Australia21 is a non-profit body that was established in 2001 to develop new frameworks of understanding for complex multi–disciplinary problems that are important to Australia’s future.

In September 2011 Australia21 appointed a steering group that included a number of Australian experts on illicit drug policy. Their task was to work towards an Australian review of the policy of prohibition and explore a different approach to illicit drugs in Australia.

The group recommended a high level exploratory roundtable on the topic;

What are the likely costs and benefits of a change in Australia’s current policy on illicit drugs?

IN A NUTSHELL

• Prohibition puts the production, distribution, and control of illicit drugs into the hands of criminals and exposes young people, police and politicians to their corruptive influence.

• The harms resulting from prohibition substantially outweigh the gains from efforts by police to suppress the criminal drug industry – a fact now accepted by many politicians, police, researchers and leaders of civil society across the world.

• The harms include a large planeload of avoidable Australian deaths annually; home and property crime; our prisons and justice system clogged by victims of the industry; a flourishing drug culture that is fostered and controlled by criminal interests and a complete lack of control of the dosage and toxicity of the drugs that young people are consuming.

• International drug prohibition has, until now, been maintained through international treaties and conventions, spear-headed by a US “War on drugs”. The recognition that this war has been comprehensively lost is leading to an international rethink about prohibition and about these treaties and conventions.

• The enormous profits from the black market trade in drugs mean that an ounce of heroin costs many times more than an ounce of gold. The criminals are much better resourced than law enforcement authorities and any success that police have in reducing the supply, results in an increase in the price of drugs and an increase in criminal profits and activities.

• Despite decades of a prohibition approach in Australia, illicit drugs are easily purchasable on our streets and in our prisons. The perverse nature of the system ensures that a steady stream of young people becomes dependent on a continuing supply of drugs.

• Large amounts of public funds are allocated to a failed law and order approach to drug use. These resources would be better directed to managing drug use as a health and social issue as we do with nicotine and alcohol.

• Drug taking undoubtedly produces serious harms to individual drug users and their families. Many of the harms to them, to others and to society at large are a result of the national policy of prohibition and criminalisation which, arguably, increases, rather than decreases, the risks of more people becoming drug dependent.

• This is a very complex issue that demands proper community discussion of a range of alternatives to prohibition, that are now being considered everywhere including in the United States where the failed war on drugs and prohibition began.

• National drug policy should be based on evidence of what works and what does not and the international evidence base on these issues is now both substantial and persuasive.

• It is time to stop sloganeering and insist to all of our political representatives and to our media that Australia must have an informed national debate about the alternatives to a policy that has failed disastrously and is criminalising our young.

The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are all letting it happen.

Australia21 Illicit Drug Policy Report

http://www.australia21.org.au/

http://www.australia21.org.au/our_research/illicit_drugs.html

Full Report

http://www.australia21.org.au//publications/press_releases/Australia21_Illicit_Drug_Policy_Report.pdf

 The MardiGrass Comedy Show will fill the Nimbin Town Hall with laughs on Saturday Night, May 5, when that master of wobbly mirth, Steady Eddy takes the stage.

MardiGrass comedy has been part of the MardiGrass rally for many years now and has featured many famous Australian comedians.

It started at the cosy Oasis Café where comedians enjoyed the MardiGrass intimacy and the laughs filled that congenial place often with unrehearsed revelations from the comedians. (Akmal still talks about his cookie adventure…)

Now the comedy has moved to Nimbin Town Hall. The unique MardiGrass comedy style is maintained by Glover & Sorrensen who have been hosting this event since its inception. By day the comedy duo use their athletic knowledge to commentate the Hemp Olympix, and by night they are the funniest two person stand-up act in the country. (Maybe the only one.)

This year Alan Glover and S Sorrensen who have had a huge year touring the country and makin’ ‘em laugh will take great pleasure in presenting their mate and one of Australia’s most loved comedians, Steady Eddy, to the MardiGrass audience. Steady Eddy hit the Australian comedy scene with a bang in the early 90s quickly becoming a top headline act at comedy clubs around the country. He enjoyed many appearances on The Midday Show with Ray Martin and Tonight Live with Steve Vizard.

