Noted. I was more thinking "Big Pharma" shareholders and the like.

I trust you spotted his weaselly qualifiers about the "overall" balance of NZ interests, In other words, whether his paymasters reckon the gain for farmers and bankers outweighs damage to evereryone else via Pharmac…

Ah, post-modern tolerance.

Okay, but I may go outside the lines.

Interesting international initiative here to try to get politicians to 'end the war on drugs'
http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/?fp

Ok how about this then, the folks there decided that some people didn’t like walking through clouds of smoke to get into buildings. They put a proposal to the city council, it was put out to public ballot and the majority imposed their tyrannical will on the minority.

In New…

So, you are qualified in something you cant answer questions about or even…

(Disclaimer: I am a qualified homeopath, and I think there's more to it than just placebo.…

True, but the necessary clarification is…

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Greyhound
Take a ‘Fear and Loathing’ Inspired Road Trip to Vegas
4:30 pm Tuesday May 17, 2011 by Lorenzo Ragionieri

Of all the literary road trips we admire…

Some parallels from science fiction:
Damon Knight’s 1992 novel “Why Do Birds…” featured a ring (or bracelet?) with the power of persuading others to agree with the protagonist.
(It ended with the End…

How about calling them "Magic Beans" apparently they will boost…

Smack and heroin are exactly the same thing.

Crack is the free base form – as opposed to…

In all seriousness: isn't this the entire point behind mainstream chemists selling homeopathic remedies? As in, homeopathy is basically a…

It's not building the tunnel that's tricky, it's teaching the little fuckers to use it.

Nothing to sell if you’re giving out placebos, therefore no drug companies lining…

MMMMM.... unpainted herb...
Damn those pesky helicopters.

Funnily enough, that applies to most non-conventional treatments too (including those pesky unpatentable herbs and suchlike that have been used for centuries).

The implications for the space-time continuum if that particular Möbius strip of infinitely repeating feedback ever happens are too horrible to contemplate

As I understand it,…

Not even through your mouth?

Don't take air in if you mainline; you'll die. ;)

All good. I'll just stick askew's name on the bottom of it...et voila! 10k on the property value.

20k if I bung another backhander to my ex-cop friend to cause a few more of his other pieces to 'go missing'.

Whereas a lawyer friend…

Not so sure about that. Smoking (well, technically vapourizing in the case of P) is a virtually immediate hit, and you can have any quantity you like. So there's really no difference, other than needle tracks in…

No. Just as I wouldn't really want to live anywhere that classes some drunk pissing in public (which we can all agree is gross and unsanitary) as sexual offending — especially…

I have known several people who used p very heavily and only two of them ended up 'fucked' from it (one ended up…

My non-expert guess is that there are two issues that make this so:

1. Crystal methamphetamine versus other amphetamines, such as amphetamine sulphate. It seems to have a particular effect.

2. Means…

The majority of people who bothered to respond, that is?

But sure, that sounds like due process. It doesn't make me agree with the people…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/

Craig Y

Ok how about this then, the folks there decided that some people didn't like walking through clouds of smoke to get into buildings. They put a proposal to the city council, it was put out to public ballot and the majority imposed their…

Littering doesn't harm anyone either.

Davis is an odd town, but don't knock it until you've experienced it. The smokers figured out where…

I can't agree with this sentiment. If it's not shown to be harming anyone else, and it's a public place, this seems like undue meddling to…

Funny you should say that. The Declaration of Helsinki has been moving medical research toward that very position:

The implication being that placebos are not permitted where proven interventions are available.

Which is kind of understandable from a humanitarian perspective -…

I just tagged your house. Looks sweet, bro.

+1

Sometimes, you look at a blog comment and think "Dang! I’d like to retweet that!”

ETA I also think "Dang! I wish the colon wasn't next to the double quote!"

We should probably start legislating against the placebo effect.

I don't disagree. However, there is…

But considering there always will be 'annoying' customers ideally there would be…

Oh no, dear. I couldn't. I'm too middle-class!

It’s funny though. I lived in a flat in Grey…

The equivalent would be every transport sector org (other than the trucking one) also complaining publicly that the Minister has lost the plot.

And Simon is not? bwahahaha!

Hmmm, maybe we can get the Māori Party to realise that the RoNS are no good either...

