study of Hawaii, its two pacific islands, with not dissimilar histories of indigenous to the land, same drug rules, and zero tolerance enforcement inform us?
Economics Professor James Roumasset might be a good source. (see his paper on Black Hole Politics)

And seeing as how Sir Peter Gluckman is so usefully flexible in his understandings between the science and ‘realities of politics’ consider these wider implications. Stuff like, where is the National Drug Policy benchmark documents like “cost/benefit analysis”. The Police’s is apparently not to be relied upon, it was another BERL boondoggle ‘academics’ from the science of economics exposed. (both of which we have a LAW COMMISSION inquiring into. )

Now there is some science I could respect.

PS, I have the flu, I am not finding PE particularly effective. There once was a Chinese medicine… it was good for weight loss and as a decongestant. It was so renowned we used science to learn how to make it out of drain cleaner. We used politics to make it expedient to do so. [Particularily in the context of Swine flu (H1N1) or any variant I may have to suffer.]

How do I convince skeptics that my access to off label COLDREX ain't political.Right now I could do with all the Chinese can get me. But I would have to go to NZ Customs to pick it up!

What the hell is wrong with science that ‘academics’ from one end of the country to the other don't line up behind Sir Peter and apply some scientific reason. We seem to be able to do it with Climate Change. ?

Any doubt the about the science behind such an initiative need only Google King County, Seattle AND “drug policy” to see what can happen when the Health and Law sectors have the mettle.

The principal objectives of this effort are: reductions in crime and public disorder; improvement of the public health; better protection of children; and wiser use of scarce public resources.

Sir Peter could video-conference Washington State Senator Roger Goodman.
Now that would make a mighty informing YouTube! Kim Hill, where are ya?

Can the Law Commission protect my right to informed consent: what is the best medicine available for my flu and why is this not a cost attributable to poor drug policy? [The burden is making me feel miserable and my k’nose is still runny. And I can’t do my work less I am prepared to knowingly infect someone. What increased harms are we measuring?]

Perhaps we should have a referendum. The debate would be a whole lot more interesting than hitting your kids, or not.

So many questions, so few answers. Portugal is looking good….

Key's bet each way against the Planet

2009-08-14T08:56:00.002+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

Nationals implausible marginal response (the 15% PM. Key is 'targeting' for 2020) is business as usual.

Any functional profit motivated business would have to drop its emissions by 15% purely due to energy saving efficiencies that would be normal business practice anyway. It represents a do nothing goal state pretending to be fiscally responsible.

When betting against the planet, the planet always wins.

The Stern report made it clear that what ever solution is chosen, it had to be equitable and enduring. To do so NOW was the least cost option and the price of carbon had to have a specific measurable target. But Stern's estimate of 70-90 pounds per tonne range to see the changes required is unlikely to pass any National caucus muster. That according to Stern's percentage of GDP 'in now' [about 1%] to drive a low carbon, less energy economy would place carbon at arround NZ$250 per tonne.

Image via Wikipedia

And for carbon consumers, the ones that save, there could be a windfall selling the unused portion. If my 40% saving off my 9 tonnes per annum between now and 2020 is amortised to net present value based on collective perceived risk and corporate desire to risk manage carbon intensity my savings today are 3.6t x11yr x $250 = $9000 or about half a starbucks coffee/day. In eleven years time, I could expect $2 wont even buy the sugar!

Such a system would be a equitable property rights 'contraction and convergence' whereas Key's Brownlee's, Smith's et al represents the haves; all expansion and divergence. It engages no one other than accountants whose propensity for cost plus is legendary.

Social capital is intergenerational equity, if 40% reduction by 2020 is 'to big', a bridge to far, it will only be so because we waited to long to do what is required to fix it. It is population based stakeholder buy in that is required. Leaving it up to corporate greenwashing is a risk to great to bear.

Smith is a stool pidgeon.

The responsibility lies on Key's caucus's shoulders, not the chosen emissary to Copenhagen.

Lest We Forget....

2009-08-05T03:36:00.003+12:00

Image by Matthew Saunders via Flickr

....600,000 Kiwi Canines never bit anyone today.

see the now world wide story here

Woman charged after savage dog attack

TV3 News - Jane Luscombe - ‎8 hours ago‎

"You go out to a dog bite you don't expect to see what we saw. It was just horrendous. That's one that will probably stay with me forever. ...

Nine hours of surgery after dog attack TVNZ

Woman Mauled by Hunting Dogs - Suffers Nearly Fatal Injuries InjuryBoard.com

Wife 'big blob of blood' after attack Otago Daily Times

NZ City - The Associated Press

This is not about the breed. This is about responsible ownership and training (about which we have few facts). There is nothing in this tragedy so far that indicates the dogs were 'set' onto the victim here. Further, this wasn't atypical territorial/resource guarding, it was pack hunting. Pack hunting is a trained/learned behavior, it is not innate. A good (pig) dog doesn't just launch into hunting mode - it should exhibit controlled restraint until commanded. Otherwise it is not a good hunters pig dog and is ever present danger and a management problem. (even Wolves learn this as pups)

If one or more of these dogs had acute socialisation issues it certainly suggests one or more (possibly all) of these dogs needed to be kenneled AND to be managed effectively off leash. But that still doesnt mean the events that unfolded was inherently criminal.