Steady lived the high life. But now Steady is fascinated by all things alternative. He’s become a hippy! Yes folks, you heard correctly – Steady Eddy has been hippified and he is just dying to form a circle and hold hands with all of you.

The gig starts at 8pm.

Entry is with a MardiGrass armband or $15/10 at the door.

The full MardiGrass program and tickets are on www.nimbinmardigrass.com

2012 Program: http://www.nimbinmardigrass.com/2012/program12.html

Quitting may then cause withdrawal symptoms, such as mild forms of restlessness, irritability, insomnia and nausea. Known side effects of medicinal cannabis are mood-altering effects, insomnia and heart palpitations.

Other effects are: relaxation, fits of laughter, feeling hungry, heightened sensitivity to the perception of e.g. colour and music, lethargy and distorted temporal and spatial awareness. Your reaction time may also be slower, especially during the first hours after use.

If you take a large dose, you can get ‘high’. This is a feeling of euphoria which slowly subsides into feeling satisfied, peaceful and calm. The altered perception may cause you to feel confused. These effects usually disappear after a few hours.

Addiction was historically a term used to describe a devotion, attachment, dedication and inclination. Nowadays however, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to that individual’s health, mental state or social life.

In the past addiction was term that clearly referred to the use of a tolerance-inducing drug in sufficient quantity as to cause tolerance. With that definition, people can become addicted to various drugs quickly. At the same time, a non-medical definition of addiction developed. This definition referred to individuals who continued to use a particular drug despite their own best interest.

Physical dependence on a substance is defined by the appearance of withdrawal symptoms when use of the substance is discontinued. Opiates (such as Heroin), benzodiazepines, barbiturates, alcohol and nicotine induce physical dependence.

Psychological dependence is a dependency of the mind, and leads to psychological withdrawal symptoms (such as cravings, irritability, insomnia, depression, anorexia etc).

Addiction can in theory be derived from any rewarding behavior, and is believed to be strongly associated with particular areas of the brain’s reward system.

Psychological dependence does not have to be limited only to substances; even particular activities and behavioural patterns can be considered addictions, if they become uncontrollable, for example gambling, Internet addiction, computer addiction, sexual addiction/pornography addiction, shopping/spending addiction, eating, self-harm, or work addiction.

Sativex is super strong, concentrated cannabis. Nothing more, nothing less.

GW Pharmaceuticals would have you believe that it’s a “pharmaceutical” product because according to its research that’s what patients prefer. As the GW spokesman puts it, “It’s a pharmaceutical solution, formulated with the ability to deliver a precise dose and with stringent standards of quality, safety and efficacy”.

GW grows high quality cannabis under pretty much the same conditions as most illegal growers. It uses clonal propagation to ensure consistent levels of cannabinoids. Lighting and hydroponic nutrition is computer controlled with automatic ventilation. It really is no different from the most sophisticated and efficient illegal cannabis farms.

It’s a recognised and proven technology now also used by Bedrocan in Holland, the Dutch government’s exclusive medicinal cannabis grower. GW takes its high quality cannabis, chops it up and makes a tincture by heating it under pressure with CO2 and then adding ethanol to precipitate an oil. Then, with the addition of a little peppermint oil to mask the taste and some preservative, the filtered liquid is packaged into tiny little aerosol bottles.

Each spray delivers 2.7mg of THC and 2.5mg of CBD. What GW doesn’t tell you that it also contains all the other 100+ cannabinoids found in the plant, each of which has its own mechanism of action and effect. It also contains flavonoids, terpines and other compounds. Everything that is found in the plant. It would be a mistake though to think that Sativex is anything different from the plant itself. It’s just been wrapped up in a marketing and physical package which has enabled stupid and cowardly politicians to accept it.

