Posts by mpledger
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In this article, where the survey wasn't about medicinal cannabis,
https://www.nzma.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/49405/Pledger-2069-NZMJ-1433.pdf
Recreational users were more likely to be younger, male and Maori then medicinal users but males and Maori were still more likely to be medicinal users then females and non-Maori. That kinda makes sense - a person is more likely to use it medicinally if they have had prior experience or have seen other's experience.Medicinal users were more likely than recreational users to be on a sickness or invalids benefit but also more likely to be in the least financially deprived category - so it looks like there are at least two different groups of people using. Speculating a bit wildly I would suggest it splits into those who can't afford medicine and those that can't find a medicine that works.
Upper, middle-class women seem to be more comfortable with alternative medicines across the board so I would expect there to be some cross-over into medicinal cannabis use.
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Legal Beagle: The climate strike and the…, in reply to Walter Nicholls,
As to voting at 14, I'll be cynical again and wonder if anyone has done research into the correlation of 14-17 year-olds' voting preferences with that of their parents.
For all the kids who vote the same as their parents because they are their parents, I think there will be plenty of kids who vote differently to their parents because they are their parents. Perhaps, it's pretty close to a wash.
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Menz Shed? A lot of older guys happy to pass on their skills. It's probably more structural than what he's looking for but everything needs a base. And possibly the noise might be too much - sawing/routing.
At our local college there are after hours classes such as wood work/wood carving - I'm sure there are many more offerings in Auckland. It's a good way to see what you like.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Alex Rahr,
Yea, I'm a little out of date because I first came across this stuff a couple of years ago.
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I'm a little skeptical* about the decreased survival rates of white men in the USA. All other ethnic groups in the US are showing increased survival rates, as well as white people in all other places in the Western World. My suspicion is that when people die without relatives to inform the authorities about the person's ethnicity then it defaults to white unless there is clear evidence otherwise.
There is also a huge benefit in the USA in passing as white - even more so now with Trump ramping up the rhetoric against Central/South Americans and other foreigners - so people living away from family may tell others they are white who in turn report that when the person dies.
*although I don't doubt that there is an opioid epidemic.
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So this doesn't look good
U.S. reportedly issuing lifetime travel bans for anyone even remotely connected to Canada's legal cannabis industry
https://www.straight.com/cannabis/1101001/us-reportedly-issuing-lifetime-travel-bans-anyone-even-remotely-connected-canadasMy Canadian relations have always been nudge-nudge, wink-wink about Trudeau's parentage.
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I still haven't read the paper ... but in terms of evidence on the effect of cannabis the study is pretty low grade because it's an *observational* study. The people themselves *choose* to use cannabis and a lot of that choice isn't so much about need but about other characteristics - whether they have used it before, how comfortable they are with breaking the law, how connected they are to people who can supply etc.
(Better studies are when people are randomly allocated treatment and better still when they don't know what treatment they are getting.)
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I haven't read the study but I suspect there is some reverse causation going on. As the pain gets worse people starting using cannabis rather than cannabis has no effect on bad pain.
I talked to a medical professional who had a close relative die of cancer. This person who died had used cannabis and had said that cannabis did not get rid of the pain but took the edge off it. This person was also on opioids. If that's really what's going on then you'd expect people with the worst pain to be the ones using cannabis the most and also saying it helps.
I was involved in a trial of the effect of blood lowering medication on stroke rates. The doctors were also allowed to prescribe anything else along side that medication so some patients were also on blood thinning medication. The patients on blood thinning medication were more likely to die of a stroke than those not on blood thinning medication. But that's not because blood thinning medication causes stroke but that the people most at risk of stroke got blood thinning medication - their risk of dying of stroke was still higher than those without the medication but not as high as it would have been had they not had the medication.
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Hard News: Protecting privilege in Epsom, in reply to Russell Brown,
Mark Richardson said:
"I've worked hard all my life and I've put my nuts on the line. I've tried to optimise every opportunity, I screwed myself to the wall to get into the eastern suburbs of Auckland."It makes his opinions even less relevant - how can we trust anything he says if his goal is to optimise every opportunity to make money for himself rather than speak from the heart. Who knows what he'll say if the money is right.
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Hard News: Budget 2018: The broadcasting…, in reply to Tinakori,
Of course a senior administrator and leader is being obstructive if he dumps his minister in the shit repeatedly. He could have done everything in a diplomatic way but he chose to go nuclear.