New Start?

You know I was not impressed with Nicola Roxon's response to what is The ALP's drug policy and I really thought we would just get more of the same conservative, "War on Drugs" rhetoric.

With this in mind, I was shocked to see our new leader who looks uncannily like the milky bar kid go to work the day after winning the election. No BBQ or sleep in after too much red wine but off to church, lunch and then work. He's not even PM yet. If the his first day (a Sunday) is any indication of what Rudd is about, maybe there's hope.

• Ministerial code of conduct to improve standards of accountability in government. (No more Bushesque/Howardite secrecy where ministers often refused to allow advisers to appear before parliamentary committees)
• Implementing changes now ... right now. Dismantling Workchoices, Kyoto, hospital reforms etc. Called in his team to fly to Brisbane for meetings on a Sunday, less than 24 hours since Howard officially conceded defeat.
• The bright star for me personally, Julia Gillard has already hinted at saying "sorry" to the indigenous people of Australia.
• A few reports have suggested Rudd is a rationalist and very much for reason based politics leaving his religious/moral views behind. One could only hope.

More Political Madness

I was sent this link by Paul at Firesnake (http://firesnake.org/):

Democrat, Sandra Kanck speaks out

S.A. Democrat, Sandra Kanck has questioned the Hon. Ms Bressington's bill aimed at banning drug paraphernalia (bongs etc.). Surely people like Bressington aren't taken seriously? How can Sandra Kanck's argument be ignored and Bressington's views endorsed? How ... how? Fucking madness.

Libs, Labor ... what's the difference?

...and so we are going to get more of the same!.

A friend wrote to Nicola Roxon, the Labor shadow minister for health and asked if they were going to follow the Liberal Party's lead of a "War on Drugs" type policy. I should of known the answer but for some reason I had a slither of hope. Politicians are animals of self interest and most of them deserve to be jailed for crimes to humanity. The pain and death they cause us is criminal and I truly, truly despise these worthless flesh carcasses. I wonder if they got sick ... real sick, real slowly and suffered what many millions suffer worldwide, if then they might understand the pain and hurt they inflict on so many people with the policies they create and support.

Anyway the questions asked via an email:

• What is the ALP policy on health & drug reform? I did not find any clear indication from the ALP website.
• Is a new Labor Party government going to follow Howard’s outdated U.S. Lead ‘War on Drugs’ approach or is the Labor Party going to use health & science as their basis for treating drug addicts?
• Is your party supporting ‘harm minimisation’ or supporting Bronwyn Bishop’s latest report findings. After Bronwyn Bishop’s report, I read so many negative opinions and nearly every health professional who commented on it, was scathing of the contempt The Prime Minister and Bronwyn Bishop had for harm minimisation.
• Is Labor going to follow the European lead and use science, heath and experts to determine this serious issue of drug addiction and not use fear or morals to enforce a law & order policy. It has not worked for 30 years now and in fact only drives up crime, repression and misery.

Dear XXX

Labor strongly condemns illicit drug use and supports a “tough on drugs” approach as a means of protecting Australians from the terrible consequences of drug use and abuse. This is evidenced by a series of recent Labor policy announcements.

Labor has committed to a National Strategy to crack down on methamphetamines or “ice.” This included:

a ban on importing ice pipes and other drug paraphernalia; and

either further restrictions or a complete ban on sale of pseudoephedrine - a key ingredient of methamphetamine - to minors;

work to restrict or ban the sale of pseudoephedrine over the internet; and

the extension of the special reference to the Australian Crime Commission to conduct a national investigation into the criminals engaged in the manufacture, sale and use of methamphetamine.

Labor has also committed to boost Australian Federal Police numbers by 500 including tackling the importation of illicit drugs.

Labor supports the aim of helping those who use illicit drugs become drug free. It must be recognised that illicit drug use and drug addiction in particular can be complex. Despite the best efforts of families, Governments, health professionals and community groups such as churches, a small number of people still engage in drug taking behaviour. This is a tragedy that families across the social spectrum face.

How best to deal with those who are resistant to intervention is not an easy task but society should not give up on trying to engage them in treatments that will see them become drug free and minimise the harm they do to themselves and their families. Labor believes that health professionals need to be able to use a range of prevention and intervention approaches and that these must be seen as part of a continuum that has freedom from drugs as an end goal.

Thank you for writing to Federal Labor about this important issue.

