One LifeBoy to Another

“At the same time, these maturing bodies are only just developing ‘reward’ chemicals such as endorphins, but still lack the emotional maturity to control them.” – Trevor Grice, LIFE Education Trust. [see Teen drinkers corrupting `brain software’ The Australian]

Trevor seems to forget the role of age of consent and obligation to state to ones life education.

These are the very same kids we are sending to Afghanistan.
Old enough to die for your country, old enough to make decisions for oneself.

I’d rather a soldier with self will and drink experience than the one for whom the double standards has alienated, for whom the law is in contempt and for whom in all likelihood has been arbitrarily criminalised for race, class, ageist and sexist reasons.

Even I mistrust a politicised justice system that endorses such prejudices.

It is not that the numbers are great, even problematic, rather, I urge you and your fellow prohibitory zero-tolerance brain robbers to consider whose freedom our soldiers fought for if not for those of our youth.

If Trevor’s concern for the foundations of our society is to measured (and, gongs aside it has never been) it cannot be argued that our current relationship with drugs and drug policy is logically or economically sustainable. And, like New Zealand the world is coming to terms with that.

The UN Human Rights best practice is not addressing the raft of unintended consequences of this War for whom, on a global scale are young people -innocent victims, mere collateral. Even the USA is taking an independent, from the boots up re-evaluation, including the international implications for the Single Treaty. These are changing times. ABC classifications are in disrepute. Even the AMA has recanted. [Gt. Britain: only one Nutt lost his chair job, seemingly being an expert is not enough… one must dogmatically hold the line against all reason. Where is the liberty worth fighting for in that?/Blair]

A Class D act would be to come up with UN complaint transitional solutions. Then we can really start protecting ALL our kids and stop this moral pretence.

Anything else remains deficient, inefficient, inequitable and it especially hurts young people. The very ones you’re trying to save, Trev!

Blair Anderson
(* and former LIFEBOY, BOYS BRIGADE, WINDSOR, NTH. IN’GILL.)

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Distinguish Use and Misuse.

‘We must distinguish between drug use and misuse’ – Fr Peter McVerry

SOCIETY needs to make a distinction between drug use and drug misuse and should consider the legal supply of drugs. [29Oct2008]

Image by dogwelder via Flickr

This call was made by veteran homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry in a speech at a conference on drugs last night. Fr McVerry said adults should take a “long and critical” look at their own drug use, namely alcohol and prescription drugs, such as valium. “It is hypocritical to expect our young people to stay away from drugs, when we adults won’t,” he told the conference, organised by the Addiction Training Institute.

He said adults had fostered a culture of consumerism and individualism, which did not value young people for what they were and destroyed their sense of community. The Jesuit priest, who has worked with homeless young people for 30 years, said he had seen the “devastation” caused by illegal drugs, particularly heroin and cocaine. “I spend much of my time helping young people to come off drugs. As a priest, I bury, on average, one young person a month who has died from a drug overdose, some of whom I would have been very close to.” But he said there was a massive difference between drug user per se and drug misuse. Image by hippydream via Flickr

“I do it along the lines of alcohol. Many people use alcohol but it doesn’t have any dire consequence for themselves or for anybody else and people can use drugs without it having any dire consequences for themselves or anyone else, whereas the misuse of drugs is where drugs have consequences for oneself, one’s family or one’s community.”

He said 98% of those who experiment with drugs do not go on to misuse them. “If you want to find out why young people take drugs, go into any pub any night of the week and ask the adults why they take alcohol. The reasons are the same.

Adults would say we take alcohol in order to relax, as a focus for socialising, in order to escape from the pressures of life and to alter our moods. We take alcohol because we enjoy it. Young people take drugs for exactly the same reasons.”

He said Ireland’s response to illegal drugs has been a predominantly criminal justice approach, which he was “particularly inappropriate” for drug users, who should be helped by way of prevention and education.

