Talibanderton

While Jim Talibanderton peddles BZP-based myths for the media to recycle -- including the one that he's not a killjoy -- others like Michael Earley are busying busting them.

After fisking Neanderton's speech to the house on his ban on BZP-based party pills (featured here last week), Earley sent the following letter to the Manawatu Standard correcting a blatantly misleading article on the ban:

Sir, It is clear that your correspondent Lee Matthews obviously has not done his research on BZP. Almost every statement in his article is either factually incorrect, made up or based on anecdotal evidence. He might wish to consider a career other than journalism.

BZ'P is a stimulant -- you cannot "pass out" on party pills, its pharmacologically impossible. If teens were consuming a large amount of BZP they would likely throw up the before the pills were pills digested and the active ingredient able to affect them.

"Party pills, mixed with alcohol or cannabis, could be lethal." - There is not a single recorded instance in the history of BZP (worldwide) where it has found by a coroner to be the cause of death. The same goes with Cannabis. Though you are quite correct that Alcohol can be lethal...

"Sometimes P addicts tried to used party pills to get themselves off the harder drug. It didn't work. They suffered shattering headaches and health side effects." - Actually it did work, I personally know people who have used BZP to get off P; research by Massey University and SHORE also backs this up.

"Party pills, BZP [benzylpiperazine], they're basically cattle drench, to stop worms. The kids who take them might as well squirt drench down their throats." - Since it was created in the 1940s, BZP has never been used as a cattle drench of for worming. This is an urban myth. It is correct that piperazines have been tested as wormers in the 1950s, but they were not sold commercially as drench, and none of these were BZP, MeOpp, TfMPP or other Piperazines

Matthews's article is simply no different from  the 'Reefer-Madness'-type articles that appeared last century. Surely an article with this many factual errors deserves a correction or retraction?

Michael Earley

Stronger, more harmful drugs unleashed by MPs

400,000 consumers of party pills have now been told by 109 MPs that they may no longer legally purchase or consume party pills, and Matt Bowden of the Social Tonics Association is clear what the result of prohibition will be.  "400,000 people have been sent into the arms of the gangs," he told Mike Hosking this morning.

In their eight years on the market there have been neither deaths nor serious injuries due to party pills, but the ban now means those looking for a safer alternative to alcohol or tobacco will have to look elsewhere, and criminals looking for new markets to tap have just been handed a new one on a plate.  As Green MP Metiria Turei said, ""He (Mr) Anderton put our young people at risk to meet his own political objectives."

Because when criminals sell drugs, the safety of their buyers is far from a priority -- politicians who have just voted to make gangsters rich would do well to brush up on Milton Friedman's 'Iron Law of Prohibition' so they may fully understand the disaster they've just unleashed on New Zealanders.  Says Friedman:

"Prohibition encourages dealers to produce and provide the stronger, more harmful product. If you are a drug dealer in Hackney, you can use the kilo of cocaine you own to sell to casual coke users who will snort it and come back a month later – or you can microwave it into crack, which is far more addictive, and you will have your customer coming back for more in a few hours. Prohibition encourages you to produce and provide the more harmful drug."

Look for up to 400,000 people (many of whom had been weaned of harder drugs by the legal high of party pills)  to now be wooed by suppliers of stronger, more harmful products in streets near you soon.

Hone's history's horrible

He can deliver the worst of lines, and the best of lines.  After delivering a stonkingly good speech decrying Jim Neanderton's nonsensical legislation banning party pills (and it's well worth reading the speech in full), Hone Harawira then  "warned other parties to tone down their rhetoric on abolishing the Maori seats, in case they compromised any potential post-election arrangements."  In other words, any coalition deal stitched together between Hone and John Boy come December will involve the retention of parliamentary seats based on race, and another policy flip-flop from the by now double-jointed Flip Flop Boy. 

So much for One Law For All -- and just one more reason that National is not the answer.

Hone's 'reasoning' justifying retaining the seats he intends will be his party's sinecure is itself as venal as it is historically inaccurate. "It took us 150 years for our voice to be heard in the halls of power," says Hone, "and our people won't stand for anyone trying to take it away again." 

150 years!?  Really?  Has he never heard of Apirana Ngata, deputy prime minister in the twenties, or his colleagues James Carroll, Peter Buck or Maui Pomare -- some of the finest men of any race to grace NZ's parliament?  His is knowledge of history really that bad?  Or perhaps when he says "our people" has he for once forgone talking about race, and instead perhaps referring to that group of people who like to make their fortunes by mooching off the honest industry of others.  In that respect, those voices have been in parliament for almost all of 150 years, and counting.

But perhaps it's neither ignorance nor another cry for paternalism, since the representatives of the Maori Party have never been backward in rewriting history, have they.

Fisking the forthcoming Party Pill ban

The government is now one step closer to putting party pills in the hands of criminals while turning  consumers of party pills onto possibly harder alternatives -- all because legislation outlawing the active ingredient in party pills passed its second reading in Parliament last night.   Comrade Jim Neanderton spoke on behalf of the War on Drugs.  Guest poster Mike Earley fisks Neanderton's rhetoric for sense, and finds him waging an equal War on Common Sense [MikeE's comments on Neanderton's speech are in italics]:

This Bill removes the legal market for what are called 'party pills'.