Yours sincerely

Nicola Roxon MP

Shadow Minister for Heatlh 

Interestingly, something I have thought about for a while now was echoed by everyone's favourite 'legitimate' righty, Tim Blair who wrote the usual pro Howard rant in the Daily Telegraph titled Sweet Taste of Defeat". 

"The fun might even begin tonight, if you're a conservative cornered by some lefty commie atheist in a dire Don's Party-type scenario. Ask him to reflect on the fact that the Left's new hero is a millionaire Jesus-boy whose policies place him further to the Right than any previous Labor leader and possibly further to the Right than John Howard was in 1996."

Very true.

Ho Hum ... oh and my heroin trial

Diary: Another day, another depressing day...

It's been a while since I had had my medication of choice. Well, less than a week but that can be a long time some weeks. I am not particularly hanging out but just flat. Living in methadonia does that. I am trying to get my dose down to about 20ml and then switch to buprenorphine for a week. I can then do the one day detox and then I am officially clean.

Sounds simple. The problems are getting my dose down to about 20ml, switching to buprenorphine and of course ... staying clean. But ahhhh, the taste of that sharaz, the joys of waking up horny, going out and enjoying Australia's stunning autumn mornings etc etc etc. These are normal events for most of you but just a memory for me.

Diary: My Heroin Trial

I am always trying to get clean in one way or another. My dose regularly drops but when I feel doomed it goes up again. As more and more research results show that heroin addiction is not because of being weak or having no will power, I have slowly changed my views. Maybe I need heroin? I have very low serotonin levels and have unusual cravings for sugar which started to make sense when I found out that most drug addicts have been found to be hypoglycemic. To add to this an Australian university recently discovered that heroin addicts and methadone patients have had a part of their brain diminished. This part of the brain controls your will power! It would explain how seemingly normal people will do anything to get a hit / self medicate (the terminology is dependant on whether your a mate of Piers Ackerman or not).

So, I went off methadone for 7 days and used heroin as a replacement. I had the money saved so I wasn’t having to focus on how I was going to pay for it. The difference was incredible. My taste buds came back, my sex drive reappeared, my taste for red wine returned, my appreciation of going for a walk with my pets grew, my love of cooking returned, I slept properly for the first time in 10 years, I woke each morning without the ‘methadone aches’, I was much more alert, my depression was almost non existent, I was smiling and pleasant and more. Interesting enough was that a doctor friend supported my trial as he based his beliefs on science/medical evidence and NOT moral judgement.

I wish I had more evidence to show you and had the links ready, but they are there. This information is available easily if you want to find it. Why can't politicians or so called journalists find it? I suppose we have been brainwashed into believing the religious and moralistic viewpoint that addiction is a sin.

FYI:

Major Brian Watters of the Salvation Army actually said that. "Heroin addiction is a sin!" He said this as the chairman for the Australian National Council on Drugs in 1998. (ANCD) BTW: he was handpicked by John Howard.

No Shit!

Related Links:

4 Corners: The Politics of Heroin 

The Scourge of Conservatism

No Dole for Drug Addicts!.

This was the headline that stopped me dead cold in my tracks. The 2007 Australian election is getting desperate for neo-con Howard and his Liberal Party. God that name is deceptive, Liberal Party ... the most non-liberal bunch of rabble I have encountered in Australian politics. Anyway, as usual during an election, Howard always plays the "bigot" card. It usually is a race issue to attract the many rednecks and racist right wing whackos e.g. children overboard, immigration, detention centres etc. They tried it again with the Mohamed Haneef case and since that backfired the "Tough on Drugs" issue was raised. The coalition's drug policy was pushed to new heights with an announcement that people convicted of drug offences would have their welfare payments handled by the Government. This means food stamps instead of cash, interdiction of purchasing smokes and alcohol etc. I was stunned to say the least and so were many welfare agencies. Even the AMA denounced it but it was too late because the message had got out. I read many comments from readers from various newspapers and although there were not as many pro-hate comments as previous elections, there were enough to keep me reminded of the millions of Australians who believe in Howard's Australia. No one with any common sense would think this could work. Many readers comments stated the obvious with comments like "now there will be a black market in food stamps" or "these addicts will just go into business of burglary or drug dealing to pay for their habit ... who said the Government doesn't support small business". I guessed there was about 80% against the policy and about 20% for it. How low will this dickhead go? He makes my skin crawl. I have been fairly relaxed during this diary but this has made me so mad. So for the record, I am just going to say it:

John Howard is a Brain Dead Freak.

He is an evil, narcissistic, lying, senile, flatulent, brain dead freak.

