MedPot, Unresolved in NZ, Sorted in Washington

Medical Cannabis ‘bud’

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — After meeting with law enforcement leaders, Washington’s Health Department has cut its suggested two-month supply of medical marijuana by nearly a third – a change that riled patients’ advocates and sparked threats of a lawsuit.

On Tuesday, the state Health Department laid out its suggestion for a 60-day supply of medical marijuana at 24 ounces of usable pot, along with six mature plants and 18 immature plants. That mirrors the limits used in Oregon, and is a significant drop from the 35 ounces and 100 square feet of growing area the agency was considering after gathering volumes of comment from people around the state.

If only New Zealand had this dilemma!

Despite the woeful ignorance of many politicians who believe the crap Police dole out to them when they mockingly have declared “there is no one in jail for cannabis!”, Medicinal use remains unresolved. A bill before the ‘house of representatives’ has been languishing for years under the legislative tables.

The worst offenders are not those who use medpot, rather they are the gaumless and morally illiterate politicians who pander to ignorance AND dishonor the parliamentary prayer everyday.

Not one of these people should be re-elected ever.

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BERL, POLICE, JUSTICE and headbanging

Image via Wikipedia

Aside from the NZ Police’s questionable use of the DRUG HARM INDEX to self interestedly perpetuate an unaccounted policy, demanding as it were ‘more resources’ without any accounting for ‘deliverable outcomes’, it is entirely contestable in managerial let alone economic terms.

The Drug Squad is in effect ‘deficit funded’ without as much a skerit of evidence that the resources AND priorities are allocated with ANY efficiency.

This is POOR management practice.

This was roundly critiqued by visiting top cop and former head of Scotland Yard Narcotics/London Metro, Chief Super Det. Eddie Ellison to the Ministry of Justice in 2004. (Eddie was also a founding member of TRANSFORM, now with UN consultative standing )

“It wouldn’t pass muster at Police College, let alone the Home Office. There is no room in modern policing for unaccountable deployment blindly following political directives” -(private conversation with the writer)

Eddie presented to 17 MoJ Officials alongside Snr Detective Jack Cole, both of whom were executive directors of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [http://www.leap.cc/] also recently accredited by the UN.

Eddie also conveyed this to Gregg O’Conner of the Police Association.

Some months later the MoJ couldn’t find a single person who attended the board meeting room presentation, declaring again in a recorded telephone conversation to the writer “we have a very high staff turnover’

The BERL DRUG HARMS report and the subsequent Police Intelligence claims that cannabis is the problem bring the POLICE once again into disrepute.

There is no accounting the POLICE and JUSTICE stupidity of continuing to bang ones head against the wall and hoping it will soon stop hurting….

see PUBLIC ADDRESS HARD NEWS

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
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ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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On the Crime and Punishment Wagon

The agenda from the Nicky ‘Wagon’er Cut Crime in Christchurch meeting was clearly about alcohol & related mayhem, cannabis wasn’t even mentioned by ANY of the presenters at the table.

There was a clear agenda that ANYONE considered pissed would be spending the night with Mr Cliff & Friends (except if your a young girl out to lunch and you get a free ride home), yes, the “NY” broken windows was force du jour with the underlying tenet of zero tolerance of all crimeincluding riding your bike without a helmet – but there was no connect with broken windows being about ‘environment’ aesthetics (the O’Connell Hippothesis – a big idea with teeth but wallowing in some muddled politics).

Then… out comes the statement from the Police after the meeting that elevated intolerance towards cannabis was permissible even desirable due to the gang/money connection.

“Alcohol would be a focus, as would cannabis because it was still the key income generator for organised crime, he said.” [PRESS.CO.NZ]

Now with the ‘right’ (to which they may not be entitled – Minister of Health 1975) to stop anyone anytime – in a car or not, in the back seat or not etc. we can realistically expect the same outcome as NY. This is done under the aegis of local government “liquor free zone” bylaw enforcment. But we are told its a central govt. issue. Direct your objections there…

