This case exemplifies all that is wrong with the international drug covenants and conventions to which New Zealand is a signatory. Recent hangings in South East Asia, firing squads in China, and most recently two Kiwi’s arrested (and presumed guilty) for 3.5oz of cannabis between them in India, (the home of Ganja, a plant named as sacred along with the river Ganges) all happen because we as a nation collectively give licence to kill and incarcerate cruelly and inhumanely. Where is the legal profession on drug policy? Or is the substantial legal aid grift and perpetual social mayhem an incentive for a silence closely resembling stupidity? NZ’s own National Drug Intelligence Bureau chief along with the BERL Drug Harm report (though much criticised) states that the revenue ‘churn’ through the legal system is a DRUG HARM. The LEGAL profession are beneficiaries of the unintended consequences. So when are you collectively going to talk about that? To the Law Commission? Yeah Right! Curiously, in Christchurch’s sister city Seattle, it was the law profession that lead drug policy law reform. see King County Bar Association – http://www.kcba.org/druglaw/
“The principal objectives of this effort are: reductions in crime and public disorder; improvement of the public health; better protection of children; and wiser use of scarce public resources.”
Re: Motorsport: NZ Race Driver Banned After Positive Drug Test
The V8 driver was tested for the presence of metabolites of cannabis. The metabolites are the left overs, the residual chemical structure from the active ingredient. They are not proof of impairment rather the opposite, their existence shows that what ever THC (and any impairment associated with the unfamiliarity with the THC experience) has been used up, its gone, no longer active however they are proof, even at nanogram quantities that cannabinoids have been in this driver system.
Personally, I would rather work, recreate and take risks (and have done so many times) with someone who can make a rational choice to consume cannabis in a responsible manner than someone for whom other drugs, many of them legal, can have confounding effects.
The former UK top cop, Det. Chief Super, Eddie Ellison described cannabis testing of drivers as the logical equivalent of licking the exhaust pipe to see if the car exceeded the speed limit last week.
That every driver on the circuit is pumping with adrenalin, dopamine, testosterone and more is clear to me. Whereas alcohol impairment is not just limited to cognitive impairment post use, it can debilitate a drivers capacity to sustain high levels of these natural drugs hours and days after binge drinking.
Cannabis [in this case] is being hung out to dry while alcohol and prescribed drugs escape attention.
Notably, the winners podium will be awash with fermented liquors, the venue replete with the obligatory ‘drink more beer’ hordings, the chardonay set swimming in corporate liquid refreshments and, going by the glass in the waste bins, spectators similarly fueled.High powered double standards… (that evidentialy sets up every one for failure…)
see
Motorsport: NZ Race Driver Banned After Positive Drug Test A New Zealand V8 racecar driver has been banned after returning a positive drug test for a banned recreational drug. Dale Lambert tested positive for cannabis at the Manfeild round of the NZV8s in February 2007. Drug Free Sport New Zealand officials arrived at the circuit for the first-ever drug screening episode of the sport without prior notice and selected three Toyota Racing Series drivers and four NZV8 drivers.”Our members are subject to WADA’s list of banned substances and it’s the first time the agency has turned up at a circuit,” said MSNZ general manager Ross Armstrong. “It’s disappointing that we’ve had a positive urine test first time up but it reinforces to competitors that drugs will not be tolerated in the sport.” Unlike alcohol and other recreational drugs that leave the human system relatively quickly, cannabis can be found in tests up to 23 days later. Testing for alcohol at meetings has been put in place and any driver found with any trace will immediately be stood down. The anti-doping authorities are also concerned about the use of m###########ine or P.
After testing positive for cannabis, Lambert was advised of the result and the matter was referred to MotorSport NZ for adjudication. Lambert did not appear at the meeting but sent a letter admitting taking the cannabis, albeit some considerable time prior to the test. The tribunal ruled the allegation was proved and Lambert was excluded from the New Zealand V8 championships for 2007-08 and his competition licence suspended until May 2010.For a sport where the slightest miscalculation or lack of concentration can put a driver in the wall, motor racing has been a little slow over the years in introducing mandatory random drug testing. Formula 1 has a random-testing system in place where at any meeting drivers can be tested.