I hate this spaz so much it's embarrassing. This so called man who stopped the heroin trials because of his personal morals against the advice of numerous drug committees has forced me into the world of methadonia. I am a prime candidate for the heroin prescription plan that is part of some countries health plans ... and soon to be part of many countries health plans. Each day I wake up with pain and depression. I take my methadone and about an hour later I start to feel better. This lasts for about 2 hours and then I am flat out trying to feel normal again. This normal can mostly be achieved via a great medication called heroin. Why do medical experts, welfare workers and scientists understand this but not certain people especially politicians? I will tell you why - CONSERVATISM.

CONSERVATISM. The term itself is repressive. The opposite to progressive. Did society get here today by being conservative? No. It actually was the factor that stopped women voting, minority groups voting, Gay rights getting acknowledged, climate control etc. Howard is pushing the agenda that he and his merrymen are economic conservatives. Rudd also attributes himself as an economic conservative. WTF? This is not good, this is bad. This means budget surpluses which is an oxymoron anyway because a budget is suppose to balance. Surpluses just means that the Government is not spending our tax we pay on services. If Australia had perfect hospitals, schools etc. then a surplus would be good but this irresponsible Government just wanted to have a surplus to boast economic conservatism.

Paul Keating came out and hammered Costello for being the “laziest, most indolent, unimaginative treasurer in our post-war history”. I actually had time for Costello once but Keating is God when it comes to economics and it made me think. Keating went on to say how it was actually the unions that started the low inflation trend that Howard attributes to the Libs great handling of the economy via economic conservatism. Keating produced some notes from May 1995 that showed it was the ACTU secretary Bill Kelty who suggested a limit on inflation of just 3 per cent, which was taken up by the Reserve Bank chief Bernie Fraser. This again proves Howard is a liar and indicates that Costello is not what he is cracked up to be. If lying, surpluses or doing nothing is the fundamentals of conservative economics then Rudd, the self appointed me-too economic conservative will probably not be much better.

FYI: A Neoconservative (Neocon) is someone who follows the political view that was made popular by Leo Strauss, an American Political Science Professor from the University of Chicago. Strauss had a dedicated group of students and followers including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. The neoconservative ideologies were strengthened in the U.S. by George Bush Snr., Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney during the presidency of Gerald Ford and were responsible for the first neocon president, Ronald Reagan. The pinnacle of the neocon agenda is with the current Bush adminstration and has had many neo-cons including G.W. Bush, Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. The basic philosophy is that the U.S. should be seen as the setter of moral standards worldwide and it should enforce it's democracy on other countries. The people should not question their government and should be more concerned with nationalism via patriotism and morals via christianity. Liberal views deflate social morality and individualism only distract from nations goals. Neocons who follow the Strauss ideal is best summed up in this paper by Shadia B. Drury:

The trouble with the Straussians is that they are compulsive liars. But it is not altogether their fault. Strauss was very pre-occupied with secrecy because he was convinced that the truth is too harsh for any society to bear; and that the truth-bearers are likely to be persecuted by society - specially a liberal society - because liberal democracy is about as far as one can get from the truth as Strauss understood it

.

Leo Strauss and the neoconservatives

John Howard is a neocon in that he supports the Bush administration's agenda. He shares many ideals with G.W. Bush and blindly supports the U.S. e.g. The War on Terror, The War on Drugs, Israel occupation and human rights abuse, anti-abortion, pro christian moral propaganda, religious rhetoric, forced U.S. style democracy via military intervention, executive power overriding courts and constitutions, extreme secrecy, loss of civil rights, tax cuts for the wealthy etc.

Neoconservatism

The Problem with Silly Procedures

Diary: 

A few days ago, my take-away dose of methadone was knocked over and I lost over half. Because you cannot go a day without your full dose you have to go through a procedure to have the dose replaced. Luckily I have a great doctor and normally he would write a replacement script but this day he had left work early and that was that. A methadone patient is regarded by many as scum and it is extremely hard to get a chemist or practically anyone to bend the rules because of an emergency. It doesn't help that addiction causes desperation and often patients will lie to get an extra dose. I imagine that if it was diabetics or some other situation that relies having a regular dose of something, the chemist would do whatever it took to treat the patient or there would be safe guards built into the system. Since my prescribing doctor was not available, I had no way of getting my replacement dose. The actual reply from the chemist was "just come back tomorrow, easy". True, it was very easy ... easy to say but the reality is that I was in for one hell of a day and night.  

