Banned Books in NZ

The How Things Change research is coming along well. After tripping over a dead link over at Steven Price legal blog looking for a list of banned books, the Office of Film and Literature Classification promptly returned my query with a banned book dump (I wish all Government Departments were so prompt).

There are two lists available as spreadsheets.

1215 books banned between 1963 and 1993 under the Indecent Publications Tribunal listed here.
89 books banned from 1993 to Jan 2013 under the Office of Film and Literature Classification here.

Among the sea of porn (ranging from the hilariously archaic to the disturbingly violent) is also a handful of gardening books and two cookbooks. The IPT banned 18 marijuana-themed books in 30 years:

• How to Grow Marijuana Hydroponically
• How to Grow Marijuana Indoors Under Lights
• The Advanced Growers Guide to Marijuana Cultivation
• The Australian Indoor Marijuana Growers Guide
• Marijuana Growers Handbook Indoor/Greenhouse Edition
• Australian Handbook for Indoor Growing of Marijuana
• The Closet Cultivator
• Marijuana Growers Guide De Luxe Edition
• The Connoisseurs Handbook on Marijuana
• High Time Encyclopaedia of Recreational Drugs
• The Complete Guide to Growing Marijuana - The Culture and Management of Hemp
• Indoor Marijuana Cultivation
• The Primo Plant Growing Sinsemilla Marijuana
• Caretaking the Wild Sinsemilla
• Ancient and Modern Methods of Growing Extraordinary Marijuana
• Cooking with Marijuanga
• Marijuana Growers Guide
• The Cultivators Handbook of Marijuana

In the twenty years since the OFLC has been around, only 89 further books have been banned. Ten of them were about cannabis:

• Indoor Marijuana Horticulture
• Marijuana Botany
• A Guide to Growing Marijuana in Cool Climates
• Cannabis Alchemy
• The Great Books of Cannabis Volume l: Book ll
• Marijuana Grower's Insider's Guide
• The Marijuana Chef Cookbook
• Cannabis Cultivator
• Marijuana New School Indoor Cultivation
• The Big Book Of Buds

The allegedly 'injurious to the public good' The Marijuana Chef Cookbook is on sale at Amazon.com. I'm pretty sure the other titles can be found elsewhere online, as well as hundreds of similar quality publications.

Suffice it to say NZ's antiquated censorship laws are as useless as a dick in a dyke. And don't get me started on the OFLC DVD ratings system, or Spoiler Stickers as I call 'em.