The owner(in this case) may have been presented with a very difficult situation, with NO knowledge she had 'savage dogs' in her care. They may, on the other hand have been on her property because one or more had 'issues'. But that doesn't make her CRIMINALLY culpable.

I have no doubt that one or more of these dogs WILL have exhibited pack hunting aggression towards moving human 'prey' before. The questions remain, did SHE know this, if so, had she taken steps to manage this, and what can we learn from 'what failed' here.

However, the unique circumstances of that management may not be directly the fault of the 'guardian' in this case and despite the baying for blood by a motley rabble of concerned citizens, the question of culpability is made complex now the eight dogs have been punished (euthanised).

['Destroyed' is a gawd awful term, and very unhelpful in its fueling of prejudices and emotions. Calls for the two restrained dogs that did nothing to also be 'destroyed' beggars belief and says more about people than it does dogs. ]

What we can predict will be clamouring for tougher laws targeting 'those people' and 'those dogs' and much venting of spleens and little practical real world solutions. While this is a case with some very unique characteristics, such exceptional cases tend to inform policy poorly.

Regrettably and more broadly, the more we keep our dogs on short leads and behind high fences the less socialised our dogs are becoming thus producing the very outcomes we set out to solve. This case will not help informed discussion and will lead to preventative euthanisation without due considerations. (cf:Invercargill, Bill Watts)

One can only hope the prognosis for the lass bitten so terribly is as as good as medicine, doctors and ACC can make possible. The scars will be more than skin deep and the burden will fall on those all around her.

We as a collective community should direct our concerns at restoring 'what is broken' and not distort the discourse so we can learn 'collectively' what to look out for where we live and better enable common civility to protect us.

Lest we forget, there is no rule we can make that is that is smarter than us.

(Consider this case that occurred the same day Police K9 escapes yard, bites face, legs, body of 60yr old Woman protecting her on leash Chihuahua)

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Parker Goes UnderGround

2009-07-22T14:16:00.002+12:00

 Parker plans urban study tour

 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/2661170/Parker-plans-urban-study-tour / By CHARLIE GATES - The Press)

> Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker plans to visit North American cities to study urban regeneration, public transport and heritage protection.

While "OverSeas" he should ask if any of the cities are building any bus depot's or other critical infrastructure below sea level.

He might need some advice on where to get 'insurance' against IPPC forecasts and risk of hydrostatic displacement.

Seeing as your looking at the Seattle Public Library, the Presidio Park (Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco) and a light-rail system in Vancouver -  Imagine an aboveground 'green building' including library and other civic networking facilities (rail/bus/road) if the Heritage of Hagley Park and the Addington sale yards had been used.

Goodness, we don't even know where the Tram is going to go? We make it up as we go.

It links what with what network?

How does that service inner city residential commuting?

Why does 'the tram' get such priority and expense yet is nothing more than a 'cute' tourism train-set "getting in the way of what is needed."

Usefully, while in Seattle Bob, you may learn something of the enlighted urban design drivers to safer communities.

(as presented to the LT plan Bob, you know, you were there. Remember, you said I was disrespectful. Its on the record.)

In the spirit of "Time to Talk" Bob, I would be happy to arrange for you and the CCC officials to meet with Executive Director of the Volunteer Committee of Lawyers, King County Bar Association and Washington State Senator, Roger Goodman.

Some of his connections include:

King County Bar Association

Church Council of Greater Seattle

King County Medical Society

League of Women Voters of Washington

Loren Miller Bar Association

Municipal League of King County

National Alliance on Mental Illness of Washington

Seattle League of Women Voters

Washington Academy of Family Physicians

Washington Osteopathic Medical Association

Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

Washington Society of Addiction Medicine

Washington State Bar Association

Washington State Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics

Washington State Medical Association

Washington State Pharmacy Association

Washington State Psychiatric Association

Washington State Psychological Association

Washington State Public Health Association

And he can offer some insight into what they think works....

If your going to be in Seattle - The next Seattle Hempfest is August 15-16, The event spans three Seattle waterfront parks: Elliott Bay Park, Myrtle Edwards Park, and Olympic Sculpture Park.

You can get there... by car, bicycle, train, bus, boat and plane. Walking is good!

http://www.hempfest.org/drupal/node/68

More people than an Ellerslie Flower Show! And it's FREE!

Won't cost us rate-payers a cent.

Perhaps Roger will host you there, if you ask nicely.

sig: Blair Anderson

ph (643) 389 4065   cell 027 265 7219

(PS: note the drop in price of NZ coastal properties Bob!, how long will South Spit 'housing' be insurable? The life of a mortgage?)

Christchurch KidsFest goes to the Dogs

2009-07-21T14:08:00.009+12:00

Perceptions VS Realities.

The above image is a capture from my computer screen showing the STUFF (PRESS) coverage given to the TV2/PRESS/CCC KidsFest (school holiday activities) alongside [just] one of a number of images (and video) I took of the 'helicopter/dog' AOS activity.

Image via Wikipedia

There is an acute contrast in subject matter given everywhere else. If the mission is to 'scare kids into societal compliance' the message has somehow become more important than the kids.