I won't try to explain the pain because you can't. Just think about why heroin addicts are notorious for doing ANYTHING to get a hit ... because the pain is that bad. What would drive someone to risk jail? What would drive someone to risk their job, their reputation, their friends or even their family just for a hit? Surely some logic must prevail here and the wallies who create government policy should ask medical or scientific opinion before creating laws and procedures that belong in the 1900s. Anyway, my only option was buy alternative medication. mmm, what is available to me. That's right, there's a place that sells just what I need. It's expensive though but I need medication so I purchased some heroin. I have several options to buy heroin and it is easier to get than shoes. In my area there is only one shoe shop but 3 heroin dealers I know of. If you looked carefully, I am sure there are no more shoe shops but at least 10 more heroin dealers. I usually go to my preferred vendor. Much more flexible than the shoe shop because he is open 24/7 and there is no waiting in queues. There is also no age restrictions, no quality control and no tax. In fact because of the silly laws the criminals and drug dealers have full responsibility of the heroin industry. They control the employees, the product quality, the sales locations etc. Here's the real beauty though ... when you arrest a dealer, another one replaces him immediately. Even better, there is an unlimited supply of dealers. Every cent spent "cleaning up the streets" is for nothing. The U.S. spends 69, 000 million dollars a year for fighting drugs. Australia's budget is unknown but no drug operation here has a made a dent EVER! Don't you think the big operators build in a certain percentage for loss?

What if heroin was registered as a prescription drug? Would there be an explosion of new users and would we be stepping over junkies in the street? The politicians sure think so... or do they?

FYI: In 1913, the estimated number of drug addicts in the U.S. was 1.3%. It was so bad according to religious groups that they forced the government to ban them using drug prohibition. During the 1950s, the official estimate of drug addicts in the U.S. was 1.3%. In 1971, President Nixon declared the "War on Drugs" which is just aggressive prohibition. Before the "War on Drugs" started, the estimated number of drug addicts in the U.S. was 1.3%. In 1996 the estimated number of drug addicts in the U.S. was 1.3%. After 36 years of this absurd "War on Drugs" and over 1000 billion dollars later, the estimated number of drug addicts in the U.S. was still 1.3%.

The Howard government has declared they support the U.S. styled "War on Drugs" and proclaimed their own "Tough on Drugs" policy. Is this really an intelligent policy that was researched? Obviously not. Sadly, I feel the Labor Party is going to blindly follow the same approach. Rudd as declared that his faith is very important to him and that usually means, his morals have to be pushed on everyone else. The Democrats and The Greens both support a heroin trial and agree that addiction is a health issue and that people should not be locked up for having an addiction. Yet these parties are classed as 'radical' or 'whacky'. WTF? These parties seem to follow the line that Australians come before self interest and the government is for the people, not our moral conscience.

Related Links: The Greens Drug Policy The Democrats Drug Policy

Dealers

Diary: 

Damn! I screwed up again. I came into some money yesterday. Not a lot but just $100. It was cash for a software upgrade for a client. I was feeling pretty tempted and I crumbled. I rang my dealer and went to score. Now I have more money to pay back. The cycle of money is scary and it is so obvious why drug crime is so high. There are 2 types of dealer. The main kind is a user-dealer who wants to pay for their own habit. They have a few choices;

1 - Go to university, get a degree and become a high paid professional. Have a nice big wage.

2 - Become a street criminal and rob people or break into houses.

3 - Become a paper criminal and forge cheques, get involved in internet phising scams or credit card fraud.

4 - Become a heroin dealer. A heroin user-dealer is usually not a sleazy fucker who hangs out at schools. They have decided to avoid crime and sell to support their habit. You often strike up a bit of relationship with your dealer so you can get credit if you're short of the cash sometimes. Usually if you're short, the dealer will allow you get "tick" of $10-$50 out of $150. To get the whole deal on tick requires you to know your dealer really well and he has to be in a position to do so. Many user-dealers buy 1-3 times a day and if they don't have enough they can't pick up. User-dealers are more human than the business dealer. If you are trying to quit, they are genuinely happy for you knowing how hard it is. They will never refuse your money but still they understand. The second type of heroin dealer is different. They do it for money. They don't use and have no empathy for a strung out junkie with no money. These people are NOT your friend but often are able to give a bit extra now and then to keep you sweet. It is a business relationship only. To get credit is hard and usually requires a security chattel. A good mobile phone or a gold ring will normally do it. My dealer is Vietnamese and I have known him since a year after I started using. He is nice enough but has a junkie wife and a child to support so the deals are a bit light. The biggest problem apart from money is timing! His 10 mins is 20-30 mins or "I'll be back in 5" means 15mins to 2 hours. Trying to balance a business and hiding my using to my partner requires delicate timing.