[And creates an illicit one, run by criminals.]

I'm pleased that after looking at the Bill the Health Committee has recommended it should proceed without amendment. The Health Committee has worked hard in its consideration of this legislation and I would like to thank all members of the Committee for their valuable work.

[And the health committee ignored 80% of the submissions to the select committee, including the one that noted the clear breech of the NZ Bill of Rights Act, the health select committee also ignored the overwhelming evidence against the level of harm they claim for BZP.]

It is helpful to go back to the origins of the Bill to explain what these amendments do.

In June 2005 this House passed a Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act that made it an offense to supply BZP to anyone under the age of 18, to give away products containing BZP and to advertise BZP.

[This was suggested by the industry, as a measure of self regulation and harm reduction, this had a support of the majority of the industry, and the community at large, along with most interesting groups.]

Those controls were introduced so that there were some controls on BZP while research was carried out into the drug.

[Some of the research was cancelled due to flaws and bias; the rest could not conclude any major level of harm higher than other legal substances.]

The fear was that it could be harmful and parliament took a precautionary approach while we sorted out the facts. Parliament should always make decisions on the basis of the best evidence available.

[This fear proved to be unfounded, and the precautionary approach proved to be unnecessary, with over 26 million pills sold, no deaths, and very little adverse events, all caused by irresponsible use, and mixing BZP with legal and illegal drugs. By comparison, alcohol is responsible for approximately 3% of all adult male deaths in NZ.]

Last year, the Ministry of Health received more evidence, and it brought us to this Bill today. The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs advised that the independent research which this government commissioned showed BZP and related substances pose a moderate risk of harm.

[A moderate risk of harm, is harm lower than that of Alcohol and cigarettes, and considerably lower than the level of harm of a prison sentence which would be given to those who do consume BZP. A moderate risk of harm constitutes a hangover, and an incredibly small risk of adverse events]

This is not the assessment of politicians: It is the assessment of experts on the panel we appoint to give us the benefit of their expertise. Once this House is advised that there is a risk of harm, what is it going to do with that information?

[The panel is politically motivated, as mentioned the risk of harm is incredibly low, especially when compared to the punishment, and the harm caused by other socially acceptable and legal substances enjoyed by New Zealand politicians, many of whom would receive donations from liquor companies and the like.]

Just over a year ago, on 20 December 2006, I publicly released the committee's advice and began a consultation process on classification. The consultation closed in March and the submissions were analyzed

[almost 80% of these submissions were disregarded and ignored]

The expert committee met again in May with more up to date evidence and again advised a majority view of EACD members that BZP posed a moderate risk of harm.

[Again, a moderated risk of harm is less than that of beer, something which is enjoyed legally by many New Zea landers without threat of a prison sentence.]

This Bill puts the committee's recommendations to me into effect.

It will classify BZP and related substances as Class C1 controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

It will set a threshold for presuming possession for supply at 5 grams, or 100 tablets or pills, each containing some quantity of BZP and related substances.

[This threshold, for a product less harmful than Beer, is the same as of drugs such as Heroin and Pure amphetamine Does the minister consider BZP to be of the same harm to society as these dangerous substances.]

It will remove BZP from Schedule 4 of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 2005 so it can no longer be sold as a restricted substance

[Instead BZP will be sold illegally, and a monopoly for supply will be given to criminal gangs, this is in essence a subsidy, by the government to criminals. Either this, or consumers will turn to other illicit drugs as a substitute.]

It also provides for an amnesty period of six months for possession and/or use of less than the presumption for supply amount of 5 grams or 100 tablets.

[This presumption for supply is ridiculously low, and is the same as heroin or amphetamines]

I want to briefly deal with some of the issues raised at the Select Committee.

[These issues were raised and largely ignored.]

Some submitters claimed that the expert committee relied on incomplete or non peer reviewed information when it made its recommendation that BZP poses a moderate risk of harm.

Their claims do not stand up to scrutiny. After the expert committee provided its advice to me the Ministry of Health arranged for key studies to be peer reviewed. These peer reviews - and researchers' responses to these peer reviews - were considered by the EACD in May before it re-affirmed its recommendation to me to classify BZP as a class C1 drug.

[The MP is either lying, or unaware of the facts; it is clearly documented that the MRINZ study referred to by the EACD did not stand up either to scrutiny or to peer review. The documents relating to this were released under the Official Information Act.]

I have thought carefully about other concerns, and especially the concern that a classification of BZP might lead some people to other, potentially more harmful drugs.

[Which anecdotal evidence suggests it will do, and studies by Massey University and SHORE support.]

Those sorts of choices are always, to some extent, influenced by both personal and environmental factors.

I am convinced that a large number of people use BZP because it is legal and readily available.

[This is true, but banning it will reduce supply, not demand, the MP is clearly aware of even the basic principles of economics.]

There is an analogy with alcohol. Alcohol is easily New Zealand's most damaging drug. But that is not because it is our most intrinsically harmful drug; It's because alcohol is both legal and easily available.

