Posts by George Darroch
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Cannabis only smokers had less incidence of lung cancer than even non-smokers.
Thirdly, many prescription meds have far worse addiction potential and side effects than cannabis.
There are good health and societal reasons why cannabis should be legalised, or at the very least decriminalised. And there are good health and societal reasons why it should be restricted. The incessant attempts of cannabis-advocates to pretend the latter do not exist does their cause no benefit.
Professor Lester Grinspoon was given Federal funding to prove the hypothesis that smoking cannabis is bad for you.
I'll readily accept this contention if you provide evidence for it (this is the internet, after all).
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The harm-minimisation approach would presumably favour something like this
Absolutely. We well know the irony inherent in the current approach, which has made illegal a great number of harm-minimisation devices. Hopefully this doesn't attract negative attention from the law.
There are a range of harms and benefits, and a responsible society seeks to decrease the former while providing for the latter. It has to be acknowledged that many of the staunch opponents of marijuana consider the pleasure derived to be a harm inflicted on society. They're of the sort that would ban dancing if they had the chance.
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Prohibition has made for some great commercial television. What would we do then?
I tend to think that any relaxation of cannabis prohibition in New Zealand would have to be accompanied by a significant public health outreach.
More seriously, inhalation of burnt organic compounds at high temperatures has significant public health implications; implications which are waved away by advocates of an entirely unregulated sphere*. Whatever our policy decisions, these need to be grappled with.
*You ever see those Facebook posts attributing 0 deaths annually to marijuana? I do, frequently.
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Briefcase is a cracking read. How works of poetry do you know that feature a cross-examination about a thrown stapler?
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Warm and beautiful. The new xx makes me want to cry.
And is there a good word for David Dallas' music? Inspirational has all the wrong connotations, doesn't do it justice. Driving beats, resolutely positive lyrics; it's music that fights its corner. Papatoetoe in New York. He's still risking it all, giving away his music for free...
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Oh yeah, and another thing:
Can anyone imagine Country Calendar being commissioned or funded under the current TVNZ model?
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Anyone who has followed the success of Mythbusters or of Brian Cox would know the public enthusiasm for popular science is undimmed by the efforts of the barbarians who guard the commercial broadcasting gates.
Or, indeed, of Natural History New Zealand, before its work was neglected by a rabidly commercial TVNZ. It's now part of an interstellar empire, but the affection we have for things that describe the world we live in continues. Programming like the BBC's 'Blue Planet' may not be cheap to make, but it's certainly popular.
This I think was the strength of TVNZ7. By abdicating the "popular" determined solely in 18-49 ratings to the other channels, it was free to focus on the things that were strongly enjoyed by sections of the population. Does everyone want to watch a show about politics in the pub? No. Certainly not. But is there a part of the population who would genuinely love to watch such a show? Yes. Certainly.
By mixing fairly cheap local production with commissioned local quality and international quality (news, documentary, drama, sport) you can make things work. Australia's SBS has taken too commercial a focus in recent years, neglecting the communities it was supposed to serve (is it any surprise it's headed by a former TVNZ exec?). But it still provides a fairly good example of how to get it right.
TVNZ7 is dead. Long live non-commercial broadcasting.
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If I use EFTPOS to top up my HOP card, it’s not revenue for the transport provider until I complete a tag-on/tag-off transaction, likewise any other stored-value fare system.
Matthew, isn't it the case that money topped up on Hop or any other device accrues immediately to the organisation running the device? In which case the money stored on the prepaid device becomes a large float. How this is accounted for with respect to real expected future costs is a matter for the accountants, but it could be that this buffer constitutes an interest free loan. Asking in ignorance.
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I have this weird memory of a time in 1999 (or possibly 2000 - the early days of the fifth Labour government) where a whole lot of MPs admitted to having used marijuana, mostly as students. Even the PM! But the really odd thing is that it was major news for about a day, then everyone promptly forgot about it.
Are you sure you weren't hallucinating?
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Sacha, that sounds about right. Good. (Again, huge caveat about non-knowledge).
You can reduce disease radically even if the underlying conditions remain. Panama is nearing malaria eradication, and it still has the same swamps and forests that felled tens of thousands while they were building the canal. China and Sri Lanka are in similar situations.
I don't think this policy announcement is awful. I think this Government's approach to public health is awful, and this amelioration doesn't change that.