In 2011 the UK Home Office issued what it calls an “Open General Licence” for Sativex allowing it to be prescribed and dispensed. A doctor may prescribe Sativex for its approved purposed “spasticity in MS” or, “off label”, for any condition he or she believes it to be beneficial for. However, “off label” prescriptions are the doctor’s personal responsibility so it is easy to understand why doctors may be hesitant to do so. Most PCTs and health authorities are refusing to fund Sativex because of the extraordinarily high price that GW and its UK distributors Bayer want to charge the NHS. At about £175 per bottle, Sativex costs around 10 times what organised crime sells cannabis for on the streets.

Products that are pharmacologically identical to Sativex are available from medical marijuana dispensaries in the US for around $20 per bottle (usually containing much more than the GW product). Alta California offers three varieties of a Sativex-type tincture with different cannabinoid ratios for different purposes. There is no honest or accurate way to describe Sativex except to say that it is cannabis.

The Home Office is on the record as saying that “the future scheduling of this medicinal product will not affect the classification of cannabis” which is unambiguous evidence of an intention to deceive.

Perhaps the most important truth to emerge from this story of deceit and disinformation is the statement made by Professor H.P. Hartung , Chair of Neurology at Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany on 24th October 2011. He was commenting on data from three Phase III trials involving over 1,500 MS patients as well as first everyday clinical practice data were presented by a panel of international experts at the European Congress of Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) in Amsterdam.

“Sativex has proven to reduce the severity of symptoms and improve patients’ quality of life and functional status, in patients with spasticity in multiple sclerosis, meaning that they can undertake everyday tasks more easily. Also, importantly, clinical experience to date has demonstrated that the tolerability profile of this medicine is favourable, with limited relevant adverse effects and – particularly reassuring – the drug does not appear to lead to withdrawal effects if patients suddenly stop using it.”

There is an unfair land called Australia
That gets involved in other peoples’ fights
And masks its motives behind ‘human rights’
While its record in such is abject failure.

Just as they hide aborigine genocide
History and education side-by-side
High priests of information
Have distorted another nation.

Justifying one corruption after another
Just a colonial agent for ‘big brother’
With tears to govern, meant to smother
And control just like every other.

Knee deep in a long, so-called ‘war on drugs’
A protection racket carried out by thugs
A prohibition propaganda switch
A wild goose hunt where they changed the witch.

No one noticed the ‘mafia’ ran the show
Too much baggage to let everyone know
Some guy had to fall, or better a girl
And then let the lies and the flag unfurl.

Under covers of ‘diplomacy’ and ‘law’
They took Schapelle Corby and threw her away
Deserted in a prison to this very day
Dumped by her country on an alien shore.

So many years of corruption to hide
Looking for a place to stuff it inside
The woman’s body board bag for the ride
We know the truth can always be denied.

Just as a little evidence goes missing
Justice and crime can be seen kissing
The dirty hands that feed malice and greed
And make sure than everyone is agreed
That we’re all better off if just one bleeds
So we can follow along as the newsician reads
And bump and grind to the moronic feeds
That set’s up who and in what to believe
Chanting ‘convicted drug smuggler’, indeed.

So that woman squanders her life in jail
To protect corrupt officials who tell
‘It’s not me, your honour, I do pray tell
It’s that wicked, naughty bad girl, Schapelle.”
Turned over to the masses and dropped in hell.

What will it take to rescue Schapelle?
Will Australians remember how she fell?
Can’t you let go of your beers for a minute?
Are ya always gonna let them spin it?
Take your eyes off the football and the cricket
This is your country, you want them to dick it?

Are you calling her ‘expendable’, too?
Is she Aborigine, Palestinian? A Jew?
What can this Australian hope to do
To get a fellow aussie out of this stew?

This woman’s fate is a national scandal
The state has been a treacherous vandal
Ruining her life to cover their shame
In their filthy and treasonous game
They call it a war on drugs but it’s name
Should be subjugation of the masses
It spies, lies and picks and harasses
Sells them popcorn without getting off their asses.

I’d like to see us all able to run free
I don’t wanna be ashamed of my country
But while Schapelle rots away in Bali jail
My government gets a great big FAIL.

Bazra 2012

Expendable