This POLICE Armed Offenders activity caused concern to a number of the children attending the event. Military grade weapons were pointed in the direction of the young people and the parents (see photo, children are all to photographers right). While in reality, I am completely aware these weapons would have been made 'safe' for the purposes of the demonstration, this is about perceptions in the context of today's 'news and reality television' that children are exposed too. Along with the drama of the moment my video sound captures parents having to reassure clearly concerned children that this was "its just an exercise." Other remarks were overheard (but not captured). These include "Are they going to shoot him Dad" and other remarks that clearly indicated that this wasn't about 'the police dog, its handler and any demonstrable skills' rather a bigger picture as observed by parents and seen children.

The dog played a small and insignificant role and in the view of this handler, was neither very proficient, focused, or skilled.

It was shown to be used as an instrument of fear and control. It certainly wasn't about health and safety, rather one of suspected criminal activity associated with drug use (broadcast by announcer).

[ Note: the writer requested CCC to formally discuss the appropriateness of and inconsistency of this activity in the Dog Day Out advertised objectives with CCC administration as both a parent, an exhibitor/participant (School of the Naked Dog - http://nakeddog.co.nz ) and in my capacity as a founding director of Educators for Sensible Drug Policy http://efsdp.org ). - "I look forward to your confirmation of a meeting to view and discuss these photos & video content at your earliest convenience, and, I trust, how we might contribute ideas to replacing this 'activity' so that the overall tenor, themes and objectives of Dog Day Out are positively enhanced for future events."]

These concerns are mutually shared by front line health delivery specialists (nursing staff) that recognise the use of WestPak rescue ambulance/helicopter in this case also has public relations implications.

Image by bartmaguire via Flickr

The response from CCC was to deflect any concerns commenting variously 'its not the first time we have done it, no one else has complained, its just one of 220 events, we are greatful to Garden City Helicopters for their support, and we used to have the dog bring the guy down....' - This was a school holiday activity, if this was to occur as a formal part of an intermediate school health and safety initiative it would be seriously questionable 'use of resources' but worse, while hopefuly ineffectual, likely counterproductive.

I have, since the Jan Molenaar incident seen AOS response twice in my near neighborhood. Are we to believe we are safer for all this increased prevelance of police precence in the community... media continues to report fearful crime epidemics yet statistics show crime is decreasing.

Is Dog Day Out just another example (expression) of the media x police collusion in manufacturing consent - the attached image makes a strong case. Despite the offer of use of video proof no media would take the opportunity to 'tackle' the seeming vexing complexity at the nexus of this.

That said... "in all other respects an enjoyable day was had. It is a refreshing reminder to naysayers who see dogs as problematic in the community that here we had hundreds of children and dogs and the only spat we saw was a fox terrier with a napoleon complex grrr'ing a 60kg behemoth that could have sat on it! All in all and excellent public relations (for dogs and owners everywhere) that should remind us all that 600,000 kiwi-dogs never bit anyone today."

We hope that the CCC can be just as creative and committed to 'Take a Dog to Work" day for much the same reason and societal reward.

Yours faithfully, Blair Anderson

CHCH 2020 Climate Change Community Consultation

2009-07-21T03:51:00.002+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

attn: Hon Nick Smith, member for Tasman. Minister Responsible for Climate Change.

re: Christchurch 2020 CC Dialog at the Christchurch Convention Center

Dear Nick,

As one of the last to comment/question verbally I spoke of historical 'grievance' and US 1000 tonnes vs China 1 tonne.

Your appropriate response was to acknowledge that such a grievance existed but you took umbrage at my estimate of one tonne for Chinese (and many other developing nations) by the time the USA had emitted 1000 tonnes pp. then went on to point out that Chinese emissions were currently much higher therefore by inference suggesting my differential was of less consequence. Further you added that China was not in support of C&C. While my reference to the historical basis was recognition of legitimate grievance, I argue that failure to address that grievance is masked by white privilege and that ANY government that avoids the responsibility (and negates the social dividend of a rights based solution, surely a National Party Principle) is guilty of culpable genocide, set aside the injustice of failing to improve health equity through social and economic development that improves healthy lifestyle and conditions*, reduces the burden of disease and results in the social capital of leveling up of poorest communities and removing unfair economic arrangements.

When I presented the simplicity, logic and reason for NZ's support for C&C, at the Christchurch Business consultation Treasury officials encouragingly referred to C&C as the conscience behind the ETS.

I am pleased you personally consider its merits so highly and for the first time in a public forum [that I have heard] a Minister of the Crown actually mention C&C let alone in favorable terms.

I defer to the following reports, firstly prepared for

Government of South Australia : Copenhagen, contraction and convergence
www.epnrm.sa.gov.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket...tabid=2732
• Developed nations have high emissions levels (e.g. Au = 28 tonnes/person/year)
• Developing nations have low emission levels (e.g. China = 1 tonne/person/year)
• Global sustainable level (450ppm) is around 3 tonne/person/year
• Copenhagen December 2009

and
For example the Contract and Converge strategy has now been adopted by India, China and many African countries as the basis for future negotiations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.php?curid=3040255

As to New Zealand [fast] following Australia these comments should, in my opinion give weight to my question; Why has C&C been overlooked?

