Posts by Craig Young
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Has anyone noticed TV3's Think Tank programme, hosted by Tamihere, also seems to have vanished from its Saturday lineup? One wonders if this is mere coincidence, or...?
-
Hard News: How a thing happens, in reply to
Matthew, may I congratulate you for your resolute stance on walking out on those two characters when they crossed the line? Well done, that man! :)
-
Try to avoid benzodiazepines, they're addictive.
-
I wish MediaWorks would divest itself of Radio Live. Granted, it's nowhere near as bad as the late unlamented Radio Pacific, and I'm just grateful that I can't get the apparently loathsome Leighton Smith down here in Wellington. As for the dumping of Tamihere and Jackson, they deserved this. Tamihere's loyalty to his brother David is commendable if one considers it as whanau solidarity, but he allowed it to warp and distort his perceptions of feminism and deal with women as social and moral equals. As for Jackson, the man is politically clueless. One Maori female friend to me described Jackson as "Maoridom's answer to your Chris Trotter fella."
One hopes this dumping is permanent and not temporary. US style far right talkback demagoguery has no place in mainstream New Zealand politics or society. Especially not when it comes to concerns like those over sexual violation.
-
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to
Which is basically what I said- pharmacogenetics.
-
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to
Although actually, the scientific evidence for medicinal cannabis derivative efficacy is quite robust. Given that it can be used to provide beneficial effects for PLWHAs, I support its decriminalisation on that basis. Got to say, again, though, I think we might end up getting euthanasia law reform before any relaxation of pot laws.
-
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to
But are the (NZ) pot lobby *organised* enough to hold a referendum on the issue? Added to which, how many such referenda fail because antidrug populist groups have stronger community and legislative relationships than their pro-reform counterparts? I know that there have been several successful US medical cannabis decriminalisation referenda, but as a gay man, I get itchy thinking about binding referenda, due to their abuse against marriage equality in the United States as well.
-
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to
So, how does someone susceptible to cannabinoid psychosis avoid getting access to the plant if this is the case? I can certainly see that as pot prohibitionism isn't working, there can be no question of any (say) biochemical/metabolic test for the presence of the gene, but how is diversion handled in jurisdictions where it is legal? And why haven't the pot lobby answered this question well beforehand, in that case?
See what I mean about pot lobby disorganisation? If this were LGBT politics, there would've been strategic planning and analysis of this question well beforehand, in order to provide appropriate evidence-based answers to questions of that nature. Instead of which...
-
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to
I'm afraid that's why I tend to find the subject tedious. I can see the injustice involved, but they need to knuckle down, find resolute evidence-based proofs for what they say, focus on incremental reforms first and then tackle the really hard issues. That seems to be what happened in the United States, given its escalating number of states with legal medicinal cannabis and its derivatives. Instead of which, they back the ALCP instead of the Greens, talk about wider drug decriminalisation/legalisation and behave like a pack of unsophisticated hippies from the bad old days.
-
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to
Although, to balance things out, there is also such a thing as methamphetamine psychosis, which is several magnitudes worse than its cannabinoid counterpart. Hopefully, in terms of warning people with genetically susceptible adverse reactions off pot, the fledgeling science of pharmcogenetics might help. Cue downstream human genome sequencing research, although I acknowledge that might take decades.