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- Removing the mask of the insecure babyman
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- Doubt as an asset, certainty as an affliction
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- Navigating disinformation, uncertainty, individualism and the poison apple of conspiracy
- If nothing changes nothing will change: the Voice referendum
- What can we learn from disaster communities?
- New year, a time to embrace the uncertainty of it all
- We could be non-binary
- Adaptive resilience vs safety paternalism
- Left wing, right wing? What just happened to politics?
- Covid, class and the addiction to certainty
- Neoliberalism, the Life World and the Psychopathic Corporation
- Democracy is about our bodies, not just our minds
- What’s your motivation: is it yourself or the change you’re making?
- Mind over matter: The world of abstraction is driving us to destruction
- The real threats to our liberty and survival
- Avoiding the abyss of conspiracy theories
- The difference between a legal system and a fantasy novel
- What’s a conspiracy and what’s just common garden variety corruption?
- Unpredictability, humility and an emerging anthropandemic
- The trilemma – climate change, economic collapse, and rising fascism
- Happy New Normal for the decade ahead
- The race to the bottom in australian politics
- Fires, liars and climate deniers
- Talking about lock-on devices – an article in ‘The Conversation’
- The Ponzi scheme is teetering
- Regenerative culture a key part of the blockade experience
- Staying sane in the late Anthropocene
- Extinction Rebellion
- Major parties have failed on climate, it’s time to rebel.
- Elections In The Late Anthropocene
- It is the Greens that are defeating the Nats and it’s all about your preferences
- Australia’s powerhouse of democracy and innovation is in the Northern Rivers
- Is identity politics a problem for the left?
- The climate emergency and the awful state of Australian politics
- Democracy and rights under threat in corporate police state
- Liberty, freedom and civil rights? Do any of us understand these things anymore.
- The forest wars are back, time to mobilise
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- A Flood of Emotions – Sydney Ideas Event
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- Anti protest laws could arrest nannas, seize tractors
- “They blinked first”
- Colin Barnett quick to protest against ‘activism degrees’ – The Australian, 16/10/2014
- ‘Degrees in activism’ put brake on growth – The Australian, 15/10/2014
- Magistrate throws out vexatious police case against CSG protesters
- Outrage over school PR ‘by stealth’- The Northern Star
- CSG clash a certainty
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- Gas group attacks lecturer
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NSW addicted to old habits
Australia was once a world leader in harm minimisation; our needle exchanges achieved some of the world’s best statistics for limiting the spread of HIV/AIDS. These days, sadly, NSW doesn’t so much have drug policy as a confusing and incoherent set of harm maximisation policies.
I despair every time I hear a politician dismissing reform on the basis that “it would send the wrong message to young people”. Criminal law is a serious measure, it’s not just for sending out garbled policy messages to youth.
Sniffer dogs at festivals encourage people to swallow drugs before they pass through the gate which can lead to overdose and trauma, and the need for pill testing facilities inside festivals is an urgent harm minimisation need.
The world has woken up that drug prohibition has been not only a failure but a human catastrophe. There’s real drug related harms and these require careful social and health responses and then there’s prohibition related harm… all that organised crime, official corruption, highly priced and unsafe street drugs, artificial analogue drugs, and a massive distraction of police resources.
The United States, the standard bearer of global prohibition for a century is now steadily winding it back. Portugal opted several years ago to decriminalise all drugs and pursue harm minimisation with very positive results. In the US pharmaceutical grade MDMA and other psychedelics (not festival disco biscuits) are being trialled by therapists for treating PTSD and other forms of anxiety, alcoholism and even nicotine addiction (now there’s a killer). Medicinal cannabis is on its way but NSW incoherent drug policy settings are going to mean that those who use it can’t drive but those on benzodiazapenes can.
Seriously, let’s get the politicians and shock jocks off the case and listen to health experts and actually show young people that we care more about their health than about our long term addiction to prohibition.
This article was originally published in the Lismore Echo, March, 2016.