New York – New York City has been the pot-bust capital of the world for a decade, since Rudolph Giuliani’s decision to make public toking a top police priority. A new study sponsored by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the city’s cannabis crackdown is both racist and fraudulent.
….
“we will tame New York by bringing the black and brown people under control” and “no offense is too petty.” Of the people arrested for misdemeanor pot possession from 1997 through 2006, five out of six were black or Latino, in a city that is almost half white and Asian. Nine out of ten were male, and most were aged 16 to 25.
….
the policy a waste of money – at an estimated $1,500 to $2,500 per arrest, it cost the city $60 to $100 million last year, at a time when Mayor Michael Bloomberg is slashing the city budget and closing libraries on weekends. (cf: Parker raising rents 25%, Moore closing Libaries and Pools)

….
the marijuana-arrest program works to “familiarize, socialize, and prepare disadvantaged black and Latino teenagers and young adults from poor neighborhoods for the routines and expectations of the police, court, jail, and prison system.”
….
New York’s cannabis crackdown is both racist and fraudulent – and that more have been arrested under “You bet I did – and I enjoyed it” Bloomberg than intolerant Giuliani.

There is a parallel. I have absolutely no doubt Media Mayor Bob Parker enjoyed inhaling it as well. He was rankled as all hell at any suggestion he achieved high office on the back of the ‘inner city, bar on every corner, brown fields development’ alcohol ticket. (cf property developer David Henderson’s $60,000+ campaign contribution with ‘no strings!’ Yeah Right!)

Yes, Mr Parker, the message is loud and clear, and you need to hear it from us. “You may as well have got your ‘golden chains’ money off Al Capone himself.”

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Drug Crimes Soar as Cops Tell Morality Porkies.

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.

Drug crimes soar as cops get tough – Bay of Plenty Times – 2008-04-02 09:10:00.0 – localnews

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

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Prohibition is deviancy amplifying behavior. LTE, Scotland on Sunday

The Editor, Scotland on Sunday,
108 Holyrood Road,
Edinburgh, EH8 8AS,
mailto:letters_sos@scotlandonsunday.com.

It is policy irony that zero tollerance of a consensual ‘sin’ delivers exactly what it set out to prevent and its stakeholders call this the triumph of good over evil. Wherever the rules are the same, the outcomes (or insert expletive of choice) are the same. Prohibition is just deviancy amplifying behavior.

I have observed this deficiency for thirty years or more. The imperfection of prohibition and its health, security, economic, racial, sexist and ageist failings disgrace us all.

All the more so that this is mostly about pot, a herb which the ‘harms are largely overstated’ and called ‘the safest therapeutic known to man’.

I, as a friend of the court have been witness to and aggrieved by Police ‘testilying’ to judges about the hazards of small time bonafide medical users grow ops. Police then lie to the public – linking pot to violence, organised crime and guns. They declare what they are doing is a net good, often inferring to a receptive, if deluded public it should be grateful and tolerant of any social injustice done to those ‘druggie types’. The law is the law and intolerance comes with the territory.

Prohibition is saving us from whom?

New Zealand’s “Law Commission” has the efficacy of our dominions drug policy and international obligations up for green-fields review. This is international drug history in the making. For the first time in about a hundred years our global drug conventions and covenants are being tested at law and effect. [http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/]

While God knows the world needs a New Holland, such an appraisal chaired by constitutional legal eagle, former Prime Minister and now Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer will in and of itself document the legacy of failure. Unlike at Vienna, UN Special Assembly or Office of Drug Control [UNASS/UNODC] the opportunity for the rest of the world to contribute is absolutely open. This is the international opportunity the 2002 Canadian Senate Inquiry saw as necessary to resolve the tensions.

New Zealand ‘banned the bomb’ when no one else could and honoured suffrage when no one else would. It punches above its weight in social welfare, peace policy and civil advocacy. (A legacy of never running away from a fight might stand it in good stead too.)

NZ recently hosted at Wellington’s Te Papa [“Our Place”] the final of 18 global ‘pre-Vienna’ Beyond 2008 NGO meetings. It was notable that the Ministry’s of JUSTICE and HEALTH were seen talking together AND in a forum where the Law Commission heard emphaticaly that ‘the whole world is watching’. NGO spokespeople including visiting UK Professor David Nutt acknowledged NZ’s history, leadership and success in harm minimisation needle exchange [NEP’s], youth court diversion and the innovative Class D ‘legally regulated’ drug classification.

