Lockouts and new anti-alcohol laws simply deny the facts

There was a petition on the bar of my local against the NSW government's recent early lockout laws. I signed it. While I have been railing for years against this moral panic-driven nonsense, this piece by Bernard Keane on Crickey unpicks the hypocrisy of the laws and the media campaign behind it, particularly the shameful behaviour of the formerly trustworthy Sydney Morning Herald.

The piece is less than complimentary about media tart Dr Gordian Fulde from St Vincents Hospital, a doctrinaire prohibitionist who in my view should stick to his doctoring and keep his doctrines out of public commentary.

Writes Keane:

Fulde is insistent that violence is getting worse in Sydney and that alcohol is to blame. It is a claim that the Herald was happy to repeat. It is also a claim that is blatantly false... Last year’s Review of the Liquor Act 2007and Gaming and Liquor Administration Act 2007 showed that violent incidents on licensed premises had fallen 28% from 2007, and alcohol-related assaults had fallen 35% between 2008 and 2012. Assaults across NSW had also fallen significantly, as had hospital presentations for acute alcohol-related problems.
And for those who believe that review was a Big Grog conspiracy, you can go to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research site and look at the data yourself.

Here are the relevant data:

Keane again hits the nail on the head, ascribing the cheap populist campaign run by Sydney's newspapers to their plummetting circulation:

This takes us to the most relevant statistics about this whole sordid affair. The Sydney Morning Herald’s circulation is in freefall — it lost more than 15% of its circulation in the year to September. And in 2013, it fell 7 points in its readers’ trust, according to Essential Research’s trust in media survey, tumbling to 64%. The Telegraph is Australia’s least-trusted metro title — trusted by only 41% of its readers — and its circulation fell by nearly as much as the Herald’s in the year to September. They are two dying newspapers, each desperate to outdo the other.

The lockout laws so-far seem to be killing the Cross, which might please a few local NIMBYs but will cause hardship to all the hospitality workers and entertainers now thrown out of work.

Australia lags as world adapts to new industries

With the very public collapse of manufacturing in Australia you might think the country would nimbly leap to new industrial opportunities. Instead, we are losing them to more progressive nations.

Victoria's Hazelwood open-cut brown coal mine
still burning after some weeks.

Our race to the 19th century in fossil-based energy generation has robbed us of our once world-leading position in clean energy technology. Meanwhile South Korea, for instance, has a 3-month fast-track patent process for local innovations in clean energy, part of a program that devoted 2.7% of GDP to clean energy. By contrast, we have boosted our filthiest fossil fuel source, Victoria's brown coal mines, one of which is ironically now burning out of control after heatwave-induced bushfires. It is expected to burn for another two weeks. [Note: the fire was 'under control' as of 9 March - it burned for a little over four weeks. However there are coal mine fires on every continent except Antarctica including one in Pennsylvania that has burned since 1962.

Note#2: Radio National News reported on 21 March that the fire was officially "out"]

Then there is the Abbott Government's patchwork National Broadband Network. In a country ruled by 'the tyranny of distance', you might think state-of-the-art communications was essential.

The Coalition's internet connection vision.

But no, Malcolm Turnbull's fibre to the node concept will leave my copper connection to the home operating out of this pit just outside my front door (pictured). The cost savings inherent in this second-best model do not take into account the cost of repairing/replacing these copper tangles  left over from 100-year-old telephone technology. Impressive, no?

Now it's industrial hemp, a forest-saving, low irrigation crop with a thousand uses. As it has no intoxicating effects, there was never even any justification for banning it and now even the USA, which invented the ban, is legalising the growing of hemp. But conservative, backward Australia remains in the dark ages as it misses out on yet another opportunity to compete in the 21st century. Once the 'lucky country', should we now be known as the 'dumb country' as we race towards banana republic status?

Just say no - emblematic of Australia's
attitude to everything?

Prohibitionists AGAIN caught out telling porkies

SAM head Kevin Sabet - he doesn't
look stupid, so why is he telling
idiotic porkies?

'It's like saying 10% of people in Australia, Canada and Bolivia scratch their ears before breakfast, therefore 30% of people scratch their ears before breakfast. Duh.'

It must be difficult for prohibitionists now the changing face of history is proving their arguments to be little but hot air and fear mongering. So you can understand why they have to fall back on complete nonsense to keep the uninformed scared. But you'd think they could at least add up, especially if they call their organisation Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM).

Close on the heels of their last misleading factoid, SAM's head Kevin Sabet has tweeted that - wait for it - 39% of HS students in Washington state report using marijuana that came from from a "medical" marijuana dispensary [his quote marks].

Shock, horror! See, they told us so - legalise it and a tsunami of pot smoking will destroy society!

Then Russ Belville from the Huffington Post looked at the source figures Sabet had quoted.  They showed only 14.9% of 12th-grade students said their pot usually came from a medical dispensary. The percentage fell for more junior grades, down to 3.8% for 9th graders.

Seems Sabet had simply added up all the percentages, apparently unaware that each one came from a different sample of people so adding them is nonsensical. It's like saying 10% of people in Australia, Canada and Bolivia scratch their ears before breakfast, therefore 30% of people scratch their ears before breakfast. Duh.

Meanwhile teenage cannabis use seems to have stayed pretty level during the rash of legalisation spreading across US states, so the scariest thing about Sabet's paper tiger is that the same smokers are getting their stuff from a legal rather than illegal source.

Embarrassed into a retreat, Sabet then tweeted implying that the students must be faking back pain or cancer, further spreading the egg over his face because the figures deal with cannabis that CAME FROM a dispensary - with no claim that the students had attended the dispensaries. It's all a bit subtle for a fossilised prohibitionist, I guess.

SAM's "smart" approach [my quote marks] apparently involves diverting cannabis users who are caught into treatment (or else get arrested again).

"The proposal is on par with forcing every alcohol user into treatment at their own cost or at a cost to the state," said Marijuana Policy Project communications director Mason Tvert. "In fact, it would be less logical because the science is clear that marijuana is far less toxic, less addictive, and less likely to be associated with acts of violence."

While Sabet denies that, everything I have previously read about SAM points in that direction.

Oh, Sabet also claims that 10% of cannabis users become addicted. No they don't, Kevin. In fact the commonly quoted figure of 9% is another dodgy bit of bad science from the prohibitionists, as the Huff Post again explains.

Old lies live on in the prohibitionist mind

No lie is too old or discredited to be recycled by our shock-jocks. The latest is Miranda Devine writing another prohibitionist rant in the Telegraph. I won't even link to the propaganda piece - why help them, even a tiny bit?