That could be the protagonist's catchphrase; sort of a "What you talkin' about, Willis?" for the millennium.

Yes, people who run…

But I'm too middle-class.

Not necessarily. I mean, I understand where you're coming from, and I…

Our experience was more in the "annoying" category, but yeah. Advice for young people who've just visited a tinny house:…

As if to ruin my example, Joyce backs down on that plan in favour of a PPP risk-share arrangement suggested by the Maori Party. Still means taxpayers indemnify Telecom et al if the…

For example while I in theory have no problem with…

Nah I think they basically thought asking folks to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into a public building was just rude. Since the smokers didn't seem to understand that they legislated it. Made the centre of town a remarkably…

That actually worries me.

One of the problems with the legal trade as it stands is dodgy marketing via Facebook et al. And one of the fake-pot companies has an incentive scheme going with retailers — rewarding those who can…

Huh?

You seem to be suggesting I'm an authoritarian. My stance is that folks should be educated, so they know what does them harm, they should be free to do things that do them harm if they so choose, but that they should be asked…

I'm guessing to do that we'd need vertebrates in parliament.

But yes I'd agree, a higher tax/duty on alcohol is warranted.

– Prohibition is too profitable to repeal. (DuPont, Big Pharma, Big Booze, Law & Order Inc)
– Prohibition keeps the 'proles' in their place. (Willy Hearst, Law & Order Inc)

Business as usual isn't it? For instance, broadband is hardly a quagmire yet apparently our captains of industry need relief from regulation for a decade after a couple gouging…

And thus the obvious solution is for a government to say "'P' is a horrible, highly addictive drug with enormous deleterious effects on the individual and on…

That’s because driving drunk is not…

That's not what Mikaere said. He said "P is a drug of choice for criminal elements" which does not exclude it from the general population at all.…

Ah but…
Drugs are illegal so they become the “criminal element”. It is a self perpetuating myth.
The fact that drugs not manufactured…

Well yes, but perhaps not in quite the way you have in mind. He was constantly dragging others, who were trying to get out, back into his particular little black pit, while resisting any and all attempts to offer…

And this policy is based on…

I fail to see why harm reduction works with other drugs but not with ‘P’.

P is extremely addictive, and in my experience, only the most experienced users are able to use it casually without developing a dependency. It also doesn't have major hallucenogenic qualities – it won't freak you…

raw milk. dairy products made with raw milk are good.
the stuff made with heat-treated milk is not so good.
can we have decriminalisation of raw milk too, please?

Better lobbyists?

I fail…

antici.................pation, as someone once said.

Nothing wrong with being high-minded. I'm also damn glad that human beings are delightfully inconsistent, otherwise I'd have died of boredom long ago. I'm just rather amused at the way Labour and National will say ramping up excise taxes on tobacco not…

Or in extreme cases, substitute them for the drug(s) when none are available. Major "WTF?!" moment for me: a junkie repeatedly sticking an…

Not sure where you get that information. None of the Australian ones of which I'm aware have that restriction. Victoria's, for instance, is wide-ranging and inclusive:

The Drug Court sentences and supervises the treatment of serious offenders with…

Sugar? Meh-

bless the bloody French, eh?

However, the damage dairying does to our environment is extensively documented, and despite Mr SmilenWave@tehSuckers' best efforts, emphatically detracts from our nation's touted 'clean & green' image.

you say that like it's a bad thing

Sugar yes – pretty easy to show that high sugar concentrations in food are bad and ought to be taxed to buggery

Dairy is more problematic the evidence is confused at best with those bloody french…

ooo ooo ask him how he felt about being compared to a lawyer by a politician

I fear that Dr Joy will be the next Jim Salinger. He's had several opinion pieces in the Granny, but not a lot of MSM coverage. Nothing on the One News or 3News…

We've just found one brief mention. Which includes a quote Joy says he didn't actually utter. Sheesh.

It's kind of incredible that no other major media outlet seems to have done this.

Fair enough, but my view is that pretty much the same thing is going on in the brain…

Indeed. In no sense does the government want to give a green light to methamphetamine, but that's not the same thing as proceeding with business as usual.

Methamphetamine addicts need help, not criminalisation. The drug courts idea would seem to fit well there.

I would happily argue that a health response (harm min…

True. But they do trigger a similar dopamine response to a number of prominent drugs of addiction.

