Guns or dogs - its all drug policy, stupid.

"Brian Rudman: Guns or dogs - controls are essential for the same reason" 25 Apr 2007 -

"The killer dogs were needed because the neighbourhood was unsafe."

At the root of Mr Rudman's concerns is drug prohibition. Arms, Drugs. Protection. Burglary. Violence.

However, in describing or comparing dogs to 'weapons of death' Rudman looses all reason.
NZ Herald: Opinion,

Just as 99.99999% of all NZ guns killed no one this day, 99.99999% of dogs killed no one either suggesting it is neither the gun nor the dog that is the problem 'in law'. It is the policy framework.

Dog biting is actually 'relatively' rare and leading to death truely exceptional. And exceptions usually make bad laws.

Even if draconian dog-laws such as Rudman suggests were able to be enforced it would make little impression on risk of or severity of incidence. It would assuredly lead to more dogs behind fences and on shorter leads resulting in increased 'risk to any and all' from unsocialised dogs.

Similarily, the unresolved tensions in drug prohibition policy are born out bad policy resulting all to often as murder and mayhem in the community. The intersect is there. [Try and take my dog off me 'unjustly'. You'll need the 5th Army.]

Just as guns often feature in drug related violence, it is not from the pharmacology of the drug rather 'the rules, stupid!' The rules' perverse consequence is alienation from rule of law, deviancy amplification and (apparently) the licence for prejudice.

The same can be said for dogs yet 99.9% of all dogs probably contributed both intrinsic and bankable benefit to the community today. So whats going on here? Like the drug debate, it seems always to be 'those' people, those dogs, that area of town....

Dominant groups use money, power, media, design and politics to subjugate subordinate ones. Dominant groups pass and enforce rules that define other's behavior as deviant.

A bit of othering sets the scene 'and the opinions of those people no longer count'. I don't expect an easy resolution of these tensions, especially when I hear on talkback and in media commentary the woeful thoughtless labeling. In this regard Mr Rudman is no exception. However, if its safer communities Rudman wants it is in the drug policy debate where the real social capital will be found.

Guns, Dogs, Drugs. We can't live with them but we can't live without them either. So we better start talking common sense.

Time to Talk?

Blair@doglinks.co.nz
http://www.doglinks.co.nz

Impacts of Climate Change in Christchurch

Report examining the phenomenon of climate change and the potential impacts and ways in which the Council is responding to various aspects of climate change. (the problem is, where is the baseline? Where is the numerate analysis? /Blair4mayor.com )

Climate & Weather: Facts & Figures - Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand:

The woman who would be mayor - Christchurch News - The Press

STEPPING UP: a political unknown is lining up against one of the most recognised faces in New Zealand for the job as Christchurch's mayor. So, who is Megan Woods?

A political unknown is lining up against one of the most recognised faces in New Zealand for the job as Christchurch's mayor. JOHN HENZELL asks who is Megan Woods. Megan who?"

The woman who would be mayor
The Press | Saturday, 21 April 2007
KIRK HARGREAVES/The Press

Bob Parker's Mind on Alcohol-Related Harm

Conference Focus on Reducing Alcohol-Related Harm:
Tuesday, 17 April 2007, 12:33 pm
Press Release: The Alcohol Advisory Council

Preventing intoxication on licensed premises is just one of the topics under discussion at a two day conference to be hosted by the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) in Christchurch next month.

“This will be the tenth Working Together Conference which is a significant milestone, offering the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of a decade focused on reducing alcohol-related harm,” says ALAC Chief Executive Officer Gerard Vaughan.

“The conference theme is Moving Forward Together. Participants already enrolled cover a wide range of groups involved in reducing alcohol-related harm including representatives from the Police and public health, district licensing inspectors, members of the hospitality industry, researchers, trainers, council planners and policy makers, councillors, Māori wardens, Māori health providers, Pacific providers, injury prevention and safer community co-ordinators.