Suffice it to quote Devine's central lie, that "When the Howard government launched its Tough on Drugs strategy in 1997, drug use plummeted for the first time in three decades."

No, Miranda, it didn't. In fact Asian suppliers were switching from heroin to crystal meth and some young people were switching from cannabis to ecstasy and other chemical drugs, arguably a shift from less risky to more risky substances. This is a well-known symptom of prohibition, driving the drug industry to more potent, portable and profitable substances. The heroin drought coincided with the rise of ice.

In the same piece Devine bemoans that "A study in the Medical Journal of Australia last September found ambulance call-outs for crystal meth, aka ice, had tripled in two years."

Well, duh, Miranda. This is what happens under your beloved prohibition. But with the money you are paid to spread your poison, I guess truth is a minor consideration.

Global warming deniers lose court battle but leave taxpayers with the bill

Here's a nice, sober outline of how the international conspiracy against climate science operates. While the denialists lost their court case in New Zealand, they have successfully cast doubt on good science, wasted the time of parliament, scientists and the courts, and left taxpayers with the legal bill after liquidating the 'charitable trust' that appears to have had no function but to run this case.

As usual on The Conversation site, the comments add a lot more to the story (including the usual trolling by a climate 'sceptic').

Latest 'coward's punch' triggers more moral panic about Kings Cross

Sean McNeil, charged with the murder of Daniel Christie.

Sadly another young life has been ended by a violent thug king-hitting innocents in the street. Daniel Christie was attacked in Kings Cross on New Year's Eve and later died in hospital. Shaun McNeil, a self-described 'mixed martial arts expert', has been charged. Bizarrely, photos show has the name of his victim tattooed on his arm (while apparently sculling Bundy rum, the one said to contain "a bushfire and a bashing in every bottle").

Predictably the anti-Kings Cross hordes (most of them from elsewhere) have spun into loud chorus blaming venues and the AHA, and calling for lockouts, earlier closing of pubs and application of the Newcastle 'solution' to Kings Cross.

The facts, however, throw a few wet blankets over the moral panic.

The attack happened at 9pm. How would earlier closing have helped in this case? Do the anti-venue crowd propose 8pm closing?

Meanwhile violence rates in Kings Cross venues have dropped by about a third (a similar rate to that of Newcastle after the lockout regime) since the similar manslaughter of Thomas Kelly - which happened at almost the same spot and at 10 pm - also nothing to do with late-night venues.

And the "coward's punch" has been used to deadly effect in other places besides Kings Cross. Strangely the anti-Cross brigade do not raise a hue-and-cry in these cases.

So, what's the bet that Shaun McNeil is a Rugby League fan, like other recent king-hit killers? When is macho footy culture going to be dragged into this debate? That sacred cow is where the real problem lies.

Best drug scare stories of 2013

Here's a neat roundup of the latest crop of blatant bullshit the media publishes about illicit drugs - and some examples of prohibitionists picking up the bullshit they themselves create to back their fallacious arguments. One example: Police try to convict a man of murder because his girlfriend died after he gave her an acid trip. Shock, horror, scary, eh? Heard that one before?

The real story turned out to be somewhat different, however. Click the link above to find out what really happened.

More prohibitionist propaganda busted - it seems legal cannabis reduces road deaths

Prohibitionists in the US are bending over backwards to show legalisation of cannabis in some US states is causing the sky to fall in, just as they always predicted. Recently an Australian prohibitionist triumphantly circulated this 'important' information on email lists:

Panic stations! Legalisation has started a rush of those dangerous stoned drivers! We told you so! (SAM, by the way, is the new soft-pedalling face of prohibition.)

Smelling a rat, I immediately asked: "Was there a corresponding increase in traffic accidents?"

No reply.

I later speculated on the lists that police, deprived of their 'easy money' busting potheads, might be doing more drug-driving tests, which would account for the increase.

Then a list member posted the following, supporting my speculations:

"...according Washington State’s Traffic Safety Commission “Target Zero” data for 2013, the fatality rate from incidents involving drunk and/or drug-affected drivers is actually the LOWEST that has been recorded in more than seven years. http://www.wtsc.wa.gov/statistics-reports/crash-data/

"So far, the 2013 fatality rate is down 22% for alcohol-related road deaths, and down 30% for other-drug-related road deaths, compared to 2012.

"If more people really are driving whilst seriously impaired, why is there no spike in road fatalities?

"And yes Michael you are quite correct, police in Washington State have indeed conducted significantly more drug tests in 2013 than in previous years.

"That last piece of information comes from Bob Caulkins, the Media & Community Relations Officer for the Washington State Patrol:

"However, the number of tests being ordered has increased, on pace for 180 more than the prior year. It can also be true that cops are more likely to order a blood test in a pot case now. As Caulkins told Huffington Post, “We’re testing blood we didn’t test before.” So do we actually have more stoned drivers on the road or are cops now just better trained and incentivized to go after them?"

Then the post got even better:

"Could it be that greater access to marijuana equals less abuse of alcohol, leading to lower traffic deaths from both?

Let's see what Time magazine has to say on the subject:

Getting the facts about Thomas Kelly's manslaughter.

The War on Kings Cross continues, with the king-hit killing of Thomas Kelly being dragged in by both sides of the debate.

In letters to the Wentworth Courier, the AHA's Paul Nicolau rebuts a previous claim by local resident Jo Holder that Keiran Loveridge had been served alcohol in Kings Cross before he king-hit Thomas Kelly. In fact both are wrong. J Campbell's published Supreme Court judgement says:

"...before catching a taxi to Kings Cross where they went to a bar in Darlinghurst Road shortly before 9pm. There is no agreement about whether the offender consumed more alcohol in this bar."

The anti-alcohol brigade always blame venues for violence, claiming they don't apply Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) provisions, ie refusing to serve drunks. Apparently they ignore this in the interests of maximising their evil profits. However I can get absolutely shitfaced and still act sober enough to get into a pub and then served.

The judgement does say Loveridge had been refused entry to a bar in Bayswater Road at about 9.30pm immediately before he started on his violent rampage. Possibly this bar's correct application of RSA principles actually triggered or aggravated his violence, illustrating the dilemma venues have in managing pre-fuelled drunks - they are damned if they do or don't. It illustrates that RSA is an inexact science and tighter enforcement will not necessarily solve problems.

It also annoys me that this tragic crime has been enrolled by the anti-alcohol brigade in their campaign for earlier closing and lockouts at venues.  It happened at about 10pm folks. How would earlier closing have helped that?

