4:20 News

# The biggest news that has been in the headlines recently is the rolling storm after the sacking of the government's chief drugs advisor Professor David Nutt. The day prior to this news, David Nutt had appeared in the BBC headlines for accusing ex-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of "devaluing" the copious evidence on drugs. An Op-Ed column from David Nutt also appeared in the Guardian, pointing out that in spite of all the skunk hysteria, the evidence doesn't back up the rhetoric.

Incidentally, Jacqui Smith resigned her ministerial office after a scandal involving parliament funds for porn.

The day after the dismissal, the Guardian launches a stinging editorial. The same day, scientists gather in support of Professor Nutt. The next day, Sunday 1st November, the Independent reports that six members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs threaten to resign.

On Monday, the Home Secretary who had fired Nutt was revealed to have ordered a review of the ACMD. Actually, a review has been on the books for a while, but the search for more elastic yes men has been kicked up a couple of notches.

By Tuesday, the government's chief science advisor was publicly backing the sacked professor. Wednesday had Professor Nutt appearing in New Scientist. Clive James tackles the whole drugs trope on the Friday.

The following Monday, Kathryn Ryan catches up for a chat with Professor Nutt on NatRad's Nine to Noon. The next day, three more advisors quit in protest. Wednesday, it's back to Johann Hari at the Independent who draws strength from the controversy to push the whole war on drugs argument down to dust.

# Meantime in the US, President Obama has issued a directive to federal authorities not to prosecute drug users where state laws allow it:

In a sharp policy shift, the Obama administration told federal attorneys not to prosecute patients who use marijuana for medical reasons or dispensaries in states where it has been legalised.

# The federal pull-back gives these others chance to breathe easier. A NYT editorial backs the policy. Prior to this, the New York Times had looked at the only person in America who has a state license to distribute marijuana. There are other places which did so under constant threat of arrest, such as compassion clubs. This Heat Off card will give them some peace of mind.

# The American Medical Association has changed its policy and asked for the illegality of cannabis to be reconsidered:

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

# A Colorado newspaper has signed on a critic to exclusively review marijuana.

# According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), NZ gets the bronze medal for cannabis per capita usage. Only the United States and Australia beat us to the bong. Of the Europeans, the Danish are the biggest stars in the union:

We beat those Euros in the "ever used" department though. Over half of NZ has tried the wicked weed.

# Speaking of smoke-offs, Snoop Dogg has confessed that the only person he has met who can smoke him under the table is Willie Nelson. HT Boing Boing.

# The Daily Dish has the stats on the most deadliest drugs in the UK, courtesy of Information is Beautiful. Marijuana is less dangerous than aspirin:

# Speaking of drug deaths, the widespread use of anti-psychotics in rest homes has been linked to around 1,800 needless deaths.

# In the trippy department, scientists are looking at studying the health benefits of LSD and Ecstacy. National Geographic goes inside the head of a tripper. If our scientists in NZ are ever allowed to have a go with it too, I volunteer to be a lab rat.



# The Boston Globe's Big Picture looks at the graphic reality of the war on drugs. NSFW pictures are clickable, but it's all very vivid.

# And finally, Transform has released 'After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation'. Pdf here.

The man in the Faraday Suit

Dr Megavolt plays with his tesla up close. People, do not try this at home without a PhD in Physics. Someone should really get this guy over for the Wellington International Festival of the Arts.

Oh no, not again

Yes, dear readers. It is going to be yet another blog post about the Top Secret Copyright Treaty known as ACTA. Firstly, here's the only civil society observer who has actually read the proposed ACTA treaty in full explaining why this is all so important:



According to Michael Geist, participating countries in the ACTA agreement, including NZ, have agreed to signing the ratified document as early as next year.

If there's any more evidence required that ACTA is yet another underhanded over-zealous reaction by multi-national conglomerates to hold on to an extinct branch of the distribution model, have a read of Colin Jackson's guest post at Public Address:

If I come over as a little irritated about this, that's because I'm seethingly angry.

Colin Jackson's not wrong and he's not alone. The NZ Pirate Party, the Creative Commons Foundation, InternetNZ, Geekzone, and a fistful of ISPs are also seethingly angry at the lack of say that NZers have over this secret deal. The plebs with pitchforks and torches won't be far behind.