Unlike the UN, the Law Commission is not reviewing where we have come, rather where we should be going. Uniquely, in the spirit of all voices at the table the Law Commission process allows the whole world to partake. To be a drug peace maker one needs to submit to be empowered. Restoration of civil society and its social capital on a global scale is rarely accomplished silently or alone but we now have a beginning..

Defacto reform falls way short of the required standard. Mediocre discussion equates to mediocre policy and unresolved tensions.

Again: [http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/]

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
50 Wainoni Road, Christchurch, NZ 8061
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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Cannabis dealer can keep farm

An Orinoco man convicted of drug dealing and money laundering has won his fight to keep his farm, which is potentially worth $1.5 million, but has been ordered to pay $200,000 to the Crown instead.

The Crown had applied for the 107ha property in Thorpe-Orinoco Rd to be forfeited after wood merchant Graham Donald Sturgeon, 50, was found guilty by a jury in July 2005 of 13 charges. These involved cultivating cannabis at the property between 1997 and 2002, selling cannabis to people over 18, possessing cannabis for supply, money laundering and possessing offensive weapons.
Sturgeon, a former Nelson Bays representative rugby player, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in September 2005, and is now out of jail.

In a written decision, Judge David McKegg dismissed the solicitor-general’s application, saying forfeiting Sturgeon’s property would cause undue hardship to him, his partner, and to Sturgeon’s father, who planned to eventually move to the farm with his wife so they could have some oversight because of physical disability.

“The impact on Mr Sturgeon at 50 years of age of being deprived of his home, his future livelihood and his only asset is, in my view, distinctly out of the ordinary,” Judge McKegg said.

“In submissions, it is put to me that such an order could force a man who is capable of supporting himself and his wife into a state dependence circumstance and would be a disruption to the entire family.”

Sturgeon bought the property which includes a two-bedroom home and farm buildings in 1991 for $145,000, and worked hard to develop it. 4MORE SEE Local News – The Nelson Mail – Printable

[see also ‘five years for his clandestine trade’ Stuff.co.nz September 3rd 2005]

While people were looking up to Orinoco man Graham Donald Sturgeon as an example to youth and a “pillar of the community”, the former leading sportsman was secretly growing and dealing in drugs. Now, he’s been sent to prison for five years for his clandestine trade.
Sturgeon, 47, a wood merchant, was sentenced in the Nelson District Court on Thursday on 13 charges a jury found him guilty of in July. They were three counts of cultivating cannabis, two of selling cannabis, a charge of possessing cannabis for sale, two charges of possessing offensive weapons – two loaded semi-automatic rifles – and five counts of money laundering. Judge David McKegg sentenced Sturgeon to five years’ prison and ordered that $20,000 found by police in a freezer at his Orinoco home be forfeited, Full Forfeit….

This man would otherwise be conducting his farming practices as per normal if it wasn’t for prohibition.

It is a myth that legalised cannabis would encourage dealers to move onto other criminal activities.

Indeed… this is but one more arrest statistic that speaks of prohibitions failure. The perverse claims by Police ‘forfeiture’ by over over stating the values ‘only created by prohibition’ such vociferous assertions bring the Police into disrepute. There are 500,000 cannabis consumers and many other libertarian minded folk who in all likely hood say Sturgeon’s a hero. He faces the same kind of risks that confronted Tony Stanlake (hence the precautionary weapons, not required at bottle stores or dairy’s selling cigarettes) so see this, amongst many other things about this case for the absurdity it is.

Besides, how can property be guilty of anything?

No wonder the Judge saw the bigger picture. However, it is still double jeopardy and that doesn’t make it right.

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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Canada, Cannabis and Compassion. cf: our New Zeal for Prohibition

WHY IS CANADA COPYING FAILURE?

Larry Campbell, is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an international, non-profit educational organization made up of current and former members of law enforcement who believe the existing U.S. drug policies have failed. extract: Vancouver Sun, BC, 8 Jan 2008 image: (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/mayorcampbell.jpg)

The Harper Government’s U.S.-Style Tough Line on Drugs Benefits No One but Criminals and Their Syndicates

Is there really anyone anywhere in Canada who believes that U.S. drug policies are working? Or that they are deserving of being copied here?

This is the direction {Canadian} Prime Minister Stephen Harper would have us go.