Paul Nicolau also claims that violence in Kings Cross has already dropped by 37% as new precinct management principles have been applied over the past few years. This fits with what I know from local sources and neutralises the anti-alcohol brigade's mantra that Kings Cross should emulate Newcastle's lockout regime, which is said to have reduced violence by the same amount.

It's also interesting reading the rationale behind the controversial sentence imposed on Keiran Loveridge. I think it was a fair sentence by the standards of our legal system. However the role of Loveridge's involvement with Rugby League is seen as a mitigating factor rather than part of the problem, as I have previously blogged.

As legal cannabis spreads in the US, surprise! The sky has not fallen.

A map of the USA showing states in green that have
legalised medical marijuana use. States in orange
have legalised recreational use (as of November 2012).

It must be a worst-case scenario for prohibitionists. Their horror scenarios warning against legal cannabis, always evidence-free, are quickly being roundly refuted by reality.

As this New York Times story shows, there are no armies of stoned teenage zombies staggering around the streets, crime has not increased, there is no carnage on the roads and it looks as if less alcohol is being consumed - explaining why self-interested alcohol industry bodies oppose legalisation.

Meanwhile some counties are raking in a nice little tax earner.

True, there are some downsides. Some people have complained about the smell emanating from their neighbours' cannabis crops, a very serious first-world problem I would say. And precincts that didn't properly regulate medical marijuana outlets have had some local nuisances.

Still prohibitionists bang their drums, one police advocate complaining that new relaxed rules have resulted in "robberies of cash-rich marijuana farms in Northern California". I guess he would prefer to continue locking up disproportionate numbers of Blacks and Hispanics on pot charges instead of solving actual crime, or the old system where illegal growers could not report similar robberies and perhaps resort to illegal means of obtaining justice (the Al Capone/bikie gang factor). Or maybe he's just concerned that his fiefdom will shrink now it is no longer so super-sized by prohibition.

Meanwhile 58% of Americans support legalising the drug. Prohibitionists must be panicking (because one thing's for sure - most of them will not let reality change their ideology-based opinions).

Teen tragedy reported but the point is totally missed - again

Drugs for sale on the Silk Road site.

Again I found myself shouting at the TV last night as ABC's 7.30 reported on the death of James Munro at Sydney's recent Defcon festival after taking some pills.

His grief-stricken father was featured, saying the things you would expect someone to say in such horrible circumstances.

He and the editors focused the blame on the Silk Road website, now shut down. It seems James had bought his pills there, believing them to be MDMA ecstasy.

James and two friends had driven all night from Melbourne. While waiting in line to enter the festival,  the presence of police with sniffer dogs induced James to take his three pills. Within 15 minutes he was convulsing and later died in hospital after suffering a 42-degree temperature.

James' father thinks his son would still be alive if Silk Road had been shut down two weeks earlier, and he could be right.

But maybe not. The whole story is really about prohibition, and it is very arguable that prohibition killed James Munro. But, as usual, that subject was entirely absent from the story.

The elements of the tragedy are all too common.

The police and sniffer dogs who triggered James' tragic decision to drop a probable overdose of pills are simply the face of prohibition.

The story pointed out that no-one knows what is actually in these illicit substances - very true, but that too is entirely because of prohibition. If the better quality drugs were legal, regulated and properly labelled with dosages - like legal pharmaceuticals - most damage could be averted. What James suffered sounds like an allergic reaction, but to what?

Silk Road, a marketplace for unregulated, unlabelled drugs, also thrived under prohibition, and if it had been shut down earlier James could have obtained his drugs from another site or from the streets of Melbourne, so shutting it down may not have saved the teenager's life. That's also a feature of prohibition - shut down one dealer and several more pop up immediately.

Because most public discourse about drugs, like this story on 7.30, boils down to "Just say no", good constructive advice about safe drug use is hard to find.

The kids drove all night, so they were physically and mentally low before starting an all-day festival on drugs. Properly advised people would know this is not a good idea at all.

To report stories like this without mentioning prohibition is misleading, unbalanced and irresponsible, only perpetuating the prohibition framework that in fact contributes to the tragedies.

Aussie idiots chase their own tails but never mention the War

Discarded syringes in a Kings Cross gutter
- this is not what prohibition is supposed to look like.

Why are there so many idiots in Australia? Especially, it seems, among police, politicians, academics and journalists.

A lengthy piece on ABC Radio National this morning looked at the escalating War on Bikies in Queensland and Victoria, where they are apparently supplying methamphetamines (Ice) more and more into regional and country towns.

Duh, you dumbos, listen up: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS UNDER PROHIBITION!
As usual, however, prohibition was not mentioned once in any report on the above that I heard.

The brilliantly intelligent Queensland government is going to - wait for it - ban bikies from working in tattoo parlours!!! Woo-hoo, that'll do it!

RN's James Carlton this morning interviewed Criminal Law Professor Andreas Schloenhardt from Queensland University who specialises in organised crime and 'narcotrafficking'.

Carlton asked Prof Schloenhardt what was the root cause of the drugs/gangs problem. Professor Schloenhardt replied: "That's the $64 million dollar question". I'm thinking: "Here comes a mention of Prohibition!" but no -  he went on to say that we needed to do more research into the gangs and "engage" with them. Hello! Engage with the nice bikies and they'll just stop dealing drugs? Is this gentleman serious? No doubt the professor himself would be the best person to get any such funding.

Mind you Radio National might have edited out talk of prohibition, in which case I apologise to the good professor but it looks like the old pattern of people making money from prohibition having a vested interest in defending it.

Contrast this imbecilic Australian discourse with what's going on in the UK, where Durham's chief constable Mike Barton - the intelligence lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers - wrote an opinion piece in The Observer calling for decriminalisation and regulation of Class A drugs because "prohibition had put billions of pounds into the hands of villains who sell adulterated drugs on the streets".

Britain's police forces all map the activities of organised crime. In my force area we have 43 organised crime groups on our radar. Most of them have their primary source of income in illicit drug supply; all of them are involved in some way. These criminals are often local heroes and role models for young people who covet their wealth. Decriminalising their commodity will immediately cut off their income stream and destroy their power.

In a separate BBC piece, medical researchers show that the "War on illegal drugs is failing" because the drugs "are now cheaper and purer than at any time over the last 20 years".

The report said street prices of drugs had fallen in real terms between 1990 and 2010, while their purity and potency had increased. In Europe, for example, the average price of opiates and cocaine, adjusted for inflation and purity, decreased by 74% and 51% respectively between 1990 and 2010, the Vancouver-based centre said. The seven drug surveillance systems the study looked at had at least 10 years of information on the price and purity of cannabis, cocaine and opiates, including heroin.