I'm surprised there's not more seething from Mike Moore, former head of the WTO, on the matter. The proposed treaty circumvents the World Intellectual Property Organisation, making it the most overt and least legitimate grab for power since Blackwater became the United States' preferred mercenary.

And, if you're still not convinced that the ACTA treaty will contain some very thorny thorns for everyone, here's BoingBoing with the latest news:

The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie.

A year from now, it might happen in a city near you.

UPDATE: This just in from Geekzone:


© kiwiright from fyminc on Vimeo.

Interesting rhyming couplets

# Sleepwalking into the surveillance state headlines - Woman Loses Job Due to Error in FBI Criminal Database sez Wired. The Guardian looks at how the UK state intelligence actively monitors political activism.

# Economist dolphins and Doctor sharks. HT DPF for the latter (that went global quick, eh?)

# Interweb wars - Gripping Hand and Aardvark take a couple of bites at the Orwellian Top Secret ACTA treaty. Steven Price's Media Law Journal points to a very interesting symposium. Next month, the Law Commission, InternetNZ and the Ministry of Justice are hosting a seminar on the Internet and the courts. It will be looking at issues such as:

• Undermining of suppression orders
• Lack of jurisdiction over material hosted outside NZ
• Online discussion of crimes and trials potentially being a contempt of court
• Jurors who “Google”
• How deleting a story doesn’t remove it from caches and syndication feeds
• How do media and Internet publishers find out what actually has been the subject of a suppression order?
• Online criminal offending databases, and the right to a fair trial
• Is education or incarceration needed for Internet publishers who commit contempt

# The collected unconscious - Jung's Red Book has finally been released. The New Yorker features some of Jung's fascinating drawings, while Charlie Kaufman interprets selected images from Jung's head live on stage.

# Goldman Squid - The improbably named Lloyd Blankfein, head beak of Goldman Sachs, has been on the charm offensive. He has classed his minions as the most productive people in the world and calling it all God's work.

# Speaking of squid, I had some time to kill yesterday. After I finished my cigarette at the waterfront while schoolgirls were celebrating the end of uniformity, I went to visit Te Papa's big squid. Sure, I was expecting it to be bigger, but it was an unexpected pleasure that old school TV star Roger Gascoigne was explaining that as underwhelming as it is, it is the biggest captured so far. Do you know how hard it is to catch a big squid?

All My Beltway Circuits

Next week on All My Beltway Circuits, Rodulon and HON-E share a drink and compare notes on how their unreserved apologies went down with the public.

Taser Wars

Consider a world where non-lethal ordnance makers such as Taser International mislead the public over public safety, just like Big Tobacco and Big Pharma have done in the past. Wired does a brief history of tasers. A bloody good read. Here's a taste:

A week later, he started complaining about chest pains. Saxon downloaded the memory of his pacemaker which revealed that his heart beat had synced up with each Taser pulse. For over 5 seconds, his heart beat 15 times per second, about five times faster than during vigorous exercise.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad is still a coward. Unlike every other head of police who has introduced the taser, Broad has yet to take a hit on one. Is it any wonder why?

Who bugs the buggers?

I've just been flicking through my newly arrived copy of NORML News. Then this story jumps out at me:

SIS  denies NORML's file

New Zealand's Chief Spook has refused to release any files it may hold on NORML, the ALCP, or the NORML News Editor...

NORML News editor Chris Fowlie then wrote to the SIS requesting anything held on himself, NORML or the ALCP. After a lengthy delay SIS director Warren Tucker said he would "neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of that information."

Read the full story in NORML News, on sale here. Needless to say this concerns me mightily. SIS director Warren Tucker is playing Shrodinger's cat silly buggers with my privacy.

I've been mulling a request to the SIS for a copy of my file for a while. Y'know, just to check it's accurate and all. There's a fine line between Buttle and Tuttle after all. But I keep coming up with the more profound question. Why would the SIS have a file on me?

I can understand that Baycorp/ Veda Advantage/ HueyDueyLouie Corp has found a profitable way to live off my credit history file, and they keep lobbying to make their job even more profitable at my expense. But why on Dagg's earth are the state spooks picking on the marijuana hippies?

When is the last time you heard of stoners overthrowing anything? Never. The Rugby Sevens, the Undie 500, and the Rugby World Cup will inflict more damage on the national wellbeing than anything a J Day could accomplish. On the contrary, one of the more non-violent ways to break up a riot is to douse them in marijuana smoke. It works like a bucket of water on fighting cats.