[Alcohol is however more harmful than BZP].

If we remove the legal market for BZP-based party pills, large numbers of users will stop using the substances they are made from. These are substances that experts consider pose a moderate risk of harm.

[Instead it creates an illegal market for BZP, while some will stop using BZP others will continue to do so illegally, or move to other illicit or legal substitutes which are potentially more harmful instead.]

I know this issue is a concern to the Green party. I find it extraordinary that a party that campaigns against breakfast cereal and coca-cola, wants to liberalise the availability of something experts say poses a moderate risk of harm.

When it comes to GMOs, the Greens advocate a precautionary principle. When it comes to fisheries protection, the Greens advocate a precautionary approach. When it comes to a drug - assessed by experts as harmful - suddenly the Green party appears to throw caution to the winds.

How can you be against Coca Cola, and in favour of party pills – even the regulated kind?

[Fair point, but this pulls apart the Greens' argument against Coca Cola -- it doesn't support his argument against BZP.]

How can you be against fishing companies, chicken farmers and pig farms and in favour of psychoactive drug manufacturers and suppliers?

[As above]

Where there is money to be made, unfortunately, some people will take their opportunities and party pills are no exception. The existence of party pills didn't stop manufacturers trying to find other products to bring to market - just as apples don't keep oranges off the market.

[And there is nothing wrong with manufacturers making money off BZP, that is unless you are anti business. The incentive now is for manufacturers to find a new product, which may or may not be as safe as BZP, only time will tell.]

So the only responsible and precautionary approach is for the Ministry of Health to monitor substances and weigh up the facts as they become available.

[The precautionary approach suggests regulation, not a ban.]

Already the Ministry has advised that any product which contains substances it believes are controlled drug analogues are illegal.

[Which is likely to be against the bill of rights as well as it presumes guilt until proven innocent, rather than innocence until proven guilty, it also does nothing to reduce harm.]

Police have already taken action against one such product, and it has since been withdrawn from sale.

[This was EASE, which Jim Anderton allowed into the country and allowed to be sold until EACD changed their mind about it]

In other words, the law is working as it was meant to do.

[If this is the case, then why does the law need to be amended?]

Not only that, but the Ministry of Health is working with the Law Commission to develop a 'reverse onus of proof' to ensure controls around substances entering the market are tightened up. It is my view that psychoactive drugs should have to be proved safe by their manufacturers before they are put on sale – not by government agencies afterwards.

{A reverse onus of proof may also be against the bill of rights act]

I also acknowledge concern about the potential to criminalise 'party pill' users. It's to avoid punishing people unfairly that the Bill has a six month amnesty period for possession of less than 5 grams or 100 tablets. The amnesty ensures there's enough time between this Bill taking effect and users of party pills facing prosecution.

[This makes no sense, if BZP is so bad, why allow an amnesty, how is consuming BZP now ok, but in 6 months its not. The amnesty is senseless if the Government truly believes that BZP is so harmful that people should be criminalised for its use.]

Manufacturers and retailers of the drug will, under a Supplementary Order Paper drafted to amend the original enactment date of 18 December 2007 which was not able to be met, have 7 days after this Bill receives Royal Assent to stop making and selling BZP and related substances. As most of them anticipated this bill coming into force in December, I don't foresee any problems

[He obviously doesn't have an understanding of commerce -- as the bill didn't come into force in December, then no one knew when it would come into force.].

I know the Green Party and the Maori party believe regulation of BZP is preferable to classification.

I have considered that point carefully. But the advice of the expert committee is clear - these substances are harmful enough to warrant classification.

[No they are not, they are less harmful that substances that are available legally and enjoyed by large amounts of the community]

Ignoring clear, evidence-based, expert advice is tantamount to voting for more harm to be caused to more people.

[The Health select committee has ignored almost all evidence that there is against a ban, they went into the select committee process with the intentition of a ban, and were not interested in any evidence to the contrary, this was a political decision, when it should be, as our drug policy states, be about harm reduction]

I suggest to those parties that their support for an approach which experts say will harm people is morally indefensible. When we are presented in this house with evidence, and when we can help prevent harm, that is what we should do.

[The MP is correct, however he doesn't realise why. BZP is less harmful than a prison sentence, people who support an approach that harms people against their will is morally indefensible, criminalising BZP users does just that.]

Let's be clear about the people those parties are saying they want to harm:

One in five New Zealanders aged thirteen to 45.

[This bill will potentially turn one in 5 New Zealanders aged 13 to 45 into a criminal simply for what they choose to put in their body.]

New Zealanders as young as thirteen - even when the drug is regulated for over-18s. As long as the drug is lawfully distributed, thirteen year olds, and fourteen year olds, and fifteen years olds are fare too easily going to get it.

[This is already illegal, so irrelevant to the argument, also these kids can get illicit drugs easier than they can get alcohol After all illegal drug dealers don't ask ID]

They will have no trouble when their friends and brothers and sisters can go into gas stations and dairies and buy the pills, as they were doing.

[Then the existing law should be policed.]

When they take the drug, it has an effect on them similar to an amphetamine.