Nascar also has a system but tests only on reasonable suspicion.Other forms of the sport have various testing processes in place, but there are calls for more more stringent procedures.
Drug crimes soar as cops get tough 02.04.2008 / Bay of Plenty Times
By VICKI WATERHOUSE
Western Bay police say their crackdown on ‘evil’ drugs like P and cannabis is the reason why drug offences soared last year.
Statistics released yesterday showed more than 130 more drug offences were uncovered by local police last year _ an increase of 30.1 per cent from 2006. Western Bay of Plenty Police District Area Commander, Mike Clement, attributed the dramatic rise to better policing.
“It was a very strong focus on having an intolerance towards cannabis dealing,” he said. “That [increase] is largely around our policing of drugs.
“I just don’t like people drug dealing, and the message is very loud and clear, and the community doesn’t like it either, and we’re doing something about it.
When top dick Eddie Ellison was in BoP in 2004 he spoke of the lesson in drug policing management where he placed an elevated intervention process in an otherwise identified no drugs area, and low and behold, after some low level detections the media is reporting the village is going to hell in a hand basket and local folk are demanding answers to the ‘problem’. He promised everything and did nothing… pulling the policing out of the area. What happened? the Drug Problem simply went away. When can we have cops that understand the POLICING is not just LAW ENFORCEMENT to justify ongoing budgets? When drugs become ‘evil’ there is an unspoken agenda that is unrelated to the pharmacology. Some may even think the muloch is prohibition itself!
If Cannabis is Evil, then, based on harms, Alcohol is the devil incarnate.
And Anderton, after your inane ‘because its dangerous’ BZP on SUNDAY (TVOne) you look the fool I took you to be…
By any standard, swimming must be banned immediately, and our Biejing bound pool athletes withdrawn… /Blair
Managed to catch “American Drug War: The Last White Hope” on SKY. I had just returned from attending the world premier of “Brigadier”, the story behind the honouring of his name in James Hargest High School for which I was attending the fiftieth jubilee. Southland’s Prohibition of alcohol featured in ‘Brigadier’, so to did Invercargill Licencing Trust’s Community ‘post prohibition’ investment in sport and cultural facilities, a prime example of ‘drug related harm reduction’ in action.
The American Drug War is a documentary that deserves to be on mainstream TV. One cannot study modern contemporary politics without seeing understanding policy and drug politics changed human history.
NZ’s Drug War has not been documented, though much can be drawn from New Zealand’s adoption of the UN Conventions and Protocols. Fortunately, NZ doesn’t have a cocaine or heroin problem. The absence of ‘drug trafficking spillage into our markets’ gave us the cannabis methamphetamine enigma we have now. The tougher policy on meth leads to more cannabis detected fools conservatives into thinking ‘problem solved’ when in reality the inverse relationship; tougher on cannabis leads to more meth, is the outcome. (cf: Black Hole Economics, Pokalo and Ice, Professor James Roumasset, Economics Chair, Hawaii University)
The American Drug War features three LEAP speakers, Judge James Gray, DEA agent Cele Castillio, Governor Gary Johnson. Also featured is reform colleague and Biology Chair, Dr Bob Melamede (Colorado).
It is a recommended viewing… 5 stars!
Sunday March 23
The War on Drugs has become the longest and most costly war in American history. Inspired by the death of four family members from legal drugs Texas filmmaker Kevin Booth sets out to discover why the Drug War has become such a big failure. Three and a half years in the making, the documentary follows gang members, former DEA agents, CIA officers, narcotics officers, judges, politicians, prisoners and celebrities. The film centers on Freeway Ricky Ross the man many accuse for starting the Crack epidemic, who after being arrested discovered that his cocaine source had been working for the CIA. The documentary shows how money, power and greed have corrupted not just drug pushers and dope fiends, but an entire government.
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