Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: WOTY: The Kindness Scandal, in reply to Neil,
I thought what I did was a gently humorous way of dealing with the bombardment I got last night, but it clearly wasn’t received that way. Sigh. Got that one wrong.
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Hard News: WOTY: The Kindness Scandal, in reply to Thomas Beagle,
By switching it out you've taken one of the sides... and I think you've taken the wrong one.
I've changed it back.
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I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere useful wrt to the original post. I'll close it for the time being, thanks everyone.
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Righto folks, thanks very much that's the conclusion of the discussion stage. Voting starts tomorrow!
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The Science Media Centre has expert reactions from Dr Paul Quigley, Dr Fiona Hutton and Professor Doug Sellman.
They are extremely positive reactions.
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Hard News: Just quietly, this is a big deal, in reply to Kazam,
Yes I know it’s still technically illegal…. but the change is clear and faster than I thought it could be.
Hmmm, steady on there. Cultivation isn't part of this, and even as they've sharply reduced the number of possession prosecutions in the past 10 years, the police have continued to bust growers.
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Hard News: Just quietly, this is a big deal, in reply to linger,
OTOH, “police discretion” tends to be unevenly applied in practice, so this should be seen only as a stopgap measure.
Yes. But it's a pretty big step.
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Hard News: Just quietly, this is a big deal, in reply to BenWilson,
This is fantastic news. If you had told me 2 days ago it was coming I would not have believed it.
I was fairly gobsmacked when the Minister of Health called this morning to give me a heads-up.
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Hard News: Just quietly, this is a big deal, in reply to Neil,
Reclassification to Class A makes a lot of sense. Ideally some drugs that are currently Class A could be reclassified so that Class A is just for those drugs that are inherently very dangerous.
That would be an excellent step.
As part of the treatment side of things the government should look at setting up secure detox units attached to Emergency Departments to handle people coming off meth and synthetics. That would provide a safe environment for both users and health staff.
And so would that.
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And more:
"This will be huge for Māori," says Selah Hart, Chief Operations Manager of Hāpai Te Hauora. "Our people have suffered disproportionately under an antiquated approach to drug use in Aotearoa which has seen people who use drugs treated as criminals and not as people who have a right to health care and treatment."
"Much of the opportunity to turn this around will rely on the police and their ability to move their organisation from one which has been guilty of perpetuating institutionalised racism against Māori in the past, to one which is capable of enacting these changes without bias."
Hart continues "We will look forward to receiving more detail on exactly how these changes will roll out, and will hope to see Māori involvement at the decision-making table in order to ensure equity is achieved. But for now, we throw our support behind this announcement which demonstrates a practical commitment underlying the Government’s kōrero around putting compassion into drug policy."