[Without the level of harm that amphetamines have.]

That is why experts consider it a moderate risk of harm.

[Which is lower than that of drinking Alcohol.]

I believe party pills will virtually disappear from New Zealand as a result of this classification.

[Just like Alcohol disappeared during the prohibition period, cannabis has disappeared with prohibition, P has disappeared, MDMA has disappeared, Cocaine has disappeared ...  and the list goes on.]

New Zealand now has an extensive body of evidence on BZP and related substances. The evidence shows it will be a good thing for the drug to disappear from New Zealand.

[none of the evidence supports this]

This legislation will remove legal access to BZP and related substances.

[And instead create an illegal market, increasing the risk of BZP harm when it is mixed with unknown substances.]

It will allow the Police and Customs to prevent these substances being imported and marketed and therefore causing the moderate risk of harm experts have identified.

[It will instead waste police and customs time, which could be spent on preventing crime, and protecting our borders.]

TFR78: The Democracy Rationing edition (updated)

"Don’t Vote For Any MP, Any Party Or Any Candidate Who Supports The Electoral Finance Bill!"

Democracy is now rationed. Political speech is being muzzled. Has New Zealand really come to this? The latest Free Radical magazine hits the streets, just in time for Christmas, and just in time to dissect the greatest assault on New Zealand's democracy and free speech since .. well, for ever.

How did it come to this, that saying what's quoted above could have just become illegal? Bernard Darnton and Peter Cresswell explain why, how, and why it’s so wrong – why and how what our soldiers fought to defend is being taken away -- why thousands have taken to the streets to protest it, and where that leaves us now. And that's just the cover story of this bumper summer issue of 'The Free Radical.'

• NANNY's BIG BABIES: The Rise and Rise of an Infantilised Culture
  We now have virtually cradle to cradle nannying -- we’re never allowed out of our cribs, and there's nothing any of New Zealand's childlike, apathetic would-be whiners care to do about it. Marcus Bachler and Peter Osborne take the culture of infantilisation to task. How did we become such crybabies, they ask?
• FEEL-GOOD ENVIRONMENTALISM: Spinning the Climate
  How is it that the forces of global nonsense can fly to Bali in their thousands to force us to make any sacrifice hey consider necessary towards their goal of “saving the planet”? Talking about ways to force us to reduce carbon emissions, emitting 100,000 tonnes of the stuff themselves to fly there to talk about it – that’s how ‘seriously’ they take their own warnings. Vincent Gray, Callum McPetrie, Joel Schwartz, Steve Hayward and Ken Green explain how spinning the climate requires politics to pose as science, and emotions to replace thought.
• BANNING BZP: Prohibition Still Doesn't Work
  How is it that despite abundant evidence that prohibition doesn’t, can’t and hasn’t ever worked, the forces of darkness are doing it again: banning a peaceful party pill, and inviting the social destruction of prohibition all over again. Rodney Hide, Nandor Tanczos and Richard Goode point out the how, as Richard Goode says, the party pills ban but the 'P' into BZP.

All this plus the usual treats, including reviews, interviews, all your regular columnists, and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of your editor’s favourite TV show, all in this 78th Free Radical. 78 blows for freedom, and still going strong!

Head to the Free Radical store to subscribe or to buy your digital Free Radical. Or head to one of these top shops around the country to pick up your hard copy (they should be arriving in shops this afternoon).

Cheers,
Peter Cresswell
EDITOR, THE FREE RADICAL
**POLITICS, ECONOMICS & LIFE AS IF FREEDOM MATTERED**

NB: We're having a few teething problems getting the new digital issue for TFR78 succesfully uploaded at the Free Radical store. Keep checking back: I've been assured it will happen soon.

In the meantime, here's a link for an A3 poster of the cover you can download. Enjoy.

UPDATE: As astute readers might by now have realised, our webmaster appears to have taken an early holiday -- for which I can only offer prospective purchasers of the digital edition my profound apologies, and a recommendation that they purchase a hard copy edition from one of these top shops. And to say that volunteers for the job of Free Rad webmaster will be gratefully received in the New Year.

UPDATE 2: Mystery solved. Just heard that webmaster presently responsible for uploading digital Free Radicals was hospitalised after a car accident. News such as it is so far here. Naturally, our thoughts are with the young man as we wish him a speedy recovery ...

BZP ban violates first law of street economics

Ban things, and you create a black market. It's the first law of street economics. It's so simple even gangsters know it.

Sadly, it's not simple enough for politicians .

Ban drugs, whatever the drug, whatever the reason, and the people who celebrate loudest are the dealers. Every time an American president declares a War on Drugs (TM), cocaine suppliers in Medellin celebrate because their prices go through the roof. Every time an American president bombs Medellin and takes out a supplier, the other dealers in Medelling celebrate because they have one less competitor ... and their prices go through the roof.