Diary: Depression

Most mornings, I wake up feeling like crap. My ribs ache, my back hurts and I feel flat. Very flat. I sit on the bed for a minute and think of heroin then I push myself to move on and think about my day. My day is the same everyday. Get up and drive Mrs Wright  to work, go to the chemist for my methadone then come home. Make coffee, feed my cuties (my dogs) and the cat. Then work. I do this 7 days a week except weekends where I don't have to drive Mrs Wright to work. 

On weekends, I watch my downloaded TV shows first thing in the morning whilst waiting for my methadone to kick in. At the moment it's Prison Break on Saturday and Bones/Desperate Housewives on Sunday. Today is particularly bad. I am waiting for some money from a client and I hurt all over. Mrs Wright senses something is up but she knows there is nothing she can do. "Are you all right?" "Yup" Usual Q&A. 

I worked all morning on a job that was paid for months ago. I get a lot of this. I finish a job but the client wants a few changes. If I like the client and they are a small business or low budget government organisation, I do it for free. Often though it goes on for months and I am increasingly get more of these situations. 

Later in the afternoon, I check my bank account and the clients payment has gone through! Oh yeah!, I think ... Fuck this, I gotta get normal. So I go and score. $150 for .4 of a gram. That's more than the price of gold. 

Anyway I come home and go through the ritual. Close the blinds, mix up, shoot up. No music so I can concentrate on getting some sort of high. It never comes. I just feel normal for about 20 minutes. Then the come down... reality. I just blew $150.

Diary: The Weekend with No Money!

DIARY: I am so broke this weekend! I live week by week financially. I am probably like a lot of people but luckily I don't have kids. I don't know how they do it? A client did not deposit a payment I was really waiting on. We had $120 for the whole weekend, that's shopping, smokes etc. First of all my partner was not happy. Secondly: we had a fairly bare fridge and thirdly, I was feeling delicate. I was sort of hoping to score this weekend but that idea soon disappeared. Damn government! Why didn't they start the heroin trials in Australia. FYI: It's 10 years you know, since our moral policeman, John Howard decided to throw away 6 years of research and declare that "it would send the wrong message". You know he commissioned about 20 experts to form the Ministerial Council on Drugs Strategy. It had Doctors, Professors, Healthcare specialists etc. but was chaired by Salvation Army leader, Major Brian Watters, who was chosen by Howard himself. The first recommendation was a heroin trial along the same lines that Switzerland and The Netherlands were having success with. Well, Watters of course opposed it even though it had every member's support. They all resigned after that claiming they were just there for show and that Howard had no plan of ever changing his moralistic and law enforcement approach. The trials were supported by most liberal and labour party ministers, the federal police, the AMA and most experts Australia wide. The main opponents were Howardites like Alan Jones, John Laws, Piers Ackerman etc. It's sad to think that thousands of addicts like myself are treated as weak or pathetic because we have serotonin deficiencies or other health issues that push us to self medicate. I wonder if you treated diabetics like this if there would be an uproar? I know most of you are now thinking that it's a cop out but before you mouth off, do some research and you will find that all is not black and white. Opium addiction hits people from all aspects of society. So much so that Switzerland and The Netherlands have now made heroin a prescribed drug. So much research is now turning up showing us that drug addiction is not because of poor free will but a neurological disorder. 10-20 years from now history will show how cruel governments were to prevent proper treatment of drug addicts ... and all because of distorted moral views. Related Links: The heroin trial ten years on: giving science no chance - By Dr Alex Wodak

Diary: Melbourne Cup Day

First Post!!


DIARY: I hate horses! That's right, horses ... and Melbourne has a public holiday for a horse race. Can you believe that, a holiday!

I don't know why but I have always just hated horses. I also don't think much of gambling so if you add horses and gambling you get ... HORSE RACING! foooeee.

FYI: Horse is common name for heroin. It's not used much now though.

Anyway, a holiday is usually reward time e.g. Xmas or my birthday so the Melbourne Cup holiday gives me the false feeling of a reward. mmm I've got to be strong here. I got throught the day only thinking of heroin 349 times until I lost count ... just after breakfast. I worked instead. I sat in front of my beloved Mac and worked on a database for a client.