Please accept this correspondence as a formal response to your request for feedback. I expect to see C&C given the standing it deserves.

United Nations Association of Australia

http://www.unaavictoria.org.au/media/GMUNC/Resolution_Original.pdf
Invites all Parties adopt a global program of "Contraction and Convergence" that provides for a fair and equitable global per capita emissions target consistent with the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stabilize the global climate and that ensures temperature rises are well below 2°C (above pre-industrial averages) and
that greenhouse gas concentrations are less than 400ppm CO2-equivalent;

The Australia Institute
https://www.tai.org.au/file.php?file=web_papers/WP104.pdf
The determination of national budgets on this basis is likely to be consistent with the so-called 'contraction and convergence' method of allocating emission allowances. Global emission levels would be reduced (contraction) and per capita emission levels should gradually be equalised amongst developed and developing countries (convergence) over the 21st century.

World Health Organisation

"There is a need to develop conceptual frameworks such as Contraction and Convergence."

I continue to seek the support of your Ministry to assist in bringing C&C architect Aubrey Meyer to New Zealand and would like to make that case in person. This represents an opportunity for New Zealand to both show leadership in CC strategy and maximise our international standing in economic development and social justice. It would be entirely appropriate given that voice to C&C has been avoided in all public discussion documents to date this is done expeditiously.

*Notably in reference to the current obesity issue, the latest British Medical Journal makes the following reference: "This policy [C&C] offers a way forward which is globally just and produces profuse health benefits, such as encouraging more physical function among people in industrialised societies."

Yours faithfully,

sig: Blair Anderson

Another MildGreen Initiative and Social Ecologist 'at large'
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Cap and Trade Is a Scam, and Only the Few Will Survive

2009-07-09T12:29:00.001+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

"Father of the Gaia Theory, James Lovelock says we can't stop climate change, but that humanity will continue in some smaller form"

The Dark Side of Climate Change: It's Already Too Late, Cap and Trade Is a Scam, and Only the Few Will Survive Environment AlterNet#c1254678:

And that is why it was ever so important that MP Nick Smith came out and supported in principal, the only framework for managing emissions 'Contraction and Convergence' [C&C] at last nights Climate Change 2020 consultation in Christchurch Convention Center.

Will the media notice C&C ? Will they notice it has been crucially omitted form MFE and MED consultation documents todate, despite it being highly indicated?

If its was good enough for the Minister responsible for Climate Change crucially giving it the thumbs up why on gods earth has it been avoided until the weeks before Bonn and COP12.

Blair Anderson

Pandemic Roadshow (Swine/Bird) Flu out the window

2009-06-26T17:45:00.001+12:00

The Pandemic roadshow is now on summer break. It will return in 2009.

Oh dear...

http://www.pandemicroadshow.org.nz/

Question the Canterbury District Health Board, South Canterbury District Health Board, Community and Public Health, Canterbury Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group, Environment Canterbury, territorial authorities, Science Alive, Red Cross, and St. John, they are all partners.

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist 'at large'

http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

http://blairformayor.blogspot.com

http://blair4mayor.com

http://efsdp.org

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Dew Point and Pot: virus spread by respiratory droplets and stopped by cannabis..

2009-06-19T13:48:00.001+12:00

Dew Point and Pot: virus spread by respiratory droplets and stopped by cannabis..

We all know influenza is more common in winter. But researchers have not known why. Virologist doctor Peter Palese has been studying the effects of heat and cold on the flu virus. He found that at higher temperatures, the flu virus didn't spread, but at colder temperature it did.

"The virus is probably more stable in cold temperature, so it hangs in the air much longer," Dr. Palese told Ivanhoe.

Allowing it to spread easier. Here's how -- when we cough or sneeze, microscopic droplets of water and the virus enter the air. Dry, cold conditions dry out the droplets, helping the virus linger in the air. The dry air also dries out nasal passages, which helps the virus stick.

"Cold dry air going over your nasal mucosa gets cracks in our airways and that allows virus to get in more easily," Anice Lowen, researcher at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine told Ivanhoe.

Influenza has long been considered a seasonal virus. Factors including indoor crowding during cold weather, seasonal fluctuations in host immune responses, relative humidity, temperature, and UV radiation have all been suggested to account for this phenomenon, but none of these hypotheses had previously been tested directly.

The researchers tested the effects of temperature and relative humidity on infected and naive guinea pigs. The study found that low relative humidities of 20%-30% induced the rapid spread of the virus, with the opposite effect at 80% or above. Also, results showed that the virus spread more easily at 5 °C than at 20 °C, with no transmission at 30 °C.

The data implicates that low relative humidities produced by indoor heating and winter temperatures favor the spread of influenza. This study should serve as the basis for understanding the seasonality of other viral infections. / Citation: Lowen AC, Mubareka S, Steel J, Palese P (2007) Influenza virus transmission is dependent on relative humidity and temperature. PLoS Pathog 3(10): e151. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.0030151

Its the Dew Point! (or open a window!)