He said criminal justice responses should be secondary in dealing with drug misusers, who should be first helped from a social and medical point of view. Fr McVerry said public discussion of drugs was dominated by either a climate of fear or a moral climate. “It would appear to me that the legalisation of drugs must be, at the very least, on our list of policy options to be discussed. If we accept that drugs are here to stay, as I think we must, then our priority ought to be ‘controlling the supply of drugs’.”

He said legalising drugs in the model of alcohol would be a “total disaster” and that their supply would have to be tightly controlled. “We often forget — or are unaware — that we have already legalised one drug, methadone. Methadone is a highly dangerous drug and even more addictive than heroin.”

He said he appreciated that legalising, or controlling the supply of drugs, was politically unrealistic.

• Evidence of ‘risk-taking’ brain
• The Economic Costs of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
• New Study Blames Prescription Drugs for Bulk of Fatal Overdoses

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Tougher laws may make young taggers ‘heroes’

Friday, 20 June 2008,
Newmarket Business Association

Tougher laws around tagging just passed by parliament may in fact make tagging just that much more ‘cooler’ particularly among minors, claims one Auckland business district. MPs have voted to get tougher on taggers by supporting measures such as lifting the maximum fine for tagging from $200 to $2,000 and banning the sale of spray cans to people under 18.

“The legislation is a step in the right direction but the public needs to keep vigilant. These tougher laws could in fact bring on an unintended consequence – that is make taggers even bigger ‘heroes’ among their mates,” says Cameron Brewer head of the Newmarket Business Association..

Curious that the same logic “engine of malcontent” doesn’t apply to youth and cannabis. / Blair

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Most Scouts favour sex before marriage.

“More than 80 per cent of those questioned said they were happy to get drunk and almost half said they would smoke marijuana if offered.”

“The problem is their everyday lives. At school and in their free time, they behave just like their friends, and not just sexually. A significant part has little confidence in politicians, and does not respect the rules of society.” – Nine in 10 Scouts favour sex before marriage – Telegraph

Is it unsurprising then that we live in a collective if deluded perception of drugs, boy racers and sensible sentencing.? / Blair

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Children aged 7 hooked on cannabis

and media fluffs it up! doh!

Family First reports Children aged 7 hooked on cannabis

NZ Herald November 08, 2007
Addiction agencies are seeing primary school children smoking cannabis, despite a slight drop in adult use of the drug. Rotorua counselling agency Te Utuhina Manaakitanga Trust said yesterday that children as young as 7 were getting help for cannabis addiction. Clinical co-ordinator June Bythell said the agency was still seeing a steady increase in clients seeking help with cannabis and alcohol. “We have a major problem with cannabis in our area. People are trying to make changes but it is a huge struggle for them,” she said. Other agencies in Auckland and Hamilton said they were also seeing more children starting to smoke cannabis in primary school.

Figures released this week showed that cannabis use by 15- to 45-year-olds had dropped for the first time in many years – from 20.4 per cent in 2003 to 17.9 per cent last year. But New Zealand still has one of the highest rates of cannabis use in the developed world, second only to Canada in the last World Drug Report. Dr Grant Christie, a child psychiatrist with the Auckland Community Alcohol and Drugs Service, said his agency commonly saw young people who had started smoking cannabis as early as 11. He said the drug was usually given to children by their parents, a sibling or sometimes an older friend of the family. “They are very dysfunctional families, they are not your typical everyday families. There is usually CYFS involvement, there are usually multiple agencies involved,” he said.

NZH http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10474704
Rotorua Daily Post http://www.dailypost.co.nz/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3754496&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

Doesn’t say much for prohibition eh!
How do these buggers manage to ignore that ‘all this’ it is occuring on their watch? Or that reform is accountable for none of this mess? And why isnt the media asking that question?

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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Causation, Correlation, Nicotine, Alcohol & Pot.

Teenagers who smoke are five times more likely to drink and 13 times more likely to use marijuana than those who are not smokers, says a US report issued today.

The report by Columbia University’s National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse presented further evidence linking youth smoking to other substance abuse and spotlighted research on how nicotine affects the adolescent brain.

“Teenage smoking can signal the fire of alcohol and drug abuse or mental illness like depression and anxiety,” Joseph Califano, who heads the centre and is a former US health secretary, said in a telephone interview.

