http://climateandcapitalism.blogspot.com/2007/03/is-contraction-and-convergence-answer.html
Blair Anderson
CQuestNZ
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
Archive for March, 2007
C&C under scrutiny
March 31, 2007Fight Global Warming, Travel LSD
March 29, 2007Recreation is a vital component to our lives.
Without it we become burnt out and dull. Just as a trip to a different location can do wonders for our spirits, so too can a trip within our own minds regenerate our soul and leave us feeling refreshed and invigorated from the experience, not to mention the financial benefit of not having to fly to Cancun. Tobacco and alcohol, the only legally sanctioned recreational drugs, are more harmful than many illicit drugs on a number of scales. As such, we would do well to leave the paranoia, stigma and partisan politics that surround recreational drug use aside and concentrate on the true costs and benefits associated with the occasional, temporary chemical alteration of our experiences. In the end, we have nothing to lose but our hangovers and much more interesting lives to gain.
[the above snip is from Jeremy Oehlert, a senior in psychology and genetics from Osceola. His Blog is at http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/randomidiotuser/758720.html]
Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.com
Drug Harms vs Drug Classification
March 26, 2007LTE / attn: Medical Research Council
Dear Sir/Madam,
The issues surrounding relative drug harms and associated ‘classification based’ drug policy deserves a fuller debate especially in regard to (a) mediating harms associated with prohibition’s criminal sanction ‘as a cure’ and (b) beyond zero tolerant ‘all use is misuse’ paradigms.
The evidence base on these two pressing omissions is readily available and will address and largely allay any fear of much needed change.
—
Blair Anderson,
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com
Director, Educators for Sensible Drug Policy
http://efsdp.org
Strengthening Drug Education in School Communities
March 25, 2007Invitation to Submit Feedback: Strengthening Drug Education in School Communities
Education Gazette: Volume 86 Number 4 19 March 2007
Educating NZ is working with the Ministries of Health, Education and Youth Development to develop a matrix of learning outcomes for levels 1–8 within the NZ Health and Physical Education Curriculum for Drug Education. A draft matrix has been written and schools and teachers interested in providing feedback may download a copy from http://www.educating.co.nz/services/drugeducation/index.html.
Please return your feedback by 23 April.
Educating NZ received funding from the Ministry of Health’s Drug Policy Discretionary Fund to develop a Matrix of learning outcomes to assist teachers in delivering effective drug education in line with current curriculum developments. Following on from the principal led training workshops of 2005 it was identified that schools are seeking further guidance on how they can be delivering effective programmes.
The Matrix will take teachers step-by-step through the new curriculum levels of learning and detail the knowledge, understanding and skills that students should develop through learning at levels 1-8. The Matrix will reflect the outcomes of the new curriculum.
This initiative supports the recommendations in the Ministry of Youth Development’s Best Practice Handbook for strengthening drug education.The project is one of collaboration between the Ministries of Health, Education and Youth Development. It will also involve the Alcohol Advisory Council of NZ, the NZ Drug Foundation, NZ Health Teachers Association and organisations of school Principals.
A one-day workshop for principals of schools with year 7-13 students
Over 250 principals of schools with students in years 7-13 attended regional one-day workshops during May and June 2005 that provided practical advice about planning for and implementing drug education in their schools.
The workshop was run by Educating NZ using well-known principals from most regions of New Zealand. The workshops were funded by the Ministry of Youth Development to promote best practice in school-based drug education.
The workshops focused on two new Ministry publications-Strengthening Drug Education in School Communities: A Best Practice Handbook and A Practical Guide for Years 7-13.
- Download the Drug Education report
-
Jim Anderton, Minister of Youth Development, speaking to the Drug Education Principal Facilitators. The Facilitators met in Wellington for two days to plan the workshop programme.
Drug Education (DrugEd)
This Ministry of Education programme in 1998-2000 saw over 1000 schools running their own professional development to improve drug education delivery in schools. The Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC) funded it. Educating NZ project director Janelle Grady managed the funding, evaluation and monitoring on behalf of the MOE.
Download a copy of the draft matrix to provide feedback here
Please return your feedback with the matrix
by 23rd April 2007 to:
Lynley Bell, Educating NZ,
PO Box 12345, Wellington.
OR
Fax to (04) 471 1547
OR
Email to lynley@educating.co.nz
Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.com
Drug Policy Embarrasment – LTE NZH
March 18, 2007Letter to the Editor,
New Zealand Herald
Drug Policy Embarrasment
NZHerald opened a Pandora’s box when it mistakenly characterised the recent RSA drugs report critiquing the ABC classification of drugs as just “moral panic” and asking for online feedback positing “Are Drugs Wrongly Demonised?”. [The influential study concluded Britain’s drug policy is “not fit for purpose and is failing to cut addiction or drug-related crime.” ]
Clearly the weight of opinion (about 25:1) from the NZH readership supports international calls for wholesale drug policy reform. Cogent and richly diverse insight demonstrates how gravely flawed NZ’s National Drug Policy [NDP], released in the same week, has become.
