Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Talking to the United Nations about drugs

BenWilson

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 19:50:56 +1300

Well poisoning is a crime which requires an intent to cause harm, but maybe a reckless disregard for evidence that a quack remedy is harmful could amount to intent?

But Dunne's talking about false hope as a harm, not any actual harm. Just a lack of evidence of efficacy. Homeopathic…

BenWilson

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 19:46:05 +1300

You’d think there might be some ground between official approval and “it’s a criminal offence to even possess this”.

Yup. It's not like there's no other approved pschoactive drugs which are currently banned to children anyway (conveniently available at the bottlo and the supermarket). We seem to be able to…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 18:42:58 +1300

Well poisoning is a crime which requires an intent to cause harm, but maybe a reckless disregard for evidence that a quack remedy is harmful could amount to intent?

Assault?

Shane Le Brun

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 17:01:38 +1300

Wow, had to reread chelation therapy, hadn't heard the term in years, and people actually force that on their kids for autism??

Ive done 1 post on the pros and cons of conventional versus experimental treatments, specifically surgery for paediatric epilepsy..
http://yournz.org/2015/03/04/medicinal-cannabis-its-not-brain-surgery/

Russell Brown

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 16:13:54 +1300

When you put it that way, yeah.

But public health officials are generally averse to approving anything that hasn't been double-blind tested, especially for children. Yet when nutbar parents can subject their kids to chelation to cure their damn autism, you do have to wonder.

You'd think there might be…

BenWilson

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 10:52:46 +1300

What he’s missing (or, rather, his officials are) is that, especially where pain is concerned, subjective benefit is benefit.

I think it's worse than that. He's actually saying that false hope is a worse pain than ... actual pain. Especially in children, apparently. Someone think of the children suffering from…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 09:48:37 +1300

Meanwhile Ireland accidentally legalises ecstasy!
Ireland is rushing emergency legislation through parliament to make the possession of several drugs including ecstasy illegal after a court ruled that the law controlling their use was unconstitutional.
Ireland's Court of Appeal struck down part of a near 40-year-old law on Tuesday (Wednesday, NZT),…

BenWilson

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 09:43:41 +1300

It is about human rights, but this is the UN we're dealing with here. It's about horse trading between superpowers. If they make a move in the right direction, even for the most ridiculous of reasons, that's as good as I've ever come to expect. If baby boomers in the…

Worik Stanton

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 09:00:09 +1300

I am a bit tired of "Harm reduction". People do not take drugs because they are harmful. People do not use LSD because it is less harmful than alcohol (it is, according to David Nutt) they take LSD because it has benefits for them.

The same applies to all drug…

Shane Le Brun

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:52:22 +1300

RE Sativex, its available off label for chronic pain, however even with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), widely touted as the most painful condition on the books, ACC still wont cover it, despite approval by specialists and MOH, what a rort.... (the case I am referring to is under review…

Shane Le Brun

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:44:28 +1300

companies are moving into medical cannabis

Agree with the benefits being oversold, As a supporter of Medicinal Cannabis I am constantly stomping on far lefties who tout it as a cancer cure....
(lab dish studies are showing it has promise as an additional medication on some types of cancer)

On…

BenWilson

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:24:11 +1300

This is a kind of incrementalism I can see is useful. Yes, it's flawed and hypocritical but that's pretty much the UN in a nutshell. At least it is dialled around rhetoric of not ramping up the war on drugs. Superpower exceptionalism is a built in feature. The bottom line…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 23:13:41 +1300

Why does the status quo of attacking the symptom persist? Could the common thread be that weed prohibition is big business? Big Booze, Big Prisons, the police-industrial complex, the nativist-industrial complex... you name it. Nothing's changed much since William Randolph Hearst made a yellow journalism issue out of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/17/the-drug-wars-profit-motive/…

mpledger

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 22:57:06 +1300

> it’s actually wrong to criminalise people for using something that works for them

Some people can get medicinal cannabis prescribed for them in the form of sativex. See
http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/RIss/Sativex.asp
for details.

it's not subsidised and because it pharmaceutical grade it's more expensive. A few years – maybe 5 -…

Russell Brown

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 22:19:43 +1300

Manufacturing and supplying cannabis isn’t criminal in one country and four US states. Why should other countries (and similarly, the US federal government) impose their will on those places, any more than muslim countries get to impose their alcohol laws elsewhere?

I don't disagree! I was just talking about how…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 20:47:54 +1300

the manufacture and supply of illicit drugs is by definition a crime

If you were a traditional Muslim, you could say the same of the manufacture of alcoholic drinks, or bacon. But Saudi Arabia and Iran don’t get to dictate our laws on that, in fact, aren’t we sending the…

Russell Brown

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:49:06 +1300

Hard to understand the nub of this story without any context. I assume there is a backstory somewhere but it seems arcane with it.

The Brownfield stuff is hardcore policy geekery. I did try and contextualise it a bit for the blog. Any specific questions I can address?

Ross Bell

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:47:59 +1300

Plus there's been a ridiculous Catch 22 with med cannabis: we don't have evidence about possible effectiveness because research funding has been withheld (US have only recently overturned its ban on federal money for med pot research). It's telling that many more pharmaceutical companies are moving into medical cannabis research...…

Alastair Thompson

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:37:40 +1300

We have just posted Peter Dunne's Speech.

Russell Brown

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:34:32 +1300

Wow, just wow. Peter Dunne has just released the speech he’ll soon give at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in a couple of hours. Brilliant stuff (except the medical cannabis stuff – some work still to be done).

To wit:

For those suffering from such ailments I have enormous sympathy…

Ross Bell

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 18:12:08 +1300

Wow, just wow. Peter Dunne has just released the speech he'll soon give at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in a couple of hours. Brilliant stuff (except the medical cannabis stuff – some work still to be done).

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1503/S00099/58th-session-un-comm-on-narcotic-drugs-vienna-austria.htm

David MacGregor

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 16:29:27 +1300

Hard to understand the nub of this story without any context. I assume there is a backstory somewhere but it seems arcane with it.

Mark Graham

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 16:12:15 +1300

Let's face it, we will eventually see the end of prohibition on drugs. Perhaps not in our lifetime, but eventually. The key is in ensuring drug use is safe. Couldn't we all just follow Portugal's lead? Once upon a time, New Zealand would have been at the forefront of this…

Russell Brown

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 15:32:04 +1300

There’s no UN convention on what rules countries apply to booze, or pr0n, or firecrackers, or non-military firearms.

The clue really lies in the name of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The manufacture and supply of illicit drugs is by definition a crime, and because supply often…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 15:12:20 +1300

There’s no UN convention on what rules countries apply to booze, or pr0n, or firecrackers, or non-military firearms.

(There are various conventions that ensure that for instance your box of fireworks has the appropriate warning labels, but NZ doesn’t try and force the Japanese to ban tentacle hentai, and conversely…

Michael Chiles

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:59:06 +1300

The sooner we are all allowed to grow our own the better.

Ian Dalziel

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:52:08 +1300

Soma-time, and the living is...
Why is drug policy a matter for the UN?
Is it because of the international trade?
…and that consumers in one country provide a market catered to by people who create lawlessness in other countries as well – the sooner governments become the official growers…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:04:15 +1300

Why is drug policy a matter for the UN?

Even if you disregard the idea that it's for individuals to decide what they can put in their bodies, then surely it's for countries or communities to decide for themselves what drugs they want to ban, if any?

Public Address

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:04:15 +1300

Discussion from blog post.