(either cumulus cloud height, or calculate from coldwater* / temperature relationship [good ed idea] or use 200 dollar weather tool )

Putting this to use, it's easy to figure out the dew point, and thus the expected comfort level, directly from the relative humidity and the temperature: for instance, if it is 30 °C outside, and the relative humidity is 75%, then the dew point temperature will be about 25 °C. It's also easy to see how much could be gained from evaporative cooling - in this case, at most 5 degrees. "Further, by adjusting the relationship a little to account for the effects of temperature, it is also simple to use the relative humidity to compute the altitude of cumulus cloud bases without a calculator to a good approximation, usually within about 10%", says Lawrence

BUT CONSIDER this from my colleague Bob Melamede

Chief Science Officer for CSI Dr. Melamede believes the potential for cannabinoids that naturally prevent excessive inflammatory immune responses is enormous.

He stated, "Based upon recent discoveries regarding the role that endocannabinoid system plays in maintaining human health, we may have a unique solution to the looming threat posed by deadly influenza strains that we believe, if implemented, could save millions of lives."

World Health Organization has just declared a swine flu pandemic - raising its pandemic warning from phase 5 to 6.

This is the first global flu epidemic in 41 years. There have been outbreaks in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Dr. Robert J. Melamede, Director and Chief Science Officer for Cannibis Science Inc. reports, "Research into use of whole cannabis extracts and multi-cannabinoid compounds has provided the scientific rationale for medical marijuana's efficacy in treating some of the most troubling diseases mankind now faces, including infectious diseases such as the flu and HIV, autoimmune diseases such as ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), multiple sclerosis, arthritis, and diabetes, neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's, stroke and brain injury, as well as numerous forms of cancer."

Dr. Melamede went on to say, "The high lethality of some strains of flu can be attributed to the excessive inflammatory response driven by Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF). Endocannabinoids are nature's way of controlling TNF activity. Phytocannabinoids can mimic the natural endocannabinoids to prevent excessive inflammatory immune responses."

Cannabis Science Inc., President & CEO, Steven W. Kubby sent a letter to Homeland Security Administration Secretary Janet Napolitano. "We have the science and preliminary anecdotal results confirming the anti-inflammatory properties of our new lozenges and indicating they may present an effective and non-toxic treatment for minimizing the symptoms and harm from influenza infections. Our lozenges appear to down-regulate the body's excessive inflammatory response to the influenza virus, which could reduce the deadly consequences of an infection into something that is more like a common cold. Because of my cancer and diminished auto-immune functions, even common influenza is a deadly threat, and I've had incredible symptomatic relief with the lozenge."

Chief Science Officer for CSI Dr. Melamede believes the potential for cannabinoids that naturally prevent excessive inflammatory immune responses is enormous. He stated, "Based upon recent discoveries regarding the role that endocannabinoid system plays in maintaining human health, we may have a unique solution to the looming threat posed by deadly influenza strains that we believe, if implemented, could save millions of lives."

Dr. Robert J. Melamede, Director and Chief Science Officer, stated, "The influenza virus has a unique genetic make up that, in combination with its replicative machinery, has an extraordinary capacity to mutate. As a result, the high lethality of some strains can be attributed to the resulting adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). ARDS is caused by an excessive immune inflammatory response driven by Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) that leads to the death of respiratory epithelial cells and resulting organ failure. Endocannabinoids are nature's way of controlling TNF activity. Existing peer reviewed publications have shown that phytocannabinoids can prevent this cell death by mimicking the endocannabinoids that nature has selected to prevent excessive inflammatory immune responses."

"This sounds very promising, but, of course the political hurdles are daunting." / Rose Field, Pittsburgh Gardening Scene Examiner

Arising from both of these concepts, Dew Point and Pot, there is the benefit of internalising the commercial potential of fostering the epidemiological research (under NZ's Class D legal regulation, already in place.) at the same time teaching through schools the health promotion / prevention strategy (and optimal home and commercial heating model for swine flu mitigation) around dew point.

Note: Auckland humid, Christchurch dry validated by current infection levels. Worth exploring?

*Max Planc Society 010405

Is Climate Clean Coal?

2009-04-21T15:37:00.001+12:00

or on making carbon disappear using the evidence based Gerry Brownlee Method.

consider this insight:

Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."

(and Gerry expects to be able to find a 'sealable' stable rock strata on these, the Shakey Isles.!! I wouldn't bet my beer on it... )

Of course the alternatives suggested thus far (ie: Contraction and Convergence) need just a bit more than promise and posturing...

(also see http://www.idhayaengineering.com/clean-energy-solution-what-is-plasma-gasification/ )

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Sensible Sentencing Goes to the Dogs

2009-04-20T11:49:00.004+12:00

Image via Wikipedia

Press Release: School Of The Naked Dog

Sensible Sentencing Goes to the Dogs

"What sort of cowboy outfit are they running?" Christchurch based canine behavourist and trainer Natalie Perzylo comments on Invercargill's canine justice.

Following the media mis-charactersiation and inflammatory language of events surrounding two Neapolitan mastiffs released without authorisation 'by commandos' from the Invercargill Dog Pound, spokesperson for the highly popular website doglinks.co.nz, Ms Perzylo says this is really about the inadequacy of the ICC pound facilities to provide duty of care while due process is exercised.