More prisons and more people in prisons has not worked for our southern neighbours, and there is no logic behind the move to increase criminal penalties for drugs.

In fact, logic dictates that we move away from criminalization and focus instead on a policy that emphasizes medical intervention for those Canadians who abuse drugs.

What about our teens? In the pique of a rebellious phase they grow a few plants, get arrested and end up getting their higher education in prison rather then university. And the burden of a criminal record makes them pariahs in the job market.

Can we afford — either financially or socially — to emulate a system that has created in the U.S. the most incarcerated population on Earth? Or should we continue to distinguish ourselves from our neighbour by continuing to exhibit humane and socially profitable measures that make our citizens some of the healthiest and most compassionate people on the planet?

This Conservative government refuses to look at the science, or even the simple facts.

Minimum sentences for non-violent offenders may play well with a hang ’em high crowd, but it will do nothing to solve drug problems in this country. The Conservatives have spread their “big lie” for so long that they have begun to believe it, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

We should be putting our efforts into increased treatment for addiction, education and increased medical treatment for those with mental disabilities. We should also legalize marijuana in this country to keep the profits from being funnelled into criminal hands.

Did you know that in the U.S. the government produces and distributes about half a pound each month in marijuana cigarettes to medical patients?

The Canadian government could produce it like cigarettes, put the derived funds straight into health care and addictions treatment and programs. The pot could be sold in liquor stores where children will not have easy access and the quality can be monitored.

When drugs are produced by regulated industries, they cost a mere fraction of the price of the products produced and marketed by clandestine criminal organizations.

By leaving some drugs in the hands of criminals and their syndicates we leave control of the purity, dosage and pricing totally in the wrong hands. Why not take away their motivation for involvement in the drugs trade?

Regulated industries all have motivation for legitimacy. They hire working people who live in our communities and spend their income in our stores and shops. We all have an investment in the task of reducing drug harms and that investment is one that can either prove to be profitable, or costly.

Criminals have control of these substances only because we make the drugs illegal. Through legalization we have regulation and we remove the death grip the gangs and cartels have on the drugs black market.

If a poll were to be conducted among these drug dealing thugs and gangsters, asking if they prefer prohibition or legalization, prohibition would be the unanimous choice. Legalization runs counter to their needs.

It is truly prohibition that continues to line the pockets of those criminals who are the real threats to all our communities.

Prohibition is a failure that bears no resemblance to any logical solution to our drug problems.

We must end prohibition, not expand it.

“There is no way in hell that the United States’ drug policy is going to be my moral compass when it comes to this.” – Larry Campbell, Mayor Vancouver City :

— ends —

In Canada, there is a growing movement of NGOs and individuals to defeat Harper’s “war on drugs.” Libby Davies is the Member of Parliament for Vancouver East, and Deputy Leader of the Federal NDP. She is the Party’s spokesperson for drug policy reform, and has long championed the need for progressive drug policy reform. see Politics of fear: Harper’s “war on drugs”

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
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http://blair4mayor.com/

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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Drug classification beset by confusion [UK]

[ 01/11/2007- The Guardian ] In looking at the reclassification of cannabis in 2004 you claim “Ministers are coy about the success of their policy” in reducing use (Leaders, October 29). Let us be careful about spurious associations. In fact, cannabis use among school children was broadly stable according to a 2001-03 English school survey and has since declined. For adults, according to the British Crime Survey, cannabis use peaked in 2002-03 and has subsequently declined. The classification of a drug has little bearing on its prevalence, as the figures demonstrate.

There is no evidence here or internationally that the particular classification of a controlled drug acts as a deterrent to use.

Economic, social and cultural factors, along with availability, are the stronger influences. (the decline commenced prior to the Class B -> C UK reclassification, but may be in part a response to London Met. Det Chief Super, Eddie Ellison’s ‘Policing management’ call to deal with cannabis by ‘means other than arrest’ /Blair )

There is a general confusion surrounding the purpose and function of the classification system. In the UK it currently provides a steer to national and local policing priorities , prosecution and sentencing practice. (same as in NZ)

Given the recent history of the debate about cannabis, we consider that a review of the entire basis of the classification system and the process for making decisions on drug classifications is overdue. We have made this point in our recent submission to the government consultation about its revised drug strategy. In particular, the opportunity should be taken to review the role of politicians in making decisions about the classification of controlled drugs – for example, to explore whether there are models that place decision-making outside of ministerial influence , as has happened with national statistics, the new Independent Safeguarding Authority and interest rates.