At last years Christchurch NDP consultation Ministry Officials heard the review process described by an addiction science Professor as “an embarrassment to the Ministry of Health”.
Come election time Hon’s Anderton and O’Conner will be applauding themselves as ‘tough on drugs’ albeit at our expense yet deliverable harm minimisation, the return on investment objectives of the NDP, is inconsequential. NZHerald’s readership is demonstrably smarter than the government sham for policy suggesting you and yours are seen as not part of the solution, rather as an expensive (diverting resources away from what’s broken) and crime creating, thus dangerous part of the problem.
200 words
ref:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1501154&objectid=10427939http://www.tv3.co.nz/Portals/0/Admin/News/PDFs/rsa_drugs_report.pdf
Blair Anderson
50 Wainoni Road,
Christchurch
03 3894065 027 2657219
National Drug Policy; A Crock of Shite
March 15, 2007
National Drug Policy; a Crock of Shite
Press release 15 March 2007 – MildGreens
“the number of convictions for cannabis offences per annum demonstrates considerable harm for cannabis users” – Major Issues, National Policy on Tobacco, Alcohol and Other Drugs- draft for public consultation, Nov, 1995 p10.
“PROBLEMS FOR THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY ALSO ARISE FROM THE EFFECTS OF CANNABIS CRIMINALISATION, AND THESE NEED TO BE PART OF THE EQUATION WHEN DETERMINING OPTIMUM PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY” – Cannabis Policy in Australia and NZ., Drug and Alcohol review (1997) 16,421-428, Sally Abel
What particular over-arching government policy has deliberately avoided evidence-based best practice at the core of its raison d’etre: ‘Harm Minimisation’???
As anticipated, the MildGreens expected today’s release of the 5-year review of government’s National Drug Policy (NDP) to gloss over its total failure to reduce drug demand and supply despite costly ‘whole of government’ and ‘intersectorial’ initiatives…
Self appointed expert on drugs and youth suicide (Jim Anderton) is telling criminalisation industry insiders and inadvertent drug promotion grifters (health promotion/counsellors etc) at today’s NDP relaunch, that the multi-pronged ‘balanced’ approach to combating drug abuse can only be effective “when communities take responsibility” (along with a host of other weasle words).
The MildGreens say this if further ‘evidence base’ Anderton is a particularly irresponsible and dangerous choice for drug minister because he represents FAILURE.
“We predicted the NDP would fail to notice the bullying, repressive double standards (licit and illicit drugs) and abuse of the public health and harm minimisation principles which was intended to underpin the policy.” (principles notably include: effectiveness including ‘cost-effectiveness’, equity, harm reduction and ‘upholding individual rights where these do not unreasonably impinge on others etc.)
“Symbolic of the lack of sincerity and rigor in the NDP’s strategy to combat drug abuse is the fact that the ‘5 year’ review comes 12 years after the policy was first drafted. The 7 years of ‘doing nothing’ is the tip of the iceberg in the NDP waste and fraud” says Blair Anderson of the MildGreens. “for example, how many innocent people – and medicinal users – have been vilified and prejudiced by lost employment and/or travel opportunities by the process of a prosecution for the non crime CANNABIS?”
The NDP’s first phase in the late 90’s was the dis-integrating of the initial comprehensive policy into licit and illicit policies. This split facilitated a 2 year delay in the illicit drug policy
component while a recommended and budgeted cannabis ‘cost-effectiveness’ investigation was swept out of sight – the ‘legislative implication’ which made first National, then Labour duck for cover.
Successive governments have avoided the cannabis cost benefit analysis because it is obvious the money invested in ‘enforcement’ is totally counter productive. On the one hand supply is incentivised and on the other demand is amplified (forbidden fruit is sweetest). Anderton’s relaunched policy fails to notice there are glaring anomalies in its ‘balanced’ implementation of ‘supply reduction’, ‘demand reduction’ and ‘problem limitation’, just as it fails to catalogue or quantify any harms relating to PROHIBITION.
Since the NDP was launched we have had a select committee inquiry highlighting the ‘double standards’ impediment to drug education (1998), legislation to ‘remove the politics’ from drug classification [MDA#4], a cannabis law review which carefully avoided reviewing the law (2000-2003) and introduction of the highly logical “class D” for drugs which really do not justify criminal prohibition. Class D, applauded by public health policy analysts in Great Britain is the obvious model for New Zealand’s cannabis, alcohol and tobacco say the MildGreens.