The very graphic injuries and pitbull stereotyping on TV One's CLOSE UP item [17April] "Dog Vs Human, then What?" amounts to emotional blackmail when in the light of day the owner had no objection to the offending dog being euthanised and, being entitled to her day in court insisted, and rightly so, on civil procedure for its docile companion.

"The media portrayal of the extensive injuries from pitbull bites misdirects the public on this issue" says Blair Anderson of the School of the Naked Dog (nakeddog.co.nz). "NZ research earlier this year suggests it is Fox Terriers, Labradors followed by Chihuahuas that characteristically bite family members inside their own properties."

Anderson points out that we have created rules, regulations and enforcement where recent Massey conducted research suggests as much as four out of five of 400,000 or so registered dogs are not getting the required daily activity. "It shows we are increasingly keeping our dogs behind high fences and on short leads now. This is leading to the very problem we set out to solve". We were sold track and trace microchips and a national database of ownership as a politically expedient solution.

Image by birdtrouble via Flickr

Our policy is fraught with downsides; people with smaller dogs are increasingly fearful of any larger dog on or off lead. This is made worse by ill-informed bred specific prejudice largely media driven.

Socialisation is key to public safety. Yes, some people need some help and guidance, while others only need confidence. Due to recent legislative changes and the increasingly dire consequences (huge fines, serious jail time, crippling veterinary fees, punitive pound fees and medical and legal costs) we now have a shortage of competent qualified and professional trainers and so many dogs, and families, in need.

Doglink's spokesperson Natalie Perzylo agrees with Anderson's streetwise canine knowledge further questioning how CLOSE UP failed to question Bill Watts?

"The ICC Environmental Services Director wants both dogs dead (presumably because he lost them both) yet according to media sources, the bites to the victims arm 'became infected' some time later suggesting they did not warrant prophylactic antibiotics, a precautionary measure taken first in any bite laceration scenario." No one wants to diminish the personal anguish of the victim here but lets enable discovery and ensure the truth of the matter. Courts are good at that. Cowboys aren't."

Image via Wikipedia

"Contrast that with TV One's shocking images of teeth punctures and open wounds. Where is the investigative journalism here? It is an emotive argument feed by moral panic and little substantiating fact. That is why we must leave it to due process. But if we are to learn something from this it may be that 'the policy' may be contributing to the problem and we need a more informed community for our companion animals."

"We know Kiwi's seek out guidance on dog behaviour, its such a popular topic" says Ms Perzylo who keeps a good tab on the SPCA's endorsed website. The traffic statistics prove "hundreds of New Zealander's are learning something canine everyday. Territorial authorities collect some 20 million dollars a year from dog fees alone, I am sure NZ's dog owners agree that education is better than intolerance and injustice."

The School of the Naked Dog commences the next of its eight week 90 minute socialisation [and bite inhibition] classes using the Ian Dunbar endorsed "KinderPuppy" curriculum at its Merivale, Christchurch venue Sunday the 26th. At nakeddog.co.nz/kinderpuppy is the opportunity to register, without obligation, anyone interested, be it Christchurch, Invercargill and Nationally, and we'll look to bringing the program to your district, school, or facility.
ENDS

Cannabis 'can be used to build homes'

2009-04-10T00:39:00.003+12:00

Published Date: 09 April 2009

Image via Wikipedia

A form of cannabis could be used to build carbon-neutral homes of the future, university researchers in Bath said. A consortium, led by the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials at the University of Bath, has embarked on a housing project to develop the use of construction materials made of hemp.
---- snip ----
Professor Pete Walker, director of the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, said: "We will be looking at the feasibility of using hemp-lime in place of traditional materials, so that they can be used widely in the building industry."We will be measuring the properties of lime-hemp materials, such as their strength and durability, as well as the energy efficiency of buildings made of these materials.

Image via Wikipedia

"Using renewable crops to make building materials makes real sense - it only takes an area the size of a rugby pitch four months to grow enough hemp to build a typical three-bedroom house."

Growing crops such as hemp can also provide economic and social benefits to rural economies through new agricultural markets for farmers and associated industries.

We'll there is a turn for the books. While everyone said it couldn't be done, shouldn't be done, and what about the kids! The University of Bath picks up where NZ academia just reject out of hand.... /Blair

Climate Change : A Christian Perspective

2009-01-24T19:02:00.004+13:00

Image via Wikipedia

Rev. Charmaine Braatvedt / New Zealand
June 2008

“Within the world wide Anglican Community Archbishop Rowan Williams has been very outspoken on the matter of climate change. He has called for deep cuts in carbon emissions on the basis of contraction and convergence. By this he means aiming at equal per capita emissions worldwide.