Among the 945 comments underneath that story was this bit of light relief:

"Only a user loses drugs" - Wideboy

Drug addiction is less about the drugs

You often see public vitriol poured onto drug addicts, and the poor presentation and behaviour of some of them fuels a contempt that prohibitionists then enrol as a reason for further prohibition. However my knowledge of the drug addicts who inhabit the streets of Kings Cross is that they mostly have other serious problems such as illiteracy and/or a dysfunctional, violent and poverty-stricken family history. It seems to me that many are condemned to a miserable life and what solace they can obtain from drugs seems a relatively rational choice - a little comfort in a very hard life.

New research from the USA reinforces my view. Carl Hart, a black, dreadlocked associate professor at Columbia University, has been experimenting with people under controlled conditions by giving them crack and ice, and observing their choices when later offered money as an alternative to further doses. The results question the stereotypical addiction narrative because he found people will choose against drugs when they have an alternative. The NY Times article linked above concludes as follows:

So why do we keep focusing so much on specific drugs? One reason is convenience: It’s much simpler for politicians and journalists to focus on the evils of a drug than to grapple with the underlying social problems. But Dr. Hart also puts some of the blame on scientists.
“Eighty to 90 percent of people are not negatively affected by drugs, but in the scientific literature nearly 100 percent of the reports are negative,” Dr. Hart said. “There’s a skewed focus on pathology. We scientists know that we get more money if we keep telling Congress that we’re solving this terrible problem. We’ve played a less than honorable role in the war on drugs.”

Moral panic and the 'pathogenic narrative on drugs'.

Here's an interesting article describing the 'negative loop' that exists in the media and society about illicit drugs - a loop consisting of prohibition - negative media - moral panic - prohibition.

It flags the twisted basis of research into drugs in Australia (as typified by our National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, whose director Professor Jan Copeland has recently been getting active in online discussions, pushing her anti-cannabis stance - click the tags below for detailed stories about NCPIC).

An analysis of Australian discourse about psychoactive substance use explains this process in terms of the dominant pathogenic narrative of drugs, which limits discussion to their harm. Since Australian government funding is directed towards research that seeks to provide evidence of drug-related harm, the pathogenic narrative is self-reinforcing.

The article also explores the growing awareness that psychedelic drugs are not as dangerous as popular mythology holds and in fact may be very useful in treating some mental illnesses, especially MDMA's usefulness in treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

How anti-cannabis laws created crime in Holland

Sometimes live action video gets the message across better than words, words, words. Here's footage of a street dealer threatening people in a coffee shop when the ban on selling cannabis to tourists was lifted in Maastrecht and the dealer lost his customers. Then he is pursued, maced, arrested but still not charged.

Forget the hysteria, these are the real relative harms of drugs

The South China Morning Post has reported on the polarised cannabis debate in Hong Kong, where penalties for using it run to a HK$1 million fine and seven years in prison.

But the chart above puts the 'problem' into perspective (noting that, even in this analysis, the benefits of any of these drugs are not considered - itself a form of bias). Ignoring evidence and logic, the government remains staunchly conservative:

"A dangerous drug is a dangerous drug. We have a zero-tolerance policy," says Commissioner for Narcotics Erika Hui Lam Yin-ming.

But the SCMP report broaches a broader reality:

In 2010, the British medical journal the Lancet published a study on how harmful 20 different substances, from alcohol to cannabis to heroin, were to users and to people around them in the UK. The study put alcohol at the top of the list, followed by heroin, crack cocaine. Several others including tobacco, came in above cannabis. 

The scientific journal Nature published a review in January that said old research that had shown a link between long-term cannabis consumption and decreasing IQ among users no longer held water.

Early research questions stoned driving orthodoxy

Early, tentative research shows a significant drop in road deaths in US states with legal medical cannabis. Who'd a thought?

US Attorney-General pulls back from the War on Drugs

In a speech to the American Bar Association, US Attorney-General Eric Holder broaches a significant admission that the War on Drugs is ineffective and unsustainable:

As we come together this morning, this same promise must lead us all to acknowledge that – although incarceration has a significant role to play in our justice system – widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. It imposes a significant economic burden – totaling $80 billion in 2010 alone – and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate. 

As a nation, we are coldly efficient in our incarceration efforts. While the entire U.S. population has increased by about a third since 1980, the federal prison population has grown at an astonishing rate – by almost 800 percent. It’s still growing – despite the fact that federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity. Even though this country comprises just 5 percent of the world’s population, we incarcerate almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. More than 219,000 federal inmates are currently behind bars. Almost half of them are serving time for drug-related crimes, and many have substance use disorders.

Holder goes on to outline plans to move away from mandatory sentencing, increase compassionate release and boost drug treatment programs. It's a small enough start and runs the danger of diluting anti-prohibition campaigns - but as Holder points out, the measures appear to have cross-party support (as well as being driven by GFC-related budget cuts). You've gotta start somewhere.

Chart from the Washington Post

Killing people in the name of prohibition is disgusting

This perceptive story in The Guardian clearly illustrates how barbaric the death penalty really is. Writer Brigid Delaney references the execution of Van Nguyen in Singapore, recently dramatised in Better Man on SBS.

But even this story, like all too many in the media, fails to name prohibition as a key driver of this violence. Delaney argues:

There is the argument that trafficking drugs leads to the death of countless others who use your drugs, and that death is a just punishment.

She rebuts it with this excellent quote from Auberon Waugh:

Judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish; it can only add a second atrocity to the original one … So long as one sees killing as wrong there is no need to waste time with the deterrent argument, since it would be nonsense to try to prevent a theoretical evil in the future by perpetrating an actual one in the present.

While that is succinctly put, it fails to address the key fallacy in the original argument - that it is prohibition itself that causes most drug-related deaths, not the drugs. Those who don't yet understand why this is should read this short article, which puts it simply.

Also not mentioned is my own first objection to execution: the very real possibility of a false verdict, leading to the state murdering an innocent person after putting them through the horror of Death Row.

Nevertheless, Brigid Delaney's story is an eloquent condemnation of the death penalty and I commend it.

And Nguyen's case is only the tip of the iceberg - see my previous post on this topic: War on drugs still killing and incarcerating.