With Jim Neanderton's announcement today of a "ban" on BZP-based party pills, honest suppliers of party pills will be lamenting, but dishonest suppliers won't be. Those bastards will be rubbing their hands with glee: Neanderton has just restricted their competition, and given those who remain in the business a license to print dirty money. Neanderton has made himself their benefactor. Here's why:

• Prohibition doesn't get drugs off the street. The government can't even get rid of drugs in the controlled environment of a prison, so they certainly can't get rid of them from the relative freedom of our streets -- and in trying to get rid if them they only succeed in curtailing that freedom in the process.
• Outlawing drugs doesn't make them go away; it simply puts them in the hands of outlaws, and in the hands of the soft targets on whom the outlaws focus.
  
• Prohibition limits demand a little, but it limits supply a lot -- as every economics student knows, this pushes up prices a lot, and gives remaining dealers a profit on a plate.
  
• Prohibition means people don't stop consuming drugs they just change the drugs they're consuming. BZP-based party pills are safer than both alcohol and tobacco. The drugs party pill users will replace them with won't be.
  
• Prohibition makes buyers less interested in quality, and more interested in "the high"; it makes dealers less interested in quality and safety, and more interested in making as much as they can to make up for the risk. Hence Milton Friedman's Iron Law of Prohibition: "Prohibition encourages dealers to produce and provide the stronger, more harmful product. If you are a drug dealer in Hackney, you can use the kilo of cocaine you own to sell to casual coke users who will snort it and come back a month later – or you can microwave it into crack, which is far more addictive, and you will have your customer coming back for more in a few hours. Prohibition encourages you to produce and provide the more harmful drug."
• Prohibition puts the quality and safety of the drugs your children are consuming (your children are the dealers' soft targets) in the hands of criminals and corrupt police. These people don't care who their consumers are, or what they're consuming.
  

The people celebrating the most at the announcement that BZP based party pills are being banned will be the dealers. They've just been guaranteed an enormous profit, and Jim Neanderton has ensured that the quality and safety of the drugs people will still consume are in the hands of scum.

You'd think he would learn from history, that prohibition achieves precisely the opposite result to that intended. (Yes, it's our old friend the Law of Unintended Consequences yet again.)

Prohibition: Learning from history

As always, The Onion makes learning from history easy by making the lesson itself so blindingly obvious. (Click on the page to read.)

You'd think the message would be sufficiently obvious enough even for the likes of Jacqui Dean and Jim Neanderton, wouldn't you? The message is simple enough even for the likes of them:

Never has.

UPDATE: Lindsay Perigo gives "Adolph Anderton" some more to think about:

SOLO Press Release:
It's Not Your Body, Adolf Anderton!

The Socialist Republic of Aotearoa-New Zealand's descent into full-blown tyranny, fresh from its straitjacketing of journalists, cameramen and photographers covering proceedings in the Republic's Reichstag, accelerated further today with the announcement by Associate Health Minister Adolf Anderton that BZP, the active ingredient in party pills, will be made illegal from next year...

"What people put in their own bodies is their own affair. The ingestion of truly harmful substances should be a matter of rational dissuasion, not criminal sanction. Herr Anderton, however, is interested only in indulging his own congenital control-freakery to ensure that everyone is as miserable as he is. He ought to get out more, though it's understandable that no one invites him anywhere.

"I would urge Adolf's physician to place him on a course of Euphoria, to counter his natural misery hormones," Perigo concludes.

Read the full press release here.

UPDATE 2: Mad as hell and not going to take it any more? Julian Pistorius is: "This is bullshit. Let's organise a protest march in Auckland and Wellington, before the bill goes ahead. Who's with me? If you want to help, join this group:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/fightbzpprohibition/ "
Who's with him? How mad are you?

UPDATE 3: Says Lindsay Mitchell, "It's richly ironic that at a time when worries about gang culture are foremost the government has gifted them party pills. And let's not forget who nagged them into it."

UPDATE 4: Jameson has an obvious point that needs making: This is less about well thought-out policy, and more about Anderton trying to assuage his own guilt

[Anderton] abjectly failed as a father to rationally dissuade his own daughter from becoming a drug addict, and I imagine he's still suffering the guilt of her eventual suicide. Once again, a politician’s own inadequacies have become our problem that needs to be fixed. Totalitarian cunt.

That won't stop him becomeing guilty twice over when former party pill consumers prohibited from their relatively harmless pleasure turn instead to something more harmful. Let him add what Russell Brown points out to his guilt trip:

Party people will not suddenly start going to bed early. Some might soldier on with alcohol as a social lubricant, others will seek illegal drugs. Patterns of methamphetamine use may change, with P -- smoked methamphetamine -- retaining its social stigma, but snorting seen (with some justification) as a less risky means of consumption.

Well done Jim.

UPDATE 5: Liberty Scott weighs on on the side of the angels:

You Don't Own Your Body, the Government Does: Jim Anderton's proud announcement, like big daddy telling off all the children - that it's good for them and they wont be allowed party pills anymore, is utterly sickening. It is immoral and it wont work. You see the point to me is simple.

I own my body because I am an adult. As a result of that, I have the right to ingest whatever the hell I like.I hope the families and friends of those who get ruined because the quality of BZP plummets and becomes more poisonous, or those who fear admitting to doctors they take it for fear of being prosecuted, or those prosecuted for the crime of putting something into their own bodies, go and thank Anderton, Jacqui Dean and the other fascists against personal freedom for repeating a failed policy. Can't the likes of them (and the MPs who will support it like the robots they are) leave peaceful people alone?