Clearly this would mean huge reductions for the rich countries. Even the evangelical churches of America seem to be voicing concern about this problem. I read recently that Rick Warren and a number of other evangelical leaders have come forward and formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative and signed a statement saying "human induced climate

Rick Warren.
Image via Wikipedia

change is real and calling on the Bush/ US government to urgently pass legislation establishing limits on carbon dioxide emissions which are widely believed to be the primary cause of human induced global warming. "

The statement goes on to say, “Christians must care about climate change because we love God the Creator and Jesus our Lord through whom and for whom the creation was made. This is God’s world and any damage that we do to God’s world is an offence against God himself.”

http://holytrinity.gen.nz/files/familyservicetalk_climate%20change.doc

2009-01-20T15:20:00.000+13:00

Image by nicholas macgowan via Flickr

Inviting the Vanua to Join the Fight Against Drugs
Monday, 19 January 2009 03:50
Police recognize that the fight against drugs will not make headway unless the community is involved.
The success of the vanua policing concept in Tukavesi, Cakaudrove, where the community joined Police in clearing out marijuana farms and apprehending the growers, has shown that it is possible to stem out this growing problem.
In the hopes of replicating the successes of Tukavesi, a team of senior Police officers led by Commissioner of Police Andrew Hughes will be in Keiyasi, Navosa to launch Vanua: Rai-Ki-Liu for the province on Wednesday, 12 July.
Vanua: Rai-ki-liu is the result of a yearlong nationwide consultation to find a Community Policing model suitable for Fiji. Vanua:Rai-Ki-Liu is the way forward for the Fiji Police in partnership with the community. It is also symbolic of the culturally diverse communities that co-exist within Fiji at the present time.
The Community Policing Review was undertaken in January 2005 in partnership between the Fiji Police and the Australia/Fiji Law and Justice Sector Program in which over 1,000 people from 33 villages, service providers (Government and non-Government) and police personnel across Fiji were consulted.
The key findings of this review formed the basis for the Vanua Rai-Ki-Liu Model and it is focused on three key areas: the Youth of Fiji, the vanua, and squatter settlements (urban and rural).
The model emphasizes a community with a common vision, working in partnership with a community justice approach. It also recognizes the key players in prompting fair and equitable justice for all across Fiji.
The United Nations estimates that 160 million people worldwide use cannabis with a significant number of its users experiencing panic attacks, paranoia and other “psychotic symptoms” while under the influence.
The UN are also concerned that newer, more potent strains of cannabis are equally threatening as heroin and cocaine and that it can no longer be dismissed as soft and harmless as many proponents have previously purported.
The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa warns that countries with inadequate drug policies get the drug problem they deserved.
“With cannabis-related health damage increasing, it is fundamentally wrong for countries to make cannabis control dependent on which party is in government,” he said.
“The cannabis pandemic like other challenges to public health requires consensus, a consistent commitment across the political spectrum and by society at large.”
Mr. Costa maintains that the considerably more potent forms of marijuana available today than a few decades ago, shows that it was a mistake to dismiss it as a “soft drug” earlier on.
“Today the harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin,” he said.
In the last two years, drug-related offences reported to Police have fallen steadily from 433 in 2001 to 417 in 2003. For the period 2004 and 2005, this number fell even further to a steady 312 cases for both years - a decrease of 33 percent from 2003. While these numbers represent a significant decline, anecdotal evidence shows that the holdings of marijuana growers remain a concern.
Tied to marijuana use are the realities of violent crimes and mental health problems affecting our young people who have abused the drug on a continuous basis. It is a fact that those who have at some point taken and/or trafficked in marijuana commit the majority of sexual offences and violent robberies.
Force Psychologist Lorraine Meades agrees that marijuana is anything but a “soft” drug.
“An increasing problem in Fiji and other countries is young people presenting at psychiatric hospitals with Drug Induced Psychosis from using marijuana,” she said.
“Marijuana is anything but a ‘soft’ drug. It can have serious health impacts such as lung cancer and chronic bronchitis but it can also have serious psychiatric impacts.”
Ms. Meades said that an acute drug-induced psychosis (irrational thoughts and fear) brought on by marijuana usually lasts a few days. Once stabilized (which usually requires medication) the person must never use marijuana again. This psychotic episode has sensitized the brain and further marijuana use can result in another acute episode or, of more concern, a serious psychotic illness.
“In some people marijuana can precipitate an existing predisposition to a psychotic illness and bring forward an episode of schizophrenia or manic depression. This can become a lifelong illness,” Ms. Meades said.
The shift from leisurely consumption of this hallucinogenic drug to commercial scale farming in the last decade shows that rural Fiji is on the cusp of a major shift in its agro-based economy of traditional roots crops and kava to cannabis.
Under-development and scarcity of basic infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity coupled with limited access to markets for their products, has given rise to the simple economics of supply and demand for the marijuana producers in the highlands.
Keiyasi is known as a major supply area for marijuana. The unforgiving terrain, limited access to many of the villages and settlements in this part of the country and general disenchantment of the people who live here, has created the ideal environment for this odious operation.
The return to an honest day’s work for those to ply this trade needs more than the intervention of Police with the help of the community. Government along with the relevant non-Government and faith-based organizations also need to be actively involved in turning the tide on drugs.

Review ETS YES!

2008-11-18T11:09:00.005+13:00

Image via Wikipedia National Party Emmissions Trading Scheme Review announced.