The circular logic of prohibition

We prohibit a ‘bad’ drug on the rationale that it is dangerous, and then construct social policies that assure high risks related to the drug’s use - William L White

That just about sums up the circular logic of prohibition, as illustrated by the current rash of police warning people not to take illicit drugs because you never know what's in them. If that's the main reason not to take them, prohibition is clearly the problem.

These issues are explored in a book by Bill White, Pathways from the Culture of Addiction to the Culture of Recovery.

The book is summarised nicely by blogger David Clark who lists some of the ways prohibition makes drugs more dangerous and describes this as immoral:

In essence, technology is being withheld in order to keep the risk of prohibited drug use high, in the hope it will deter use. This is morally wrong. The price of this approach is that people contract disease and die not because of the drug, but because of the social policy that prevents society from reducing risks associated with its use.

The irony is - and here we revisit the circular logic of prohibition - that the foundation of prohibition is always a 'moral' one (even if you ignore the religious element in the movement). Writes Clark:

The drug and its users are held responsible for a number of problems in society, and the survival of society can be portrayed as being dependent on prohibition of the drug. The drug, dealers and even users are viewed as ‘evil’, corrupting our young people. Anyone questioning these statements is attacked and sometimes characterised as part of the problem that needs to be eliminated.

This stigma then makes it harder for addicts to recover. This prompts prohibitionists to argue for even more prohibition, and the cycle goes on.

The Pope needs new media advisors - or a new brain

Oh dear. Pope Francis, whose public image vacillates between uber conservative and champion of the poor, has just revealed himself as a mindless uber conservative.

In a tour of Brazil punctuated by street riots from poor people protesting against the state expenditure on same, he has pontificated about drug prohibition.

He criticised South American governments who, facing the destruction of their societies and economies by the USA-driven War on Drugs, have espoused regulated legalisation.

"The scourge of drug-trafficking that favours violence and sows the seeds of suffering and death requires of society as a whole an act of courage," he said.

His prohibition stance misses out on the unfortunate fact that prohibition itself creates the violence and death. Just think Al Capone's Tommy-gun street shootings compared with your local pub taking a delivery of kegs in the morning. The Pope is effectively saying: "Illegal drugs create violence so you must make them more illegal", an idiotic circular argument.

Francis the Infallible Pontiff  then went all kind and human, saying this: "Rather it is necessary to confront the problems underlying the use of these drugs, by promoting greater justice, educating young people in the values that build up life in society, accompanying those in difficulty and giving them hope for the future."

As if this would be impossible under regulated legalisation, rather than infinitely more possible if it was government policy. His veneer of kindness is just code for a violent military crackdown on people who prefer drugs other than alcohol. He is either a Fool or Evil.

Or both?

Prohibition contradictions still thriving in mainstream media

Some of the false ecstasy pills thought to contain
chemicals more dangerous than MDMA. Legal pills
would come with a precise list of ingredients and
safe dosage information.

I've been facebooking rather then blogging for a while but I had to comment on this story from The Irish Times because it encapsulates the prohibitionist nonsense that too many supposedly quality news journals accept and regurgitate without balancing comment.  It's as if otherwise intelligent and cynical journalists are so completely blinded by prohibition propaganda that they are hypnotised into toeing the line like rabbits in headlights.

It seems an alarming number of people  have died recently in Scotland and Ireland after taking 'ecstasy' - eight in Ireland and six in Scotland.

As usual it seems the problem is not 'ecstasy' as in MDMA but other more dangerous chemicals such as PMA, 5IT or AMT.

Of course this is happening BECAUSE OF PROHIBITION, which ensures there is no regulation on the underground, untaxed drug trade. This of course is not mentioned, with police and doctors coming out with the usual howlers:

“It is a form of chemical Russian roulette: you don’t know what you are taking, you cannot be sure what they contain and you are putting yourself in harm’s way,” said Det Chief Supt Roy McComb.

That's true, Detective McComb - but it's only because of prohibition. So your statement is the perfect rationale for legalising and regulating the much safer drugs.

The same goes for this:

"...the police service has issued a warning about ecstasy bulked out with a slower-acting chemical, which carries an added risk because users may take extra pills under the misapprehension that the drug is not working."

 Sticking closely to the prohibitionist hymn sheet, Roy McComb also...

"...called for new laws to address the problem of so-called “legal highs”, substances which may be sold as plant food, bath crystals or pond cleaner, but which produce similar effects to controlled drugs.

Detective Chief Supt Roy McComb

"Controlled drugs", Det McComb?  IF THEY ARE "CONTROLLED", HOW COME SO MANY PEOPLE ARE APPARENTLY DYING FROM THEM? Not to mention that prohibition does jack up the price of illicit drugs and creates a market for the newer, untested drugs that sniffer dogs, for instance, are not trained to detect.

Nevertheless, McComb is on a roll:

“We need legislation to deal with the issue,” said Mr McComb. “There are many people out for a fast buck. People are selling products and they don’t know if that person is going to be alive the next day.”

Yes Detective McComb, that's what happens under prohibition.

But here's the real kicker. A common pattern when people have problems from illicit drugs is a reluctance to seek treatment BECAUSE OF PROHIBITION. Dr Richard Stevenson, Glasgow Royal Infirmary's senior specialty doctor in emergency medicine, said of the Scottish deaths:

"All the fatalities were due to symptoms which are treatable if help is sought early - sadly in these cases they all came into A and E too late."

The police in these cases are doing little more than featherbedding their own power and massive drug enforcement budgets. Too bad about the casualties.

Australia's propaganda rag goes over the top

Right here is the main problem with Australian politics. Are Murdoch's readers seriously as stupid as Sydney's Daily Telegraph assumes today? By contrast, Michelle Grattan on 'The Conversation' website gets it about right: "A media policy mouse with a modest roar. That won’t stop the media companies and the opposition treating it as a lion that must be slain." I know where I'd rather get my information.

Tony Abbott and the Liberals are uncannuly in touch with the mentality this nonsense creates and appeals to. They know just how to pitch meaningless but emotive sound-bites to this constituency: "Stop the boats;" "The carbon tax will ruin the economy;" "You can't trust Juliar".

Meanwhile Labor and The Greens labour on under the illusion that actually doing things for the good of the people, or being 'right' matters a damn. Those days are gone, folks. Welcome to the Brave New World.

And so much for the maxim that "The first one to mention the Nazis loses the debate". And using propagandists as fodder for your propaganda is cheeky to say the least. 

Ten steps to legalisation

With cannabis now properly legalised in Colorado USA, the people behind the campaign have kindly published a blueprint for the success of their campaign.