UPDATE 6:As do the Greens: Prohibition is Not the Answer - Metiria Turei

UPDATE 7: Blair Anderson, the chap who brought out Ex-Scotland Yard drug boss Eddie Ellison to talk sense a couple of years ago, says Anderton Should be Embarrased:

Elevating BZP into an illicit drug rather than improve a legally regulated regime abrogates his own duty 'of care'. Passing control to criminal networks looses not only controlled manufacture and distribution chains, it entrenches failure. The guy is an idiot, and those who serve under him are afflicted by his moral hysteria.

He has a lenthy post highlighting "our erroneous ABC drug classifications system" that is worth reading. The graph below from the Lancet, relating a Mean Harm Rating to summarises just one part of the folly of the ABC system. Do you see the nonsense that drug policy caused by moral panic has become?
RELATED: Victimless Crimes, Politics-NZ

Party Pills Petition presented

The Libertarianz/Act on Campus petition opposing the banning of BZP party pills was presented on the steps of parliament at noon today to Heather Roy. Presenting it to her was Libertarianz drug spokesman Dr Richard Goode. Details in this press release.

Who says minor parties can't work together.

Weekend ramble, April 14

Another weekend ramble through sites and sounds worthy of a weekend's worth of exploration.

• As Marcus says, some good news from the (UK) Daily Telegraph -- there's one British Tory who's not all pink:

  David Cameron has embraced the environmental agenda with greater ardour than any other political leader, even inviting Al Gore to address the shadow cabinet recently, after publicly lauding his film, An Inconvenient Truth.
  But one outspoken Tory, MEP Roger Helmer, is eager to distinguish himself from the rest.
  Helmer has organised a "counter-consensual climate conference" in
  Brussels next week, which will see former chancellor Lord Lawson head a line-up of sceptics, including the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming.
  "Many climatologists reject the alarmist scenario, and there have been disgraceful efforts by the establishment to silence the dissenters," Helmer
  tells Spy. "I've decided to organise the conference to give a platform to the
  other side of the issue. David Cameron wants us to put an extra focus on the
  environment and I'm delighted to help in that process."
  And Gore's Oscar-winning documentary certainly won't be showing. "The event will be followed by a screening of the recent Channel 4 film, The Great Global Warming Swindle."

• "This year marks the 100th anniversary of science fiction writer Robert Heinlein's birth. His hometown of Kansas City is marking the occasion with special events." reports End of the Universe. "Even though he's been dead for nearly two decades, he continues to cast a long shadow on the science fiction field. Which Heinlein book are you going to read to celebrate the centennial?"
  
  
• And on Lord Bore of Nashville's forthcoming 24-hour smugfest, Rob Lyons says, don't do it! Live Earth: Change the Record.

  If you weren’t feeling patronised enough by Live 8, the freebie gig in 2005 that called on G8 politicians to cancel Third World debt (which they were planning to do anyway), Live Earth might really tip you over the edge.
  

• Tyler Cowen records something to remember about the Chinese economic miracle:
  

  ...of the 3,220 Chinese citizens with a personal wealth of 100 million yuan ($13
  million) or more, 2,932 are children of high-level cadres. Of the key positions
  in the five industrial sectors - finance, foreign trade, land development,
  large-scale engineering and securities - 85% to 90% are held by children of
  high-level cadres.

  As Samizdata comments, "These filial links between the commanding heights of China's supposedly private sector and its government betray the fact that China Inc. is [still] the unholy alliance of a dictatorial regime and the application of corrupted 'free' market ideals." At some stage the tension between the two will out, but with what consequences?
  
  
• For those who find it hard to keep up with how to avoid offending the easily offended and the politically correct (but I repeat myself), here's a how-to guide to either offend or to avoid offending: A Politically Correct Lexicon.
  
  
• Let's sing the praises of the internal combustion engine. In fact, says Dwight Lee,

  All environmentalists should be singing the praises of the internal combustion engine (ICE) instead of damning it for polluting the environment. The environmental advantages of the internal combustion engine have been obvious for a long time.

  Join him in his praise at TechCentralStation's Our Green ICE Age.
  
• Architects Christopher Wren and Frank Lloyd Wright both liked to play jokes on clients, and it turns out they even played similar jokes, this one by Wren on the Windsor councillors. Can anyone tell us on which Wright building he played a similar joke with his client?
  
  
• Better Living Through Lefty Activism. Well that's the title of this short video at any rate ...
  
  
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism promises "to give [anti-capitalists] an in-your-face economics education that they won't forget — ever." Buy a copy for an anti-capitalist friend today.
  
  
• Tom Beard has news about developer Terry Serepisos' plans for the tallest building in Wellington. Says Tom

  At least you can't accuse him of developing boring buildings. While the later stages of the Century City development on Tory St and the "explosion in a bling factory" planned for Dixon and Victoria streets may be the visual equivalent of a hyperactive kid force-fed with food colouring and party pills, at least they're not the grey envelope-filling cuboids currently being extruded all over Taranaki St like so many rectilinear turds.