“The conference will promote communication and partnerships, provide a forum for discussion and debate of critical issues, and present, demonstrate and showcase examples of innovative and effective national and local action,�" Mr Vaughan says.

Topics in the stream sessions range from reducing intoxication on licensed premises to looking at whether the current monitoring and enforcement system is working. There is also a panel session on the sale and supply of alcohol to under 18-year-olds. Associate Minister of Health Damien O’Conner will address the conference on the first day.

Topics covered by other keynote speakers include a look at the situation in Scotland from Alcohol Focus Scotland’s Chief Executive Jack Law; drug courts in New Zealand from Judge John Walker; the Police Action Plan a year on from Police Deputy Commissioner (Operations) Rob Pope; and Christchurch City Councillor Bob Parker on the role of local authorities in reducing alcohol-related harm.

There will be an opportunity for sector groups to meet on May 2, prior to the conference proper, which runs from May 3 to 4 at the Rydges Hotel Christchurch. Registrations are filling fast with registrations closing on April 24. For more information go to www.alac.org.nz

Drug Use Among the Young Caused by Politics & Policy Failure

Drug Use Among the Young Caused by Politics & Policy Failure or another case of anthropomorphic mess, 'its the rules stupid' - mildgreens

Government attempts to persuade thousands of young people to stay away from drugs have failed and done nothing to curb the soaring popularity of illegal substances, a devastating report will warn this week.

UK: Britain's Fight Against Drugs 'A Total Failure' / by Denis Campbell, 15 Apr 2007, Observer

The study, 'An Analysis of UK Drugs Policy', has been written by two internationally respected experts, Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the US and Alex Stevens, senior researcher at the European Institute of Social Services at Kent University.

Their findings are a scathing indictment of decades of education, prevention and awareness-raising campaigns intended to warn youngsters about the perils of narcotics. The three main strategies into which successive governments have ploughed tens of millions of pounds - mass media campaigns such as 'heroin screws you up' in the 1980s, initiatives in schools aimed at pupils as young as seven and targeting of vulnerable groups - have made little or no difference, it says.

'Prevention is cited as the main policy area aiming to reduce drug initiation and continued use. The policy is predicated on the assumption that prevention efforts reduce drug use, but there is as yet no clear evidence showing that prevention has had this effect in the UK,' the authors conclude.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence recently drew similar conclusions about the usefulness of drugs prevention campaigns.

Campaign Announcement Pending

Well if it aint harf 'ot maam!

The Mayoral debate on important issues called in by Lady Stewart...

Lets see what happens now. /Blair

Cannabis liberation is "Christian Harm Reduction"

Image via Wikipedia

"The favorite drink of Indra, God of the firmament, was made from cannabis, and the Hindu god Shiva commanded that the word "bhangi" must be chanted repeatedly during sowing, weeding and harvesting of the holy plant"- [Plants of the gods- their sacred, healing and hallucinogenic powers, Richard Evans Schults and Albert Hoffman, 1992.]


PRESS RELEASE to all media 20 October 1999

"Current Christian Heritage party rationale is inadvertently promoting harmful drug use", said Mr Kevin O'Connell, policy analyst and "catholic" cannabis reform candidate of Christchurch.

"People actually find it easier to be abstinent, when they are not being coerced" he said, in response to Christian Heritage criticisism of improved access to clean needles for the many in New Zealand who are injecting drug users.

"To close their hearts to the health & community precedents for drug normalisation and "harm reduction" forms part of a sociological determinant matrix, maximising drug uptake", says Mr O'Connell, who holds degrees in Computer Science & English.

"Through justice interventions, it sends a message that its OK to bully drugs users who haven't caused anyone any demonstrable offence, said Mr O'Connell. This hypocrisy really puts young people off seeing any good news in Christianity".