While not all steps apply in the Australian context, it's a pretty good guide. Their campaign cost 'only' $US2.3 million - pretty small beer in US election terms.

See the full Huffington Post article here, highly recommended for anyone interested in legalisation.

War on Drugs still killing and incarcerating

Among all the causes promoting human and animal rights... a reminder that international drug prohibition is still mass-murdering and incarcerating people who haven't actually harmed anyone - from London School of Economics: 

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ideas/2012/10/how-international-aid-for-drug-enforcement-fuels-human-rights-abuses/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Liberals unleash sniffer dogs in alcohol crackdown - huh?

Every night sees one or two shootings in Sydney's western/southern suburbs plus usually a few stabbings. Then a western suburbs Bulldogs footy fan punches poor Thomas Kelly to death at 10pm in Kings Cross - alcohol, venues or drugs not involved as far as we know. Now the NSW government has announced its response which of course is all about Kings Cross (not about western suburbs thugs or footy culture).

While the local NIMBYS will scream, some of it's good. More late-night buses. Tick. More cops on the beat. Tick. (We know that works because when the Riot Squad was deployed in KX during the 'Bikie Wars' a couple of years ago, the violence shrank to nearly zero, a fact not reported in the big media.)
They haven't imposed venue lockouts. Tick. Imagine an army of angry young people locked out of venues at the same time, challenging bouncers. (Google 'Assault by bouncers' to get an idea of the problems that would bring - it goes for pages and pages). They are introducing ID scanners so once someone is barred from a venue, they are barred from all venues. This might work as long as the original barring was fair (see 'Bouncers' above).

Then comes the jewel in the crown: Premier Barry O'Farrell is giving sniffer dogs free rein on trains and in the streets of Kings Cross, no pesky warrants required. Huh? The first year they brought in the dogs the NSW Ombudsman tracked their results - from more than 2,500 searches on trains, not one trafficable amount of any drug was found. Great use of resources, Barry.

Many call to end the sniffer dog regime as it's part of the problem in party precincts: peaceable stoners are kept out or prevented from taking their favourite puff, creating an alcohol monoculture. Duh. Fail.

So how did this get up? Not one advocate was calling for it. No, it's just the automatic reaction of conservative governments pandering to ultra-right maniacs in their ranks like, in this case, David Clarke who just knows that prohibition is the only thing standing between civilisation and armageddon. David, Google  'Assault by bouncers' again and tell me what the actual problem is?

This idiocy ranks with actions of the Dutch Conservatives who got elected on an immigration ticket and immediately turned against the famous cannabis coffee shops, trying to ruin a thriving sector of the economy during the biggest European recession since the war. Never mind that Holland has one of the lowest cannabis usage rates in the world. (Hang on, I thought liberalising the pot laws was supposed to produce streets full of incoherent stoners? Oh no, that's right - it's just conservative dogma, as is increasing police powers).

Thomas Kelly and the latest Kings Cross panic

Even the recently diminished Sydney Morning Herald has bought into the latest tizz about 'fixing' Kings Cross after the senseless murder of Thomas Kelly who was king-hit from behind at random in Victoria Street, about 100 metres from where I live.

Never mind that this assault, and a day or two later a serious 'glassing', took place before 10 pm, the hue and cry is again raised about late-night trading and 'over-saturation' of venues.

Never mind that neither Thomas Kelly or his alleged attacker had been in any of the local venues [This was later debated as I have sinced blogged here]. Never mind that within the week another man was similarly killed by a king-hit in Kingscliff in northern NSW, and another serious 'glassing' took place in south-west Sydney. No, the problem is apparently Kings Cross and its late-night venues.

Then two ex-first grade Rugby League players were arrested for the Kingscliff incident and one Kieran Loveridge was arrested over the Kings Cross incident - while watching a practice session of League team the Canterbury Bulldogs at Belmore oval.

Presuming that Loveridge attends practice sessions of his favourite League team because he is pretty heavily into the game, it seems football and its culture of macho violence is the common problem here, not Kings Cross. But do we hear any outcry about Rugby League? Quite the opposite as I show below.

How the tail wags the dog on drug law reform

I've said it before, now someone else is saying it. The self-interest groups opposing drug law reform are an ugly bunch, never mind the clear persecution and injustice it brings (see evidence post below in main blog).

How the War on Drugs = racism

OK this is too wide for this blog template but it's readable. See the original here - it's an excellent piece of research that, especially towards the end, applies to Australia (we didn't have actual slavery and we don't have the same crack laws but we do have the same discrimination).

Via Matador Network

A tough list for climate change sceptics to deny

Even climate change sceptics probably like biodiversity, which has
already fallen by 30% in the last 40 years - a yellow dragonfly I snapped
in our back garden in Woolloomooloo, Sydney.

Climate change sceptics never mention the alarming data below, one of the best summaries of the pain our children will face if we don't act now to seriously remedy the problems being caused by our attachment to the fossil-fuel economy. Climate change sceptics also conveniently gloss over the credibility of senior scientists like NASA's Prof James Hansen, hardly a "tree-hugging hippie greenie" as they like to typify renewable energy supporters and conservationists. The following is the must-read introduction to http://climatesummit.org.au/. 

------------------------------------------

The world’s best climate science from NASA (Prof James Hansen), the Potsdam Institute (Prof John Schellnhuber- chief climate adviser to the European Community), the Tyndall Climate Research Centre (Prof Kevin Anderson) is now telling us desperately urgent action needs to be taken within 5 years to avert a global catastrophe taking place as early as 2040. If the Federal Government along with other Governments of leading polluting nations don’t act quickly enough, billions of people lives will be put at risk.
AUSTRALIA: In the last three years Australia has experienced an avalanche of extreme weather, including record heat and fires in Victoria with 374 fatalities, a record two years of rain, repeated “1-in-a-100-year” floods, record heat waves in Adelaide and Perth, and Cyclone Yasi, all following a devastating decade-long drought.
GLOBAL: It’s happening everywhere, with record global temperatures, more than 15,000 temperature records broken in the USA in March this year, devastating floods in Pakistan, fires in Russia, record heat and drought in Texas, and what the Europeans are calling “weather weirding”. Most of these changes and extreme events have a direct link to climate change.

How to criminalise children

'Childsplay' in London [Pic: Mirror]

Meanwhile, as Sydney weathers its hail of bullets, children in England are being recruited en masse into gangs and a life of crime, according to this graphic Mirror article.  The harms of the War on Drugs are greater than the harms of drugs.

Sydney's shooting spree brings back the Al Capone days

Guns confiscated by South Australian police in
a "bikie-related" raid - plenty more where these
came from thanks to the War on Drugs.