I actually almost titled that post 'Anybody want a line?'

But I thought that would be an unhelpful distraction.

The biggest P taker I know was put on Ritalin when he was a kid. A lifetime of altered consciousness.

Yeah, 'heads up for music!'

'People take drugs'
'Some lines for Labour'

I’d imagine a situation where drugs were graded on their health risk and labelled accordingly. Sale of those drugs would be subject to taxation, duties and regulation.

I'm not so inclined to consider caveat emptor to be a sufficient mechanism to prevent harm. For substances that, when used responsibly, usually…

The right to possess (for personal use) is a barren right without protecting and honouring the right…

Essentially this is what we do with tobacco and alcohol. We could do it better with alcohol…

On one level, it’s just another crime show in which the police have final editorial sign-off. But I don’t think the people who make and broadcast Drug Bust really believe in what it says

Oh the stories I could tell about behind the scenes of another of those "Poh- leece"…

capital

Actually one of the more common signs of marijuana intoxication is talking rubbish with great conviction, there's irony for you. Editor at Bay of plenty Times, I'm looking at you...
One…

Thus, presumably, the cases of death or near-death from hyponatraemia (too great an intake of water) by users of such drugs? (Though I realise the numbers are so small – something like…

With some other drugs, quite the opposite is true. With most hallucinogens, for example, one is very much…

And that's why I don't think drug education is necessarily, as you state above, a waste of money even for those caught with small amounts. A lot of people (as illustrated by the examples above) don't realise how much…

Most…

Medicines are subject to a multi-phase clinical trial process that costs tens of millions for each substance.…

O, snap! Simon Poole-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuVXXahKaL0

You then can joining me in weeping that there are some places where an intelligent, provocative issues doco can screen in three parts on an…

Worse than tobacco, which kills 50% of users when used exactly as intended?

Not to say alcohol isn't particularly…

I’d…

Yeah I'm with Russell in the "not so sure" corner. I was pointed (by a Kiwiblogger, of all people) to an exchange he'd…

Alcohol,…

I guess he's got a new gig now.

Some prohibitionists are addicted to it, others do it to make money.

You mean like blogging?

My theory is it induces people to vocalise their inner monologue. And in most cases, no one else really wants to hear that.

Good luck on getting that one past Parliamentary services..... They take a dim view of anyone trying to borrow the pm's limo.

Any group who is dogmatic about treatment is going to do some harm. I can see why abstinence is a popular program, though. For starters,…

I'd say it's more that it becomes extremely noticeable when someone is abusing it. Hard to ignore people having psychotic episodes.

I feel one of the major obstacles to harm minimisation efforts as discussed here are the organisations who follow the "12 Step" method of recovery. Their very firm belief is that total abstinence is the only way forward…

What we put in our…

Like Neo-liberalism, the response to that is to say "Yeah, we know it doesn't…

Right up until you haven't slept for a week and your friends don't want you coming around.

The very large majority of users, it should be noted, never get to that…

Yes, P is much more insidious, precisely because you can function well on it, and overdosing sounds almost impossible.

So can we please stop doing something that doesn't work and try doing something different. It's pretty much…

Someone did a study that showed a very nice inverse correlation between grain prices and opium production. Essentially if the Afghani growers can get…

Perhaps not (though the junkies I've worked with tell me it does, if they have any sort of choice at all), but it certainly matters when you want to rid yourself of the monkey on your…

Not for me personally, but I love how you make us look good by bringing it into the conversation.

People like to get their consciousness altered. Some more than others, and some to the point of harm to themselves and those around them, either directly or indirectly. I don't think it really matters how. It's like wack-a-mole – choke off one…

Oh yes. I saw a few long-term junkies jump ship to P — and then proceed to lose their previous ability to manage their lifestyles.

The interesting figure for me is the question about why subjects stopped using marijuana. The most common answer (36% in 2007-2008) was “didn’t like it”.

Even though people were free to give multiple reasons, only 8% of respondents…

Do they actually appeal to the same people? They have practically opposite effects. Mind you there's no law that says…

Acting silly for no apparent reason.

Can't resist pointing out I'm doing an improv show in Auckland this week.

I'm a bit ambiguous about such things... TV always dives straight for the bottom of the barrel (present company excepted, of course) but having seen the same exercise undertaken for alcohol occasionally I'd have to say that if it's done…