However in today’s NDP release no real reform has been advanced, instead the evidence base shows the 2002 and 2005 coalition support agreements with United Future have put reform totally off the agenda.
How much of the kiwi taxpayer’s dollars are going into NDP’s prohibition damage, and then milking the bad outcomes?
Officials on the EACD, IACD and MCDP need to look at the raison d’etre of the NDP and ask themselves why they are backing the counter-productive, invasive model of Prohibition, when legal regulation has a 31 year successful precedent (Netherlands).
It seems Helen Clark and her Government favour continued criminalisation policy because the ensuing black market dysfunction and alienation is great for the economic growth, providing thousands of jobs for middle NZ’ers in Justice, Corrections, Police, Social Work, health promotion, CYPS, bail/parole and psycho-social support industries.
“Cannabis Prohibition is so flawed, it was unsurprisingly described by Professor Fergusson at last nights Medical School lecture as inequitable inefficient ineffectual and discriminatory, that we can only conclude Government has a hidden agenda to promote and perpetuate drug uptake, misuse, and ‘related crime'” say the MildGreens.
“We don’t learn from our mistakes because we never ask if we’ve made a mistake”, [Prof Fergusson, The Press, 14March, re Social Policy public meeting, Christchurch School of Medicine]
So much for Labour’s evidence based ‘social justice’ aspirations…
see also ‘Britians drug policy not fit for purpose’ 8 March 2007 Daily Telegraph
– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/08/ndrug108.xml
– http://www.aphru.ac.nz/projects/Drugs/cannabis.htm
– http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/publications/msd/journal/issue10/spj10-cannabis-in-nz.doc
Another MildGreen Initiative
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://mildgreens.com/
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
New Drug Policy launched – pressure kept on
March 15, 2007pressure… bah humbug!
Launch of the National Drug Policy 2007 – 2012, Grand Hall, Parliament
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/new+drug+policy+launched+-+pressure+kept
And all this is the result of a ‘due process’ found to be gravely wanting.
There were strong opinions within the EACD but the predominance of stake hold interests in status quo saw the health concerns and applied everything that has never been shown to work.
Some on the EACD seem to think, if you bang your head against the wall long enough it will stop hurting.
Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com
Combating the Spread of Illicit Drugs
March 14, 2007Media Should Not Glamourize Illicit Drugs, UN Official Tells Commission
Drug use is too often associated in the media with celebrities rather than consequences, a senior United Nations official said today, calling for a greater press spotlight on the dangers of illicit drug consumption.
Addressing the opening session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) noted an “alarming” rise in some European countries where addiction levels are among the highest in the world, and spoke out against the false glamour associated with cocaine.
“Europe should learn that cocaine is an illicit drug not a status symbol and, if addicts in dark-alleys in New York, Delhi or Moscow are nothing more than ‘junkies,’ the same should be said about those pop stars and models whose shooting and sniffing habits have been celebrated by the press,” he said.
(that news item gets worse as it goes on… but wait, there is more: See SCOOP Combating the Spread of Illicit Drugs / US State Department wades in the day before NZ National Drug Policy is due to be released – Pity that no one notices it celebrates 50 years of abject failure. This is laughable.)
Press Release: US State Department
Combating the Spread of Illicit Drugs
Thomas Schweich, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Opening Statement of the Government of the United States of America Before the 50th UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs
Washington, DC
March 12, 2007
Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. As this is the first opportunity for my delegation to take the floor, I would like to congratulate you on behalf of the Government of the United States of America on your election as chairperson of this 50th UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). We look forward to a valuable and productive meeting, working together under your able leadership. We also continue to look to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to play a critical role in leveraging international support for counternarcotics issues.
[. more .]
Blair Anderson http://mildgreens.com
C&C / UK Greens go beyond Kyoto
March 13, 2007CC210 The Green Party supports the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol; and will campaign for the non-use of its loopholes wherever possible. A GP Policy statement describes the KP and our views of it in more detail.
CC211 The Kyoto Protocol says nothing about the future beyond 2012. To address that timescale the Green Party advocates the adoption by the UNFCCC of a framework of Contraction and Convergence (C&C) as the key ingredient in the global political solution to the problem of Climate Change mitigation, and urges the UK and other governments use it as the basis for negotiations in the international fora.
CC212 C&C is a scheme to provide for a smooth and equitable transition to a safe level of global CO2 emissions from human activity. It can be adapted either to follow-on from a successful Kyoto Protocol, or can equally be used in case the KP is not brought into force by enough countries ratifying it. C&C is not an alternative to the KP; it is a long-term framework for global cooperation towards a genuine solution; while the KP is a short-term fix that takes only very limited steps forward. A GP policy statement describes C&C in more detail.
