Posts by Ross Bell
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I reckon "Portugal" is code for some type of decrminalisation and health referral model. It's a good code word because lots of people now know what happened in Portugal - it was drug law reform PLUS investment in health interventions. It's a much more simpler way to sell the idea. But yes, there would be a lot of detail to work out.
The Law Commission came up with a similar - in some cases less complicated, in other cases more complicated - "Portugal model", where health referral occurs immediately for someone picked up with Class A drugs, but a 3-strike caution for Class C (2 strikes for Class B - not an easy sound bite).
The Law Commission also said the the classification needs a serious tidy up. As you highlight, there are some significant problems with the current scheduling.
Isn't it fucking great that some politicians are willing to have this discussion!
p.s. Putting in a plug for our Parliamentary drug policy symposium. Get along everyone!
-
-
A good reason why govt officials should not sit on the EACD, as per recommendation of the Law Commission - they're too focused on the politics not the science. That's why BZP was scheduled: all because one scientist was away the day the cmte gave advice to Minister Anderson to ban it. MOH official always sits as the cmte's chair. There's a funny story about a new minister attending an EACD meeting when the scientists were keen to decrease the classification of LSD.... needless to say, officials ensured that never became official advice.
-
Mississippi, the last dry state in the Union, ended Prohibition in 1966.
-
Min health should have made any warnings very public, not just for HNZ’s sake but to also help landlords, tenants etc be informed. Its silence was deafening.
-
That person you mention in the last parace sits on the Standards NZ meth review committee. Don't hold your breath.
-
Hard News: Trump's Dummkopfs, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Yeah, but surely there's a limited number of spigots, and that a large number of "normal" people are also backing Trump, including a whole lot of Republican women [not that I'm saying that women would naturally vote HRC, but that Trump is such a misogynist surely they wouldn't vote for him].
-
It's not as if we're talking about a handful of bigots here - those polls scare me.
-
I've just watched "Mike's Minute." Just... wow... lost for words. I thought he was actually smarter than that.
-
Report released this year on Aussie Decrim models: https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/news/decriminalisation-drug-use-sound-and-pragmatic-public-health-policy-says-national-drug-and