The MfE led ETS consultation was a sham and an embarrassment to due process. (and if the Nats had half the integrity they profess - arses should be kicked)

When Nick Smith spoke prior to the election at the Canterbury historic "Provincial Chambers" a well known proponent if C&C discreetly asked Nick about National's follow the leader on climate initiatives noting that ^Great Britain and *Australia seemed to be preferred notables.. upon which Nick agreed. (see ^UK Climate Bill and *Garnaut - C&C "adds-up")

So we can look forward to a conservative precautionary "Contraction and Convergence" new deal on climate response getting the a just and equitable evaluation in a fair and considered "select committee" hearing under National. With ACT on board, I can see "property rights" defining the climate solution space, and welcome Rodney's considered input.

United Future's Peter Dunne will no doubt consider the 'constitutional basis' for C&C and see the common revenue neutral merits, (C&C at least provides numerate analysis) and centrist values while Nick has ostensibly, and publicly, agreed "that any framework Australia and Great Britain adopts National should seriously consider...". (see http://www.gci.org.uk)

While I laud this politically inspired reevaluation... questions should be seriously asked as to how we so consistently 'ignored' what Treasury officials described (at the Christchurch ETS consultations)as the "conscience behind the policy". Such overt and exclusionary prejudice to a good idea must be fodder for a good story, as I for one could not support a now former Prime Minister who at the Christchurch launch of ETS still had never heard of C&C.

Consider:Image via Wikipedia

“C&C is supported not only by China, India, and most African nations, but also by the European Commission and the European Parliament, which endorsed it in 1998. I can’t imagine that the developing nations would accept any plan that did not eventually converge on equal per-capita emission rights. Although C&C is the fair solution, it is not “ideological.” It is dictated not only by fairness but also by practicality and realism: The nations of the world will agree on nothing less. ” see American Physical Society – October 2008 http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200810/upload/october08.pdf

The Climate Issue 're-visiting' must be accompanied by a full and unfettered public engagement elsewise any proposed solution will fail to bring onboard those whom it is designed to protect.

/Blair Anderson,Republican Party of New Zealand, Shadow Spokesperson on Environment and Climate Change. cell 027 2657219

Blair for Mayor 2010

Light Rail Feasability Study For Four Million?

Related articles

Can Youth 'card' Benefit Money be Guilty?

Mika came to stay.

Joined up Thinking: Busway First for (CH)^2

Sister City Gets It.

Related articles

Urban planning 'Evolutionary'

Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water

Results are in... 850+ to Anderson

Related articles

Government Responsibility for the Drug Culture

Related articles

Community Safety led "harm minimisation"

1% goes to Anderson, not bad for $20

Related articles by Zemanta

Nailing Jelly to Trees.

see Christchurch Press: Pursuits vital to stop 'lawlessness'

Related articles by Zemanta

Christchurch Mayoralty, Sex Education and STV

Related articles by Zemanta

As seen on Pundit

Related articles by Zemanta

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

Political Intelligence Lead to Deaths

Related articles by Zemanta

Open Letter to Welsh Local Body Voter

If Hypocrisy Was Capital

Related articles by Zemanta

Third Wheel or Third Rail Issues?

Related articles by Zemanta

"Smart City, Clever People"

As seen on Yardly's Blog

Related articles by Zemanta

Search & Surveillance Bill 'fundamentally flawed'

Related articles by Zemanta

St Mary's Mayoral Debate

Put Jim Anderton in Jail for his Crimes Against Humanity.

Related articles by Zemanta

Class D for Christchurch 'Brilliant'

Related articles by Zemanta

Fatal crash in Christchurch

Related articles by Zemanta

Municiple Waste to Energy in Blairstown!

Related articles by Zemanta

Smart City, Clever People

Related articles by Zemanta

BBC News | Sci/Tech | Cannabis 'safer than alcohol and tobacco'

Key Bank and World Trade Centre

First Come, STV and Water.

Related articles by Zemanta

Transparency Required in Wall Debate

Urban Health and Drug Policy intersect at Lies Police tell.

Related articles by Zemanta

Canine Aggression and Community Safety

Bono Goes Mild Green on Climate!

Seattle Mayor Thinks It's Time To Talk, Christchurch's Doesnt.

IMECHE C&C - implications for ChCh & NZ

Govt urged to ease up on cannabis (>10 years ago)

"Rapid Increase In Illness" From The H1N1 Influenza Virus

It is my cultural belief, in respect of use of the 'H'

THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE MAORI, HIS MYTHOLOGY AND TRADITIONS. NGA-TI-WHATUA [VOL. IX]

LETTER FROM JAMES MACKAY TO MR. H. SMITH, OCTOBER 1859

Drinking Age Debate Flawed.

Marijuana For Binge Drinkers?

MEDIA, LIES and SOFT DRUGS

Alcohol, Cannabis... Sandals, Jandals.

On state controlled and regulated cannabis and alcohol.

School Bus, Full Life

Dunedin Mayor sees SAFER alternatives required for Undies.

911, a function of drug policy?

Age of Consent.

SAFER Choices (for Christchurch/New Zealand?)

And this on Cancer Society Day....

The Lion of Waipapa was my friend...

and always there for me (and anyone else I took there. )

Endangered New Zealand sea lion shot

PM’s Q/A? precursor drug ban or good science?

Key's bet each way against the Planet