Compassion, Health and Justice

Maori traditional healers are being funded by the Ministry of Health at a cost of nearly $2 million a year.

see http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4821162a6009.html

They are the only alternative-treatment providers directly receiving public health dollars.
Rongoa is a traditional Maori system of healing that includes rakau rongoa (native herbal remedies), mirimiri (massage) and karakia (prayer), as well as spiritual support.Image via Wikipedia

“The mere fact that people use rongoa and go back to the practitioners is testament that the services they are given are contributing to their wellbeing.”

Healers were required to report to the ministry quarterly and submit an annual report, but the practitioners and their health outcomes were not reviewed. “It’s not unusual to fund on outputs. It’s extraordinarily difficult to report on outcomes,” Wall said.

Rakau rongoa herbal remedies were not covered by the Medicines Act and the ministry did not require them to be tested as part of its funding policy.

Mother Mary Joseph [Suzanne] Aubert (1835-1926) might have wondered whats going on here?

Famous for founding the Sisters of Compassion (a Wellington landmark and Institution) Mother Mary’s rongoa was a recipe of herbs and cannabis, a formulary adopted and sold, albeit fraudulently, when demand required Thomas Kempthorne to dilute it (later to become a famous New Zealand Pharmacueticals and Fertiliser partnership known as Kempthorne Prosser & Co, and one of my early computer clients before Ravensdowne Fertiliser purchased it and disposed of its ‘drug making’ assets. /Blair) .

Perhaps the Minister of Health (and notably a former Minister of Justice), Hon Tony Ryall should explain the present ‘difficulties’ given that Maori are substantially under the gun for herbal ‘cannabis’, most recently in Northland. see POLICE URGE PUBLIC: Dob in those dope growers

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/

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Ngati Dread.. The Ruatoria Rastafarians

Image via Wikipedia

Ngati Dread, Vol 1, by ANGUS GILLIES
Current bid: $25.00 / Reserve met

(as seen on TradeMe)

When you talk about terrorism, most people in New Zealand think about problems overseas. But those in Gisborne and the East Coast merely cast their minds back twenty years to the Ruatoria Troubles. From 1985 until 1990 the township was terrorised by a Maori sect calling itself The Rastafarians. Their story is one of the most bizarre chapters in modern New Zealand history. Yet most Kiwis under the age of forty have never heard of The Rastas or their reign of terror until now.

Carolyn Robinson, 3 News Presenter: “That Gillies has managed to get this information is astonishing. That hes painstakingly recorded it – incredible. Without him an important slice of New Zealand history would be lost.”

Cath Hallinan, Editor, Campbell Live: “Before Angus gave me a sneak peek at this book, I hadn’t even heard of the Ruatoria Rastafarians. Now I find it incredible that these shocking events took place in New Zealand. This is an amazing, fascinating story about what can happen when bits of different religions and cultures get pushed and pasted together, how that can give birth to a rebel belief system that turns on the very society and influences that created it. This is a story every New Zealander should read. I can’t wait for volumes two and three to find out what happened next.”

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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• http://www.dhushara.com/book/tane/dread/dread.htm
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Binge drinking ‘damages brains’ while Cannabis does, um, I forgot?

Binge drinking ‘damages brains’, so how does one isolate or protect against [any] cannabis harm against this background? say the MildGreens.

“the projections were frightening”,
Gerard Vaughan, ALAC chief executive

snip snip snip… (audio)

Arbias (Acquired Brain Injury Service) chief executive Sonia Burton, whose Australian organisation treats people with alcohol-related brain damage – said 785,000 New Zealanders were at risk because of the sheer amount of alcohol they were drinking.

“It’s critical New Zealand wakes up to an issue that will become a major crisis in the next 20 years, with health services being swamped with people with alcohol-related brain damage,” she said.

Based on statistics collated by the Alcohol Advisory Council (Alac), the group estimates at least 80,000 New Zealanders could already have undiagnosed alcohol-related brain damage.

Based on 2004 estimates, it is believed alcohol costs New Zealand $1.17 billion in lost productivity each year.

Alcohol is linked to 70 per cent of all emergency hospital admissions, and up to 90 per cent of all weekend crime.

Also media from the same Auckland Addiction conference… Concerns over low addiction treatment funding

Ms Kearney said most people in residential services used multiple drugs, often had mental health related problems, poor academic history, a poor history of stable employment and difficulties with maintaining relationships. There was often ongoing contact with the criminal justice system.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that the ogre of reefer madness has been masking the alcohol reality. But lets stop pretending we didn’t know this all along. Its not intuitive. Most of us know someone for whom alcohol goes hand in hand with a matrix of dysfunctional behaviours.

But then along comes an expert in the politics of alcohol and drugs (Jandals and Footwear – doh!)

“New Zealand First opposed the lowering of the drinking age and will continue to take a hard line against the liberalisation of our alcohol and drug laws,” said Mr Paraone. “We need to educate our youth against the appeal and access of hard drugs such as ‘P’ and cannabis through co-ordinated education and police programmes.”

“Oh he is sincere… sincerely stupid.” say the MildGreens “Which part of what has been tried is the part that is working Mr Paraone?”

/Blair

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