  And he throws down a gauntlet: "In fact, and I hope none of my architect friends take offence at this, I can't really think of any New Zealand architects that I could imagine designing a truly exciting 40-50 storey skyscraper..." Any offence taken?
  
  
• For those like me with a taste for hard-core Objectivism, the news that the archives of Stephen Boydstun's Objectivity magazine is now all online is something to sing and shout about. There is some seriously good stuff in here on science and mathematics, value and metaphysics, Aristotelianism and Newtonian physics, and from everyone from Stephen Hicks to Tibor Machan to Ronald Merrill to Michael Huemer. A great resource -- noe making it worth buying another ink cartridge for your printer.
  
  
• Thomas Jefferson’s birthday was earlier this week. Historian David Mayer remembers Thomas Jefferson. Here are the official White House biography, the website for Jefferson’s home at Monticello, and Genevieve LaGreca’s toast to Jefferson’s achievements. [Hat tip Stephen Hicks]
  
  
• What’s Wrong With Contemporary Philosophy. Answer: Lots.
  
  
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali always gives good interview. Here she is again in good combative style in Guernica magazine.
  

  Guernica: It seems when you talk about Islam, it's not your style to say things in a gentle way...
  Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I'm the gentlest of them all, honestly. (laughing)

  Oh yeah, she does irony very well too. :-)
  
  
• Roger Kerr writes on 'The Lever of Riches,' and how we NZers aren't really getting any of it.

  Productivity, described by American economist Joel Mokyr as the “lever of riches”, is a hot topic these days, and rightly so: it's the single most important contributor to reducing poverty, increasing leisure time and meeting health, education, environmental and cultural needs.
  
  That's why New Zealanders should react with alarm to the news last week that the rate of growth in labour productivity (that's the amount of goods and services produced from each hour of a worker's time) was the lowest on record.

  Read on here to find out what's been going wrong.
  
  
• We may not be as productive as we should be, but boy do we have plenty of commissioners to nanny us. Zen Tiger has some slightly tongue in cheek news of new plans to protect our commissioners in Leaving No Commissioner Behind. After all, when you have Children's Commissioner and would-be uber-Nanny Cindy Kiro as a model, then almost everything is possible.
  
  
• Speaking of children and of nanny, Tessa Mayes reports here on how the British government is recruiting children to spy on and ‘re-educate’ the adult population. Kiro et al will no doubt be taking notes. What's Worse Than Big Brother? Little Brother.
  
  
• The ever prolific Tibor Machan explains how to become more prolific yourself: Don't procrastinate. Tibor has tips too on how to overcome your own procrastination, in Remedying Procrastination. Watching Tibor duck out of a conversation a few years ago to use a friend's computer to produce an article on an idea produced in that conversation made me realise just how simple it is to become prolific: it can be as simple as ignoring the calls to Manana. If it worked for Tibor, it can work for you too.
  
  
• Here's an oldie on old Ken Ring's moon madness, a three-parter by Bill Keir from the Auckland Astronomical Society. Good reading.
  
  
• As should have been obvious, Iran's capture and subsequent release of British seamen and marines was a trial balloon that told them much about British and American resolve in the face of piracy. There isn't any. Says Charles Krauthammer,

  Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and subsequent release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the utter futility of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the U.N. -- that pretend to maintain international order. You would think maintaining international order means, at a minimum, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here. Instead, a quiet capitulation.

  See Krauthammer's Britain's Humiliation - and Europe's.
  
  
• Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill has a similar comment: "What is Britain’s role in the world today? Judging from the Iranian captives saga, it is to play the victim." See A Lean, Mean Victim-Making Machine.
  
  
• Based on her reading of Charles Freeman's The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason, Diana Hsieh reflects on how christianity demands one substitute blind obedience for clear-headed moral responsibility.

  Toward the end of the chapter on "The Ascetic Odyssey," Freeman observes that "one can never know whether one is truly saved" in Christianity because "there is no way to judge objectively just how guilty one is in the eyes of God." Consequently, "the only true way to secure a rest from tension on earth is to escape completely from the exercise of moral responsibility; here the 'virtue' of obedience becomes crucial."

  Just another reason to abjure religionists from the field of morality, I'd suggest.
  
  
• On that issue, and relevant to the recent discussions here on christianity and the Dark Ages, Andrew Bernstein has a brilliant full-length review of Rodney Stark's book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Says Bernstein,

  This book, and others like it—along with their admiring treatment by the mainstream liberal press—are signs of the resurgence of Christianity in America. This is all the more frightening because the arguments are being delivered and embraced at an intellectual, not merely a grassroots, level. If such arguments were sound, their growing acceptance among contemporary intellectuals would present no problem; but, as will be shown, this pro-religion thesis, although convincing to some, is egregiously and provably mistaken.

  Bernstein then proceeds to masterfully prove the mistakes in Stark's thesis. As always with articles at The Objective Standard, the full article is available only to subscribers (but as I've said before subscription really is worth every penny) -- you can get the flavour of Bernstein's full review in the opening paragraphs, and also in his reply to two letters on his article in a subsequent issue. See The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages, and Letters to the Editor, Spring Edition.

