Posts by Russell Brown
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
Did they mainly focus on alcohol abuse by the abuser or by their victim?
That was my immediate response, yes.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to chris,
Thank you kindly for your point in the right direction Russell, I learned that despite the vast amount of diddling around the NZ Govt has done with age limits, packaging, branding, advertising, accessibility, roughly 23% of New Zealanders still smoke (2006) , compared with approximately 23% of Chinese (2008) (40c).
The more commonly quoted figure, and the one cited by the WHO and the Chinese Ministry of Health, is a rate of 36% among Chinese over 15.
The rate in New Zealand is variously estimated at 20-22%, down from 30% in the mid 80s. The number of cigarettes smoked per adult has halved since 1991.
I really do think you're drawing a long bow saying that the Smokefree policy has had no effect.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to chris,
Banning this or that location from sale seems little more than diluted prohibition. In China, corner convenience stores traditionally sell cigarettes, beer and 57% rice wine (1$NZ for 600ml), ID-less transactions, and there aren’t paralytic or even drunk youths on the streets, nor are their 12 year olds smoking in the bike sheds.
To be fair, five million Chinese youths start smoking every year and the WHO has predicted that a third of the 300 million young men in China will die prematurely of smoking-related ailments. The Chinese government does seem to be trying to curb availability, including by banning vending machines.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to Clint Fern,
Thanks for correcting that Sacha.
Fixed.
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I’ve been having a look at that Australian document now I have a little time.
I don’t like how many vasoconstrictors like Oxedrine/Synephrine there are in those pills. That stuff’s not good for you – although it’s probably worse for old folks than it is for healthy kids.
Ditto for methylmethcathinone – aka mephedrone. which is in the Australian-made Urban Shamans capsules (they wouldn’t be legal here, thanks to the analog provisions of the MoDA).
And Theophylline – which can reach toxic levels when taken with fatty meals.
You’re better off with proper drugs, frankly.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
But there might be a modicum of logic in that. Getting the user f..d up to some degree is what drugs are *meant* to do. It’s by design. People shouldn’t trouble busy medics with something that’s going to pass (un)naturally.
And the rejoinder was salient too. 13 and 14 year-olds coming smack-bang into a pretty serious high won’t have the skills to tell what’s going on, or to help each other.
I recall a few years back having some grass oil a friend had made.
“Was that possibly a bit much you gave me?” I asked.
“Don’t know. No one’s ever had that much before.”
Great. It took all my hard-won bongmaster skills to get myself down from there. I can see how someone inexperienced could panic and want to go to hospital. Apparently it happens quite a bit with vaporisers too – people ignore warnings when they buy them and get way higher than they intended.
But anyway, if the same long-term risks pertain to synthetic cannabinoids as to cannabis, it’s just really not something that adolescents should be doing. As I said, that’s a medical objection, not a moral one.
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Without wishing to unfairly generalise, I had an interesting conversation a little while ago with a friend who lives in a wealthy inner-city suburb -- and whose own children, therefore, hang out with the children of the fairly wealthy.
His view was that quite a few of those parents didn't appear to enjoy or exercise the responsibilities of adulthood.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
I mean, a party of 16 year-olds and I can see the argument – but 13 ? FFS, nothing good will come of that.
That is staggering.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So they put all their cash together and manage to buy a corner shop and work all hours trying to carve out a niche against corporations and multinationals with the power of bulk-buying and cross subsidy. Are you surprised that they might want to sell anything that’s legal and people want to buy?
Fair enough. When I said "feckless" I was more thinking of the dairy owners who are selling to kids, and they do demonstrably exist. I do remain strongly of the view that suburban dairies are not the place for this product to be sold, and certainly not with large point of sale displays.
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Hard News: What the kids do, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
And “brought to Jesus” tells you all you need to know about the motivations of the people making it. “Reasoned judgement of risk” is not generally a part of that sort of agenda.
Indeed. But I couldn't find any track record of that sort of film on the part of the producers -- the director comes from making music videos. I can only conclude that a Christian group put up the money but wanted to stay in the background.