As I've pointed out a few days ago, there are more pertinent threats to keep the spook budget busy. Who else does the SIS keep a file on? David Farrar? No Right Turn? Russell Brown? Eric Crampton? Where does the SIS remit stop? Where is the accountability?

Chris Fowlie is taking the matter up with the Privacy Commissioner. I might just ping an OIA for my file from the SIS too. I challenge my fellow bloggers to do the same and see how far this thing goes.

Ryall refuses OIA request on Herceptin costs

The Otago Daily Times is reporting that Health Minister Tony Ryall has refused to disclose the cost of funding Herceptin as the information is apparently "not in the public interest":

In response to questions first raised by the Otago Daily Times on September 24, Health Minister Tony Ryall has now advised public interest in releasing the information about the cost of the breast cancer drug was considered, but it was determined this did not outweigh the reasons for withholding the information.

He cited a section of the Official Information Act as grounds for withholding the information, which referred to protecting information which was subject to an obligation of confidence.

That sounds like an appeal to Section 6 (b) of the OIA:

Conclusive reasons for withholding official information

Good reason for withholding official information exists, for the purpose of section 5, if the making available of that information would be likely—

(b) to prejudice the entrusting of information to the Government of New Zealand on a basis of confidence by—

(i) the Government of any other country or any agency of such a Government; or

any international organisation.

So Ryall is claiming that he can't release such politically sensitive information because of the commercial sensitivity of the Herceptin suppliers. The fact that the Herceptin exception flies in the face of the standard Pharmac model, a model created by the last National government, has nothing at all to do with it.

Keep digging ODT and good luck. The public deserve to be informed on the pricetag that this election promise is costing the health sector.

The men who stare at Americans

Wired has a few stories on The Men Who Stare at Goats, the movie about an Army squad training in the psychotropic and paranormal arts. Wired's movie review's fair to say that the square peg of Alternative Special Ops is forced through the round hole of Hollywood narrative structure a bit too forcedly.

The source material really does justice to it all with the stereotypical pale weedy Brit of John Ronson fronting it and outdoing Sacha Baron Cohen's deadpan:



Wired also pull out the old yarn of an old CIA plot to purchase ten kilos of LSD, as well as another report on the spook stash of thirty to forty pounds of LSD. The current exchange rate for one pound of LSD is $55 million (according to BERL, one kilo of LSD causes $1 billion of societal harm).

All the same, it'll be good to see Jeff Bridges' Dude again, albeit Parallel Universe Dude.

Watch out Bob

Bob Harvey appears supportive of Tamaki's Briantology cult:

In a letter to the New Zealand Herald this week Bob Harvey compares the Destiny Church leader to the founders of the Salvation Army and Martin Luther, spearhead of the Protestant Reformation.

Harvey said he does "anything to cheer on people who are turning people's lives around".

As far as I'm aware, neither Martin Luther nor the Salvation Army require their do-gooders to swear an oath of loyalty to one man. Not the CEO, not the cause, but the man.

Sure, the Salvation Army employment contract and attached appendices do require some sort of position on god. They have a brand to maintain after all (and they have the bigshot lawyers to back it up). Fortunately for the plebs, this god bloke is very hard to pin down, so there's always plenty of wriggle room.

I mean, how many times have you heard someone say "as god as my witness" and that bugger Jesus never actually turns up? Him and his Mum appear on everything from burnt toast to semen stains on eBay. But according to Brian Tamaki, he has a signed character reference from Him and it pays the bills nicely.

Why is this Briantology thing a Bad Idea? Well, firstly there's that whole idea behind the anonymity of charity. The donors don't brag so the beggars don't starve. Whether it's the burden of guilt that comes with relying on the kindness of strangers, or the master slave relationship that threatens the character of the giver, it's fucked up.

Secondly, here's David Kilcullen saying it out loud:

The classical counterinsurgency theorist Bernard Fall wrote, in 1965, that a government which is losing to an insurgency isn’t being out-fought, it’s being out-governed.

It's how Hezbollah gained legitimacy in Lebanon, by feeding and sheltering the masses. It's what Al Quaida are doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it is this threat that Tamaki poses with his flock.

Bob Harvey might just be in thrall of the marketing machine's beauty, but its purpose cannot be underestimated. Because the third reason is the most important. Financing. This is the hurdle, among many many others, that prevented Tame Iti's Flightless Circus from being a serious threat. Briantology has really really good financing.