CC213 ‘Contraction’, means adopting a scientifically determined safe target concentration level and setting global annual emissions levels which should take the atmosphere to that target. The UNFCCC should agree specific thresholds for unacceptable climate impacts, from which the IPCC should calculate the appropriate concentration level, to be reviewed at 5-yearly intervals.
CC214 ‘Convergence’ means taking the world in an achievable way, both technically and politically, from the present situation to a common level of per-capita emissions in a target year. Under it nations are allocated annual quotas for emissions, which start from current or Kyoto-based levels in year 1 of the agreement and converge to equal per-capita allocations after a negotiated interval, probably of a few decades.
CC215 The C&C package is completed with an emissions-trading mechanism, which should include a percentage cap to limit the proportion of a country’s reductions that can be bought rather than achieved domestically. Monitoring and enforcement mechanisms are also required and should be set up by the UNFCCC.
C.3 Emissions Reductions in the UK
CC230 The principles of C&C would also provide the basis for reductions in emissions within the UK, through the introduction of a system of tradable quotas. This system should cover all emissions of carbon dioxide produced by burning of fossil fuels in the UK. On introduction of the system the total carbon quota would be equivalent to current emission levels, but would reduce year-on-year to meet the targets set out in C.1. Carbon quota would be needed for all purchases of electricity (if not from a renewable source), air flights and direct purchase of fossil fuels including gas, coal, petrol, diesel and fuel oil. Consideration would be given to also including long distance train travel. A system for buying and selling quotas would be established.
CC231 A proportion of the total quota would be distributed free of charge to all eligible individuals in the UK, with all adults receiving an equal amount. The remaining quota would be sold to organisations (public, private and voluntary) by a system set up by the government.
CC232 In addition to the introduction of quotas there would be a major programme of investment in energy conservation, energy efficient appliances, public transport and renewable energy technology, so that people are able to live within their quotas. This investment would be achieved through a programme of public spending and through the revision of technical standards, such as building regulations and standards for energy efficiency of appliances. The details of these measures are set out elsewhere in the MfSS.
—
Blair Anderson
CQuestNZ
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
Brits say no to ABC, NZ Herald pretends they didnt.
March 11, 2007Demonizing Drugs not the root of the problem, its the demonising (othering) of drug users by what ever means possible.
see ‘Demonising’ drugs does more harm than good
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=181&objectid=10427906&ref=rss
The Herald has participated in the obsfucation of what the British report really said and why its message may be very important for all New Zealanders.
The National Drug Policy (review) is about to be released. NZ has taken some progressive steps in accomodating ‘herbals’ with the “class D” initiative and may look to (if Czar on Drugs, Jim Anderton has anything to do with the policy) seeing herbals severely restricted if not banned all together.
However there is where it all falls apart. We, like the UK ascribed to the ABC classification in the vain hope (“so long as it was seen to be largely effective” – Blake Palmer Committee 1974 ) that criminalisation would eliminate the potential problems.
Originaly the Misuse of Drugs ACT [1975] was to be named the ‘Drugs, Prevention of Misuse’ Bill, a more apltly named strategy had it been adopted, we could have lead the world in compasionate and restorative drug policy… instead we inheritated the disaster that is America’s solution… lock em up, and throw away the key.
Here is an excerpt from the Telegraph(UK)- it makes our NZ Expert Advisoy Committee on Drugs (EACD) look lame indeed, as it does our ‘seperate the licit from illicit’ national drug strategy. Lets hope next weeks (fingers crossed) NDP strategy is a realistic assesement of all that is wrong with our current pretense for a solution. Yeah Right!
Britain’s drug policy ‘not fit for purpose’
Britain’s drug policy is “not fit for purpose” and is failing to cut addiction or drug-related crime, an influential study will conclude today.
Current policy is driven by “moral panic” and is ineffective, with huge amounts of money being wasted on “futile” attempts to get drugs off the streets.
The system, it says, is “crude, ineffective, riddled with anomalies and open to political manipulation”, while existing drugs education is often “inconsistent, irrelevant, disorganised” and “delivered by people without adequate training”.
Problems are so acute that the Home Office should lose its lead in dealing with drug treatment and enforcement, according to the panel of academics, drug workers and a senior police officer.
The RSA Commission report, which will seek to influence Government policy next year, will prove controversial in some of its findings.
It recommends the introduction of “shooting galleries,” where heroin addicts can go to take drugs and receive supervision and help.
It also says that only the worst drug offenders be jailed and that drug misuse should be treated as a social problem rather than a crime.
Among its other recommendations are that the focus of drug education should switch from secondary schools to primary schools in order to better stop children falling into substance misuse.
The focus of enforcement and treatment should also shift – away from illegal drugs – many of which are often “harmless” – and towards alcohol and tobacco – which are the most damaging drugs of all.
MildGreens's Backup Blog 