The report analysed surveys conducted by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and other data on youth smokers. Most smokers begin smoking before age 18.

Smokers aged 12 to 17 were more likely drink alcohol than nonsmokers – 59 per cent compared to 11 per cent, the report found. Those who become regular smokers by age 12 are more than three times more likely to report binge drinking than those who never smoked – 31 per cent compared to nine per cent.

Binge drinking was defined as having five drinks or more in a row.

Asked whether smoking is causing these other behaviours or is just another risky behaviour occurring alongside the others, Califano said, “There’s no question that early teenage smoking is linked to these other things. Now whether it’s causing it or not, I think the jury is probably still out on that.”

Smokers ages 12 to 17 are more apt to meet the diagnostic definition for drug abuse or dependence in the previous year – 26 per cent compared to two per cent, the researchers said.

The report noted that marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug among teenagers, with government data from 2005 showing seven per cent of those aged 12 to 17 used marijuana.

Of these, current cigarette smokers are 13 times more likely to use marijuana than those who do not smoke.

The younger a child starts smoking, the greater the risk, the Columbia team said.

Children who start smoking by age 12 are more than three times more likely to binge on alcohol, nearly 15 times more likely to smoke marijuana and almost seven times more likely to use other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Teenagers who smoke also have a higher risk of depression and anxiety disorders, the study found.

The report cited scientific studies showing the nicotine in tobacco products can produce structural and chemical changes in the developing brain that make young people vulnerable to alcohol and other drug addiction and mental illness.

This includes effects on the brain chemicals dopamine and serotonin and changes to brain receptors associated with an increased desire for other addictive drugs.

Reuters

A poverty of reason.

Columbia University’s National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse have identified that naughty kids do naughty things…. (see MRC: Medical Rearch Council – News Antisocial behaviour in kids key to alcohol trouble in teens )

Like protecting the ‘vulnerable’ is the American way! Balderdash.
When we [NZ included] arrest someone for pot, we turn an otherwise normal person into a ‘victim’ purportedly to save them from themselves.

This study is evidence ‘pot laws’ protect and arguably, promote early entry into the ‘harmful’, albeit legal drug markets.

Worse, it avoids discussing the social ecology, the set and setting of poverty along with the toxic laws that create both the opportunity/incentive for early entry and rejection of social values/alienation and any subsequent ‘deviancy amplification’.

If pot wasn’t illegal, rather controlled by legal regulation, these kids would in all likelihood come to little or no harm. Isn’t that the desired ‘harm minimising’ outcome here?.

Consider; If ALL youth smoked pot and didn’t binge drink or inhale nicotine, the ‘life time’ prognosis would be entirely different.

As I have said on many occasions, prohibition couldn’t promote pot use to kids more efficiently than if pot was made compulsory.

The best advertising to prevent youth uptake would be to say cannabis is really good for rheumatism and other (over 50) age related stuff. It would turn them right off!

A bit of intellectual honesty is the ‘cure’. /Blair

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Cannabis not dangerous for young people

AMSTERDAM – Smoking cannabis does not affect the brains of young people.
Cannabis not dangerous for young people / 17 October 2007

This emerges from research into the effects of cannabis on the brain of young people carried out by neuro-psychologist Gerry Jager. At the Utrecht University Medical Centre De Jager examined forty teenagers, half of whom smoked cannabis regularly while the other half did not. Jager conducted memory and concentration tests and examined MRI scans.

The test results of the cannabis smoking youths were as good as those of the other group. “The things happening in the not yet fully developed brain of cannabis-smoking youths are similar to what happens in the brain of adults,”Jager said. She would advise young people who are suffering from a combination of problems not to use cannabis. But she sees no harm for the large group of young people who occasionally smoke a joint. “In ten years’ time they will be established citizens and won’t smoke cannabis any more.”

All sounds just to damn logical to me… why? Because we intuitively know this from the body of social experience. The plural of anecdote is evidence. No amount of political bleating will make it otherwise. /Blair

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