  Why, you ask, did medieval Europeans embrace Aristotle and the Greeks? More broadly, why is Western culture, despite all its flaws, more committed to reason than is any other culture?

  Read on to discover his answer.
  
  
• "America is the Nation of the Enlightenment." Philosopher David Kelly explains what that statement means, and points out who the philosophical enemies are.
  
  
• "Why so gloomy about global warming?" asks scientist Richard Lindzen. "A warmer climate could prove to be more beneficial than the one we have now." See Lindzen in Newsweek: 'Why So Gloomy? Learning to Live With Global Warming.'
  
  
• Far from being a libertarian hero as Tim Wikiriwhi has claimed, Frank Bainimarama is driving a truck through Fiji's constitution. Idiot/Savant considers its prospects for restitution in Fiji: Demolishing the Constitution.
  
  
• And finally, what does Nairobi's plastic bag problem tell us about property rights, and the lack thereof? Says Greg Rehmke, an awful lot. "Sometime symptoms are confused with the disease that causes them. Litter is one such symptom often confused with an economic disease." See Nairobi's Plastic Bags Are Barking.
  

Libertarianz - Fighting for your right to party!

There have been five cracking Libertarianz press releases in recent days that intelligent Not PC readers will want to catch up with:

• Lib Nik Haden is face-to-face with the Grey Ones in court this afternoon, being prosecuted for burning his Census papers. Nik Haden: Census Prosecutions Morally Wrong.

  It is a shocking indictment on the state of our society that political protesters who have harmed nothing and nobody can be hauled before the court in this manner," Mr Haden said.

• "David Benson-Pope's trumpeting of low unemployment rates is ill-conceived tripe," says Peter Osborne in Stick a Tennis Ball in it David.
  
  
• "The fundamental fallacies of state-run saving and investment schemes have become apparent with the fight over the merits of the Cullen Fund's investment in 'unethical' corporations," explains Greg Balle in Labour's Profound Monetary Ignorance.
  
  
• And leader Bernard Darnton sagely observes that, not for the first time, Labour is Confused Over Doing the Right Thing.

And of course today Richard Goode has launched a petition to save party pills. Read about it here at Scoop: Libertarianz launches Party Pill petition

The Party Pill petition can be downloaded from the Libertarianz website: www.lp.org.nz. Please give it your support.

Libertarianz - Fighting for your right to party!

UPDATE 1, CENSUS: Nik Haden talked to Larry Williams on Newstalk ZB this afternoon about his appearance in court today for burning his census form. It's a great interview. Audio here courtesy of Newstalk ZB. [MP3 Audio]

UPDATE 2, PARTY PILLS PETITION: From Libz leader Bernard Darnton:

Please everyone, go the Libz website, download a copy of the petition and, at the very minimum, sign it and send it back. Better still, get plenty of other people to sign it. This is a live issue that urgently needs your support.

To get get maximum impact, please print off a bunch of copies and take them round to your local party pill shops and ask them to keep a few copies on the counter for their customers to sign. If we can get this petition into the places where BZP users buy their pills we can get far more signatures.

Another good way to gather signatures would be to take the petition out on a Friday or Saturday night to places where party pills are sold and ask for signatures directly. The more the better. Here's a real live opportunity to stand up against the busybodies and strike a blow for freedom.

RELATED: Libz, Politics-NZ, Victimless Crimes, Welfare, Darnton V Clark, Economics

Murder

Homicide rate soars says the Herald, and it certainly seems that way, doesn't it, even if that graph below from the Sensible Sentencing Trust website shows that the homicide rate has "levelled off," albeit at a disgracefully high level:Richard at Benzylpiperazine asks the very reasonable question: Something happened in 1983 with violent crime (and from 1986 to '88 with homicide) that seems to have made a permanent change -- what was that?

What happened in 1983 to precipitate the huge increase in violent offences? It wasn't "P" or party pills. It wasn't Rogernomics and it wasn't global warming. So what was responsible for the sudden surge in violent crime? I have no idea. Do you?

Any ideas? Any sensible ideas?

LINKS: What happened in 1983? - Benzylpiperazine
NZ Crime Statistics - Sensible Sentencing Trust

RELATED: Politics-NZ

A gift for gangs at Christmas?

PJ O'Rourke once observed that every time the US Drug Czar announces a major drug seizure, Colombian drug lords celebrate.

Now, PJ assumes the reader understand basic economics, something Jim Anderton and Jacqui Dean obviously don't -- but the leaders of NZ's illegal drug trade certainly do. If Colombian drug lords throw a party every time there's a seizure of cocaine in the US (because, of course, the price of drugs goes up) then what the hell do Anderton and Whacky Jacky think our own local gang leaders will be doing if party pills are banned here in NZ?

As Lindsay Mitchell observes, with the gift of the ban that Progressive Jim is considering and National Socialist Jacqui is demanding, Christmas could be coming right on time for local gangsters.

LINKS: Keep up to date with the story at Stash.Co.NZ

RELATED: Victimless Crimes, Politics-NZ