Roger Howard Chief executive, UK Drug Policy Commission

I think this explains why the [dis] Hon “drug Czar” Jim Anderton (and his simpering pathetic staff who cant resist embellishing a simple request for a meeting into a ‘terrorising threat’ ) chooses to ignore evidence based drug policy.

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
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ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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When truth is the victim

My pennyworth…..
Responding to the many who have contributed to the crime statistics thread, I am glad there is some measure of oversight.

Crime is not just what is reported. Victims ’self report’ exceeded the offense statistics. Uninsured ‘burglary’ and dishonesty is an example. Another, and the GREENS executive know this but fail to connect the dots is the prevalence of ‘drug related’ crime, again not analysed in any meaningful way.

The nexus of many crimes of dishonesty is prohibition related. Criminogenic in nature, prohibitory social engineering escapes due scrutiny because contemporary analysis is conveniently simplistic, and (any) conclusion runs counter to prevailing political paradigms. There has NEVER been a cost benefit analysis of prohibition. What you cant measure you cannot manage.

Key matters arising from drug related crime is it being characterized by the vicious and often fatal outcomes, extended duration of inquiry, expense to prosecute and the difficulty of obtaining conviction(and resolution). These are all unmeasured.

The trial of those accused of Phillip Cowan’s bodyless murder trial (Operation VeeDub) cost over a million dollars. The inquiry even more. The truth was never discovered. What price ‘justice’ ?
Many prohibition related murders remain unresolved and some, where legally concluded still carry the baggage of significant doubt. Deviancy amplification is a consequence of the identified poor public health policy putting at stake, the integrity of the ‘law’ and thus governance. Simplified statistics for offenses disguises what is really broken while the societal cost of disrespect for rule of law is simply unaccounted.

What consequence is borne by all when Police are held in disrepute?(i.e.: the flood of PCA cases are a predictable outcome of social doubt )

The systemic failure here in New Zealand is having national Police ‘anti-drug’ protocols deficit funded. Drug interdiction activity is an easy way to top up the budgets. Drug related work is billed in half hour units. Just the same as Road Safety is billed to LTSA except… the LTSA $$ pool is finite.

Value and performance and return on investment are not words in the anti drug lexicon. It is, quite simply ‘allow’ [or maintain] the matrix of dysfunction’ at all costs. The market mechanism is self interest entrenches prohibition practice, anyone one who speaks up is a ‘pro drug’ loony, and politicians play ‘tough on crime’.

Until there is a cost benefit analysis (one was budgeted for, but dropped due to the legislative implications) , crime statistics will remain lies, lies and damned lies.

500 ++ Economists, including three nobel laureates called for such a study to be made… but the political economists, like Brash and others… duck for cover shying from any “soft on drugs” label and pretending that there are ‘more important matters’.

Yet the nexus of harm reduced drug policy would see crime drop massively along with prison musters. Application of effective drug policy would render the current bunch of politicians ’stupid’.

Thankfully there is a global trend that increasingly marginalises those who continue to see altered states as ‘evil’ and the demand for drugs as ‘eliminatable’. Such terms are historical anachronisms. Our current crime levels, what ever they are, are unacceptable. We should all be regaling.

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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The war on the War on Drugs – Jack Cole

“Because we were trained to fight a war on drugs because of that metaphor we felt like we had to have an enemy; and the enemy when you’re trying to fight a war becomes the citizens of your country. And when you’re fighting a war, thats a very very terrible metaphor for policing in a democratic society, because when you’re fighting a war it’s no holds barred. And the holds that we didn’t have to have barred anymore were the holds on our constitutional rights, which we would just stomp on. Our fourth amendment right in the United States against illegal search and seizure: we would illegally search people all the time, because we felt like We’re fighting a war, we’re the good guys, and no matter how we get these guys, it’s worthwhile because we’re taking them off the streets and that’s our job.”

Dunedin 2004 – Jack Cole, retired police officer LEAP

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