The Independent recommends liberalising drug laws

British leftwing paper The Independent had a headline today "Heroin. The solution?"

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It reports on an article in the Lancet published yesterday claims that Britain’s tough on drugs programme is failing and the UK has the highest rate of drug related deaths in Europe (2500 a year). It recommends “medicalising” the taking of heroin which it says has resulted in an 82% reduction in new users of heroin in Zurich.
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In Zurich the policy provides:
- Needle exchange;
- Oral Methadone on prescription;
- Heroin on prescription;
- Safe houses for those wanting to inject.
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The result is that the glamour of heroin dissipates, as it is seen as something people do out of medical addiction rather than desire. It is hardly sexy and rebellious to shoot up with addicts in a safe house, and demand for high price illegally supplied heroin has dried up. Those who need it no longer resort to crime to feed their addiction, and the drug industry is no longer criminal. The needle exchange reduces disease transmission, methadone provides a safer fix and prescribing heroin means it is safer drug (as it is not “ bulked up” with agents that are toxic).
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Zurich also reclassified cannabis as a drug so that policing resources were moved away from policing users to suppliers.
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A 4% per annum reduction in drug users over 11 years is reported.

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The Tories have said they will look into it. It's not libertarian, but it is a step in the right direction. If the point of drug policy is to improve outcomes, then it is clear that prohibition isn't working.

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However, don't expect Helen Clark or Don Brash to warm to this - they each will have the braying banality of Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne peddling the same failed ideas - the ones that have worked nowhere.

Smart childcare

How fucking dumb... The NZ Herald reports two really stupid childcare teachers walking toddlers through the Terrace motorway tunnel because they thought it would a "good idea". Apparently the silly bitches entered the tunnel at the southern end, where the Inner City Bypass construction work is underway to walk to a grassed area adjacent to the tunnel on the other side. The Police caught them partway through the tunnel and escorted them out. Thankfully they both face $250 fines for putting small children in danger - but the Police are considering charging them with endangering public safety under the Crimes Act. One can be an idiot, but the two together don't even share half a brain. What would happen if one of the children slipped off that concrete walkway and fell in front of a truck? "Sorry" wouldn't have been enough.

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So:

1. They didn't know the road code that walking on motorways is illegal;

2. They didn't see or read the signs that prohibit pedestrians from walking on the motorway;

3. They are too stupid to think that walking toddlers through a tunnel with a tiny concrete walkway adjacent to traffic travelling at 100km/h is a safe and healthy thing to do with children;

4. They are too stupid to figure out how the hell they would reach the "grassed area on the other side" when after the tunnel, the motorway becomes a viaduct over Shell Gully carpark, would they have climbed down the viaduct, or dashed across the onramp from Clifton Terrace?

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One "didn't see there was a problem" and was "uncooperative" said the Police according to Stuff.

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I wonder how they figure out which end they eat from and which end...

Kedgley the food bully is rather dumb

Oh Sue, the banaholic frothing at the mouth that the Government hasn't made compulsory schools only selling milk, fruit juice and water in vending machines. This is because "Diet drinks rot children's teeth just as much as sugary ones". What bollocks - especially when she advocates juices. Fruit juice contains sugar, not refined natural cane sugar as in Coca-Cola (oohhhh the big evil American company... boooo), but unrefined natural fructose. It has the same calorie and tooth rotting qualities as cane sugar. I remember my dentist many years ago telling me not to drink orange juice on its own, without food or something else to wash it down, because the acid eats away at tooth enamel.

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Well done, another pseudo scientific load of banality from the Greens. I can't wonder if Sue wouldn't like state enforced diets for everyone, which allocated you rations every day.

Funding snub for Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

Ha ha ha ha... according to the Dominion Post local Labour MPs and the centreleft Mark Blumsky (well he's always advocating new state spending as far as I can see) are upset you are not being forced to pay through central government (not so lucky Wellington city ratepayers) to build a new visitor and education centre at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

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Good.

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If you support the Sanctuary, support it - with your own money. Sponsor it, go visit it and pay for entry, give a donation. If Marian Hobbs and Mark Blumsky each contributed $30,000 (and let's face it, neither are short of a bob or two) it would be 1% of the funding for it. If 10,000 Wellingtonians contributed $60 each - the funding would be there.

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Too hard? Well tough luck. You see the people whose money it is had to do something to get it, they had to convince someone to give it to them (setting aside politicians of course).

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It's called fundraising - it's how a lot of community used assets were built, and it means convincing individuals to spend their money, not Cabinet to spend yours.

Annette Presley - fascist

I notice my friend Not PC has received legal threats from the self styled consumer champion, Annette Presley. That is because he called her a thief - for advocating the state control of Telecom's property rights so she could use it - it's actually conversion, like when you use someone else's car without their permission, but don't hold possession of it continuously. His point, albeit extreme - is correct. She advocates state use of force to take property in order to benefit herself. Looks like a duck...

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and this is the woman who defames Telecom constantly, for providing services to consumers that she doesn't - or that customers don't choose to buy from here - or for not providing her access to its property on HER terms. She doesn't like Telecom because it is big and successful. She is small and successful, and only wants to help consumers out - or rather increase the profitability of her company. She has the same motive as Telecom - except she wants to use Telecom's property to do it - and now has the Government, the Greens and DPF supporting her. My comments on her are here, as she is the entrepreneurial second hander that Ayn Rand talked about. The Whig has also commented on her, so has Latitude 45 south.

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Now, unaccustomed as I am to be abusive and insulting – I thought I’d use a song to simply say……..

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Well... Annette's a bitch, she's a big fat bitch, she's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, she's a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch, she's a bitch to all the boys and girls.

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Monday she's a bitch, on Tuesday she's a bitch, and Wednesday to Saturday she's a bitch, then on Sunday just to be different she's a super King Kamehameha be-atch.

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Have you ever met Annette Presley, she's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, she's a mean old bitch and she has stupid hair, she's a bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch, bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch cause-a she's a stupid bitch,

Annete's a bitch and she's just a dirty bitch, Annette is a bitch-ah.

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I wouldn't use Slingshot if it were free (if I were local) - I urge anyone who thinks that a wealthy secondhand entrepreneur like Annette Presley shouldn't sue rather than responding with arguments and debate, to donate to Not PC's legal fund.

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oh and why is Annette Presley a fascist? She advocates state control of private property - which is a form of fascism.