Suburbs in the south and west of Sydney seem criss-crossed by a hail of bullets as gun-toting gangsters sort out their disputes without recourse to the law. The SMH reports another four incidents last night alone, with a tattoo parlour in Baulkham Hills targeted for the third time in a city that is awash with thousands of illegal firearms.

These gangsters must operate outside the legal system because they trade in prohibited drugs, just as Al Capone dealt in sly grog during his prohibition era and delivered justice from the barrel of a machine-gun. As usual however, the media do not link today's violence to its fundamental cause - prohibition. They and the police ignore the causes and carry on as if treating the symptoms of the War on Drugs will do anything besides stuff our jails with prisoners kept by the public purse.

Bullets are flying and people are dying across the world in their tens of thousands, but still prohibitionists bang on as if the harms of drugs are the real issue. The whole debate about decriminalisation carries on in a separate compartment of the official mind with prohibitionists including Julia Gillard droning on about drugs "killing people and ripping apart families". In fact only one or two percent of drug users ever have any significant problems (check the statistics) and many of those exist only because the drugs are illegal and therefore supplied by criminals. Most of the drugs themselves are in fact clinically safer than alcohol or tobacco.

Let's hope none of their friends or family members ever stop a gangster's bullet. That's what rips families apart.

Bullets fly in the 'burbs, getting uncomfortably close to
someone's home. [file pic]

The Guardian explains again why the War on Drugs has failed

Prohibitionists have railed and rallied against the Australia 21 Report with the likes of Andrew Bolt using a combination of mockery and selective facts to slam it. But such people always ignore facts such as the following, published by the Guardian/Observer - and the immense collateral damage wrought on families by prohibition:

It hasn't even worked well in America, its birthplace. When Nixon announced the war on drugs in 1971, the US kept just 0.2% of its population behind bars. Today, it incarcerates close to 0.8% of its population – 2.25 million Americans. A further 5 million are on parole or probation. In total, more than 7 million people in the US are under correctional supervision. If they were all gathered together they could form the 13th biggest state of the union by population.
This is the highest percentage of adults imprisoned anywhere in the world. These figures matter because the mandatory sentencing for drugs misuse has contributed hugely to the rise of the US prison population. In 2006, nearly one in eight prisoners was behind bars for marijuana-related offences. By 2003, more than half of females in US prisons were serving sentences for drug convictions. Approximately half-a-million people are in prison for a drug offence in the US today compared with 40,000 in 1981.
In the US, it isn't a war on drugs any longer – it has become a war on drug users.

On the bright side, shock-jock Alan Jones has apparently come out in favour of decriminalisation. The prohibitionists' ranks are dwindling under an onslaught of sense. If only the politicians would get with the program!

Julia Gillard comes out against drug law reform

Today's push by the Australia 21 group to wind back the War on Drugs has at least smoked out the opinions of heavy hitters like Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Attorney-General Nicola Roxon. Gillard came in particularly hard, apparently ignoring the facts and arguments in the Australia 21 report and reading straight from the prohibitionist hymn-book, as reported by the SMH:

My view about drugs is clear. Drugs kill people they rip families apart, they destroy lives and we want to see less harm done through drug usage," the Prime Minister said.

She repeated one of the basic fallacies of prohibition propaganda - that the one or two percent of drug users who have significant problems represent the whole, and that all drugs are addictive:

Ms Gillard said she wanted to help people to break out of the addiction cycle, while police should enforce drug laws.

Not only is this a hopeless generalisation, it ignores that the problems that do exist do so under prohibition and are in fact evidence of its failure. Points to Foreign Minister Bob Carr for speaking out in support of reform. Heaven help any of these prohibitionists who take him on in debate over the subject.

At least the battle lines are now clear and Gillard has nailed her position to a mast of fallacy. If you agree with reform, go to the Australia 21 site and 'Like' their facebook page. If you don't agree, please trawl this blog - you'll find a sound rebuttal for whatever your objections are. I hope you can be open-minded enough to change your mind.

WA drug laws get even tougher

Colin Barnett's Liberal Western Australian government has just made its already draconian drug laws even tougher according to the PerthNow site:

PARENTS could be jailed for 12 months and their children put in state care for growing just one marijuana plant in Western Australia under arguably the nation's toughest drug laws.
Amendments to WA's Misuse of Drugs Act, which came into effect on the weekend, mean people convicted of cultivating a single cannabis plant or processing the drug where a child has suffered harm face a 12-month mandatory prison term.

The laws are targeted at methamphetamine labs but, typical of the 1950s thinking of this government, cannabis is drawn into the net. WA already allows its police to use number plate scanning to detect drivers with a previous drugs conviction before stopping and searching them (while rapists, child molesters and murderers can drive on, free). The moves not only ignore current evidence on the failure of mandatory sentencing, but ignore the government's expert advice that tougher prohibition would not solve any problems.  But evidence is rarely a strong point for conservatives.

1950s thinking with modern technology: how very Orwellian. One comfort is that the over 100 comments on the Perth Now piece overwhelmingly ridicule the new law and logically shred the few illiterates who support it. BTW 'illiterate' wasn't used as an insult. They simply can't spell or construct a sentence as they spew their hatred of "druggy scum" etc. Great mates has Mr Barnett.

How prohibition supersized the 'ice' industry

Respected pro-reform journal The Economist lists some revealing statistics about the explosion of the methamphetamine industry under prohibition. 'Ice' is now being produced on an industrial scale. The graph illustrates how the purity has improved as the price has dropped in the US, making a mockery of the War on Drugs which suppresses relatively safe, natural drugs only to see more dangerous alternatives flourish, along with narco-states - poor countries which make a fortune from the artificially lucrative trade. Cambodia was in the news the other day, with the Prime Minister's nephew narrowly avoiding arrest in Melbourne on trafficking charges. With whole countries involved in the drug trade, even the USA is powerless to stop a trade for which their own citizens are the world's biggest customers. The harms of prohibition are worse than the harms of drugs.

More blatant bullshit about cannabis

What is it with The Sydney Morning Herald that as soon as the subject turns to cannabis the broadsheet turns into a credulous tabloid? One Nicole Hasham on Wednesday wrote the following about a paranoid schizophrenic who had killed his fiancee:

His heavy marijuana use had triggered paranoid delusions and imaginary voices which told him that his friends, family and workmates were "part of an elaborate conspiracy".

