Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Trump 2018, in reply to Russell C,
Hmm, quite how is that so Neil? Sounds more like a poor attempt at deflection to me.
I'm pretty sure Neil was being ironic.
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And just to cap it all off, Paul Manafort has sued Mueller for investigating other potential crimes he's discovered in the course of his investigation of Manafort's potential crimes as part of the Trump campaign.
Amazing.
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Hard News: Music: 2017 – this is not a list, in reply to Venetia King,
For the live experience I can’t recommend Glass Vaults and/or SoccerPractise highly enough. Such joy.
Yes! I should actually listen to SoccerPractise's album a bit more, but their Golden Dawn show before Christmas reminded me what a good thing they are live.
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Peter McLennan has listed (and provided YouTube clips for) the best 7"s he found in the bins this year at Real Groovy.
(Oh, and I've added some more things to my own post above ...)
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Hard News: Music: 2017 – this is not a list, in reply to Hugh Wilson,
Derrick Harriot features on volume 1 funnily enough, but somewhere along the line I came across him and his productions and was completely perplexed as to how I hadn’t heard of him before. I’ve since chased down a bunch of his albums, including the great Rocksteady party reissue on Dubstore, and grapple with acquiring the Soul and Funk double comps also on Dubstore. Tonight is one of my favourites.
I've got the Reggae Funk and Soul compilation and I play it heaps. Might have to check out Rock Steady Party ...
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Hard News: The new medical cannabis law…, in reply to Craig Young,
I would suggest that if you agree with the above, someone should set up a submission template to deal with potentially widened access eligibility and scope for medicinal use in this context. Preferably with evidential accompaniement of efficacy in this context and legislative and regulatory examples from overseas.
I think select committee is going to be important – especially if both bills go through. On one hand, high-quality expert submissions – on the other a mass submission as you describe.
Someone needs to get Grey Power branches on to this – lobbying not only NZ First, but National MPs.
The petition Rose Renton delivered to Parliament had 17,000 signatures. 17,000 submissions to the select committee, all asking for the same things, would focus minds enormously.
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The Drug Foundation's response:
The Drug Foundation welcomed the government’s announcement to establish a government-run medical cannabis scheme as part of its First 100 Days commitment.
The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill will build a solid framework to oversee the domestic cultivation and manufacture of medical cannabis products, and improve advice to the medical profession about how to prescribe medical cannabis products. New products are going to be made available on prescription to patients from pharmacies.
“The scheme would address the current barriers of cost, accessibility and fear that patients face in accessing medical cannabis,” said Ross Bell, Drug Foundation Executive Director.
“The proposed scheme is very similar to models that have been working well in places such as The Netherlands and Canada. The encouragement of a domestic supply market could be a game changer by expanding the range of products, as well as addressing the current expense of importing products from overseas.”
“Medical professionals, who are currently very nervous about medical cannabis, should have confidence in the scheme. But more importantly, patients will be the big beneficiaries of the scheme, once it’s up and running.”
“And therein lies a problem, the scheme will take some time to be fully operational. The estimate of a two-year wait is too long. We need a better stop-gap measure than the bill currently provides.”
The bill introduces a statutory defense for possessing and using cannabis, but is limited only to patients who are expected by their doctors to be in their last year of life.
“It’s understandable the bill includes such a time limit, given some tricky political maneuvering must have been needed to include this defense. A one year window simply does not go far enough to cover people with chronic pain and any terminal illness and needs to be reconsidered by the select committee. We would want this protection to be given to all patients and to those currently supplying medical cannabis.”
The Drug Foundation also wants medical cannabis patients represented on the advisory committee overseeing the scheme.
“This bill shows the kind of compassion a huge majority of New Zealanders want for patients whose lives can be improved by using medical cannabis. But to ensure that compassion is built into the scheme, medical cannabis patients must be at the table to ensure their voice is at the centre of the scheme.”
But Graeme Edgeler has already pointed out that there actually isn't an expiration date in the bill, so ...
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Hard News: The new medical cannabis law…, in reply to Russell Brown,
But ... this bill can be amended. The select committee stage will be important.
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Hard News: The new medical cannabis law…, in reply to Worik Stanton,
Definitely better than nothing.
Was it too far to have protection better than “legal defense”?
A statutory defence is a defence in law, so it’s okay – the same as being legal, in fact. I think it will have an impact on police willingness to prosecute in general.
Protection for growers would have good too. Too far?
For now, yeah. I was specifically told that it’s not there because they didn’t have the numbers to get it through.
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It'd be a good result to have this and Chloe Swarbrick's members bill before select committee at the same time. David Clark has already said he's voting for Chloe's bill at first reading.
It will be much more likely to pass at first reading if Bill English allows his caucus a conscience vote. His MPs should stop trying to play gotcha and ask to be able vote their consciences.