The links between the Destiny Church and the US Southern fundamentalist barons make this an international affair. If you're looking for a branch of God's Warriors in this young country, you could do worse than keep an eye on those guys.

Once that disaffected X and Y lot come online from within, and more join up when this Supercity squid starts sucking, you've got a generation of people who have but one constant, Bishop Brian Tamaki, in their lives. The man who can move mayors.

Paul Holmes backs evidence based drug policy

MPs have tabled a motion in parliament calling for the government to adopt an evidence based approach to drugs policy. One of the co-signers is a Mr Paul Holmes.

The bad news is, it is not NZ's own stunt dwarf Paul Holmes, but Paul Holmes MP and others in the UK legislature:

MPs from the Cross-Party Group on Drugs and Alcohol Treatment and Harm Reduction (DATHR) have today tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling on the Government to base its drugs and alcohol policy on scientific evidence. The call comes in the wake of the forced resignation of Professor David Nutt as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).

Nope, the NZ namesake still sits in Hypocrite Class with all those MPs who have used illegal recreational substances yet continue their flight of fancy at the public expense.

The polymath and the ayatollah

In what was first dismissed as a government hoax by some, a university maths student has criticised Ayatollah Khamenei, in public, to his face:

The session began with a speech in which Khamenei told the students the "biggest crime" was to question the results of the June 12 presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Khamenei himself declared Ahmadinejad the victor despite opposition claims of widespread fraud.

After the speech, Vahidnia raised his hand, then for 20 minutes he criticized the Iranian leader over the fierce crackdown on postelection protests, in which the opposition says 69 people were killed and thousands were arrested...

"I don't know why in this country it's not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you," said the student, wearing a long-sleeved blue polo shirt and appearing calm.

"In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader," he said, referring to the clerical body that chooses the country's supreme leader.

That's the thing about reformation. It has got to come from within. It's great to see signs of courage from Iranian civil society that has not diminished in spite of state intimidation, violence, torture and murder.

While trying to find a source clip on YouTube, I tripped over this. I hope it isn't true.

A bad report

Titus Furius Te Kaumatua
Headmaster
Bowen St Normal School
Molesworth St
Wellington

Dear Mrs Harawira,

Your son Hone's recent column for the school newspaper has caused dishonour and shame among his classmates and teachers. Hone's story describes his recent scholarship trip to Brussels, where he absconded from the field trip for a frivolous detour to Paris.

Instead of fostering the greater wellbeing of his whanau through intercultural exchange as per the terms of his scholarship, Hone asked his billeted host to write him a sick note excusing him from his duties.

Hone's lapse was bad enough. He then compounded this by bragging about it in the school newspaper. He has set a poor example that other impressionable and misguided children might mistake for a role model. The school cannot allow such flippant insubordination.

I won't detail the precise words Hone used to respond to Senior Master Mr Mikaere, who had attempted to get Hone to admit fault with his various deliquencies. Suffice to say that it was no way to address a kaumatua.

Hone's form teachers, Mrs Turia and Dr Sharples, are becoming exasperated with his behaviour. If his attitude remains uncooperative and abusive, the school will have no choice but to suspend Hone until such time that he does not disrupt the good reputation and learning environment that this school fosters.

Ka kite,

Furius Te Kaumatua

The Wedding Planners

When Rodney Hide and Hone Harawira leave parliament, they will probably become wedding planners. Rodney Hide is experienced at pulling out all the stops to make the perfect wedding and Hone Harawira can wax lyrical about Paris for potential honeymooners. The best part about this on-the-job training perk is that you get to root all the taxpayers.

Fuzzy numbers

The NZ Herald has a couple of stories highlighting the lacklustre performance, blurry accounting and sometimes downright wrong advice that many NZ small investors have to contend with. Consumer NZ has described many financial advisors as shoddy, while Massey banking wonk David Tripe has called Westpac's financial statements "scurrilous, nonsensical data".

Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin said only three out of 17 advisers produced plans that were rated "good" by the expert panel. The remaining 14 were rated as "disappointing" or were "rejected"...

Issues found by the investigation included poor analysis, unclear costs, advisers portraying themselves as independent when they were not, high costs and bad products.

You can almost see why property investment is so popular in NZ. At least it's a hands on tangible investment. A fool and his money may be soon parted. But more dangerous is the fool with someone else's money. Come on Securities Commission, pull finger.