Really? Dope causes mental illness causes murder? So simple. Let's fix it by banning it. Oh wait, we already have. Fortunately this sledgehammer simplification was corrected on Thursday in the letters column by a doctor:

'Just say no' can be a dangerous message

It is a pity that, having written well about the important matter of mental health services in prison, and illustrated the benefits of good treatment and management through the story of Sunil Hemraj, you chose to head that article, ''Hard road back from deadly habit'' (March 21).How was any purported habit ''deadly''? What was deadly was Mr Hemraj's delusional state, which has been attributed to his suffering with paranoid schizophrenia. The role of cannabis use in either the precipitation or causation of schizophrenia is still poorly understood. But in any case, it is the mental health problem, however caused, which can be deadly, though fortunately not as often as is portrayed in the media.

Some studies suggest that 3000 people would have to stop using cannabis to prevent one case of psychosis, so cannabis use is not the most common risk factor. More often, this association merely illustrates the point that the peak age for both using cannabis and the onset of schizophrenia in males happens to coincide.

The major problem with cannabis use I see as an addiction physician is that if one is unfortunate enough to experience a mental health problem as well, many health workers and services will adopt the view that ''it's all your own fault'' and thus miss the opportunity to intervene early in what could be a serious, but treatable, health issue.

Mr Hemraj was fortunate that his mental health problem was taken seriously and treated well. For many others, what they get may be just a message to go home and stop using cannabis, which will not in general make any difference to the progression of a psychotic illness.

Dr Rod MacQueen Orange

Laneway drama a storm in a coffee cup

Jane and James in Llankelly Place in the old days
before it came back to life.

A local dispute reported in the SMH over café chairs in Llankelly Place Kings Cross has escalated into a bit of a drama via emails and letters to the editor.
After the original story appeared I got an email from someone I didn't know - David at exemail - copied to restaurateur Neil Perry, demanding that Mr Perry apologise for siding with the Room 10 coffee bar in Llankelly Place. I replied, asking who 'David' was, where he got my email address, and also siding with the coffee bar. Mr Perry replied this morning, not apologising but explaining he was not a 'celebrity chef' -

I'm an Australian who employes 520 staff, pay millions in taxes and raises lots of dollars for charity. I own 7 businesses in 3 States of Australia, I believe in young people making a difference.
Thanks, Neil

It seems Jo Holder of the Cross Arts Gallery, said to have complained about the seats, has some supporters besides 'David' at exemail (who did not reply to my email).

Next came a letter in the SMH from Carole Ferrier, a local Labor branch colleague of Ms Holder's and close ally in the War Against Pubs. She complained about café people keeping people awake at night, making it sound as if she lived above the café. But I'm pretty sure the café doesn't open at night, and as far as I know Ms Ferrier lives in Altair, facing east - about  half a k from the café. But maybe she's moved downmarket?

Anyway, two letters replied brilliantly. Couldn't have said it better myself:

Don't go back to the bad old days 

Carole Ferrier (Letters, March 14) needs reminding that Llankelly Place where Room 10 is situated, was formerly a rat and needle-infested laneway. It was frequented by prostitutes, drunk revellers and addicts needing a place to shoot up. There has been a concerted effort by council and local business people to bring life and a sense of community to an area of Kings Cross that sorely needed rejuvenation.
There are now at least a dozen restaurants, cafes and shops in this alley that provide employment, services and a sense of security to locals. Would she prefer the bad old days?
Adrian Young Elizabeth Bay 

I grew up in Kings Cross many years ago, but even then it was a noisy, rambunctious and ''colourful'' precinct, and has been, famously, since its hobohemia days of the 1920s and 1930s. Moving into it and complaining about noise is a little like diving into the ocean and whingeing about being wet.
John Newton Glebe

Then two more great letters turned up on March 16:

Cross still the king
Of course Kings Cross is noisy (Letters, March 15). It is peppered with people struggling to survive in society, and sometimes violent, but you won't find a livelier place to live anywhere in Australia.
Norm Neill Darlinghurst 

Old memories of Kings Cross are many but mine are dominated by an event in the early 1950s. I was having an illegal, after-hours drink in a dive called Le Primatif. I was with a former Wallaby when there was a raid by the vice squad detective Bumper Farrell and the local police. Bumper sighted David, the ex-Wallaby, and said, ''Get out, Dave, and take your dopey mate with you". Nice to be recognised.
Graeme Berman Manly

Handy links to corporate greed and gutter journalism

Mockery in pictures - this is how The Telegraph
pictured Tim Flannery in their hate campaign.

OMG the idiot level of public debate is excruciating. Take climate change. The more climate sceptics, and their champions the Murdoch press, are refuted by scientists, the lower becomes their rhetoric. The Daily Telegraph the other day published one of the most pejorative pieces of moronic abuse ever seen in print, mocking Tim Flannery because it's raining. As if climate scientists ever predicted the La Nina/El Nino cycle would go away. The tone of the drivel is set by the headline: "It's a case of Tim foolery..."

Meanwhile The Sydney Morning Herald published a piece on the latest - quite alarming - National Climate Report from the CSIRO which reveals that isotopic fingerprinting of all-time-high levels of carbon in the air shows it mostly comes from humans burning fossil fuels. And much more. No doubt Clive Palmer will ignore this as he uses his billions to sue the government over the carbon tax. Perhaps Clive reads only the Telegraph?

And more on corporate greed as an ex-Goldman Sachs manager tells how the firm enjoys "ripping the eyes out of the muppets". (Muppets = clients). Sweet. Yes, this piece is also from a Murdoch site but it comes under the tabloid formula heading of "Look how the working bloke gets ripped off" while the Flannery piece comes under the "Let's mock all greenies and lefties" heading.

The amazing cost of mandatory sentencing

Anyone who thinks mandatory sentencing is a good idea needs to read this Canadian piece, written by one of the architects of mandatory sentencing in the US. That went horribly wrong:

In the U.S., our Congressional Budget Office initially estimated mandatory minimums would increase costs of federal prisons by $55.2 million over the first five years. In fact, over the first five years the added costs totalled $3.216 billion, 58 times our estimates.

Mandatory minimums severely damaged the credibility and reputation of the justice system and put innocent victims behind bars. Perjury increased dramatically, as perpetrators attempting to avoid long mandatory sentences concocted stories to convince prosecutors that other, minor participants were really the ring leaders. Threats and killings of civilian witnesses (“snitches”) became epidemic, and non-drug legal matters were squeezed out of strained court systems.

However the conservative Harper government appears determined to ignore the evidence, and commonsense, in pursuit of his pointless War on Drugs ideology.

Why are such conservatives so stupidly bloody-minded?