A law in disrepute represents moral "grey area" that the Churches must resolve, he said.
While Mr O'Connell's party does not directly hold a policy on heroin, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party members do believe there are strong precedents for harm reduction, and that these are being ignored by anti-drug moralisers, to the detriment of our society, and collective spritual health.

"The controlled availability of the drug of choice in a health orientated environment has worked everywhere its been tried", said Kevin O'Connell. If legal environments have failed anywhere, its because of an absence of an credible education and health context, he said.

This is the case of alcohol use in NZ, and particularly double standards surrounding the nicotine uptake and binge drinking models, while the less problematic drug, marijuana, is criminalised. (Health Select Committee "Cannabis" Inquiry, p39)

Mr O'Connell quoted the evidence of addiction specialist Dr John Marks (Drug Policy Forum Trust), who has demonstrated that regulated markets produce minimised harm according a simple quadratic function (between extremes of total prohibition and unfettered supply (as presented by ALCP analysts to the Parliament's Social Policy select committee on the Tattoo parental consent bill, 5 September, 1999 - "dope 'n' tattoos"- and holistic harm prevention)

For opiate addicts, desperation is a big part of the problem, and leads to crime, unhealthy shooting arrangements, and recruitment of new users to raise the big money needed for an illicit habit.

Hepatitis C amongst the Injecting Drug Users in NZ is feared to be reaching up to 70% prevalence. (personal communication, Robert Kemp, Drug and Health Project, Wellington). "This is thanks to policies expoused by a group of people who say they are Christian, but are reluctant to get their heads around the fact that it is fundamentally unsound to define what might be a sin, as a crime", said Mr O'Connell.

In Switzerland, crime dropped 70%, overdose deaths plummetted, and social function returned when heroin was clinically supplied to junkies in the Needle park, under the "fellowship" principle.

"More addicts present for treatment, and more get off the stuff", said Mr O'Connell, who stressed again that while this was evidence, it was not incorporated into a multi-platform drug policy under the ALCP, because CANNABIS REFORM IS THE STEPPING STONE to truth, freedom and harm minimisation.

While opiates are a problem, cannabis use is far more extensive, and parallels that of tobacco in New Zealand, with over one in five having used marijuana in the past year, according to the Alcohol & Public Health Research Unit, Auckland University.
Specifically addressing the religious dilemma, Mr O'Connell, said that "The genesis story is subject to an allegation of heresy under the policy of the Christian Heritage Party, and they should consider a reconciliation with the cannabis lobby in the interests of good community relations."

"Just because decision makers have decided to make cannabis a criminal plant, doesn't make this arbitrary definition valid under the HIGHER law of Nature."

In banning the primary food source (hempseed) and the proverbial "tree of knowledge" they've thrown out the baby with the bathwater, on a global scale, and manufactured the perversion of prohibition.
"God givith seed bearing plants like cannabis and poppies, and for that matter, magic mushrooms (psylocybin)", said Mr O'Connell. Who are these people who can't seem to understand that partaking of forbidden fruit has been the way of the world since time immemorial.

"If cannabis is the gateway, then open the doors of perception, we're going in", he said. "And let's have a society where we are free NOT TO USE DRUGS."

Criminalisation is an impediment to intelligent Christianity. It's as unconscionable as saying we should "burn the books" added Mr Blair Anderson, who is running in Te Tai Tonga (Southern Maori) for non-sepratist unity.

"Poverty, discrimination, violence and alienation afflicts families and humanity, but we have the opportunity to start planting hemp and all will be forgiven."

"The Christian Heritage Party and all intenders in this election have our challenge to back off on cannabis", said Mr O'Connell, and Mr Anderson. - "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden, so let the healing of the unholy prohibition begin".

In terms of pre-election coalitions the Cannabis Party could favour leader Michael Appleby's idea that the ALCP join the Christian Heritage and form the CCCP.... "The Christian Cannabis Coalition Party".
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Kevin, Blair (03) 389-4065