Separately, parliament is considering a bill that would decriminalise abortion.

Simultaneously tackling all three could "foster an already growing culture war in New Zealand," said Bryce Edwards, a political commentator and lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington.

The New York times quote Edwards in an article that points out New Zealand appears to be going in the opposite direction to most other nation.

"While conservative populism is now ascendant in some of the world's leading democracies, New Zealand is rushing in the opposite direction, taking on several liberal social issues all at once," writes Charlotte Graham-McLay.

She thinks this "burst of democratic action" could push a generally conflict-averse New Zealand into uncomfortable territory.

"And it could overwhelm an election next year that will determine whether Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern remains in office."

In the article, Edwards also says next year's election could end up being one revolving less around economic issues and more about social and moral issues.

"That would be a shift in New Zealand, where election campaigns have long ceased being the province of personal morality debates."

The government's concerns about the quality of the looming public debate are evident.

Andrew Little, the minister of justice, has plans in place to combat misinformation and manipulation in any campaigns leading up to the referenda.

That includes a specialised team within the ministry of justice to direct people to information aimed to be as accurate and neutral as possible and to be on the look-out for any attempts to deliberately mislead the public.

Little said the Electoral Commission would look after the nuts and bolts of running the referendums.

The justice team would manage public information, websites, and respond to general queries.

Source

• nytimes.com
• rnz.co.nz
• Image: vjmpublishing.nz

Though the legal purchase age is 21 in Colorado and Washington, parents, educators and physicians say youths are easily getting hold of edibles infused with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component that causes a high, and concentrates such as "shatter," a brittle, honey-colored substance that is heated and then inhaled through a special device.

Each poses serious risks to adolescents' physical and mental health.

"Underage kids have unbelievable access to nuclear-strength weed," said Andrew Brandt, a Boulder, Colo., software executive whose son got hooked while in high school.

With some marijuana products averaging 68 percent THC — exponentially greater than the pot baby boomers once smoked — calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms have risen.

In the Denver area, visits to Children's Hospital Colorado facilities for treatment of cyclic vomiting, paranoia, psychosis and other acute cannabis-related symptoms jumped to 777 in 2015, from 161 in 2005.

The increase was most notable in the years following legalization of medical sales in 2009 and retail use in 2014, according to a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health published in 2018.

"Horrible things are happening to kids," said psychiatrist Libby Stuyt, who treats teens in southwestern Colorado and has studied the health impacts of high-potency marijuana.

"I see increased problems with psychosis, with addiction, with suicide, with depression and anxiety."

It is unclear whether all of this means years of generally stagnant pot use among children are coming to an end.

Surveys finding little change with pot since 2014 "may not reliably reflect the impact of legalization on adolescent health," the authors of that 2018 study concluded.

Washington's latest Healthy Youth Survey showed 20 percent of eighth-graders and nearly half of seniors "perceive little risk of regular marijuana use."

Many teens consider it less risky than alcohol or cigarettes.

As more than a dozen states from Hawaii to New Hampshire consider legalizing marijuana, doctors warn of an urgent need for better education — not just of teens but of parents and lawmakers — about how the products being marketed can significantly affect young people's brain development.

The limited scientific research to date shows that earlier and more frequent use of high-THC cannabis puts adolescents at greater jeopardy of substance use disorders, mental health issues and poor school performance.

The critics also insist that more must be done to maintain tight regulation of the industry. That's not been the case so far, they argue, with dispensaries opening near high schools in Seattle and with retail and medical pot shops in Denver outnumbering Starbucks and McDonald's locations combined. Continue reading

• Image: She Knows

The state's first dispensaries began legal recreational sales on January 1, 2014. In 2014, combined recreational and medical sales totaled $683.5 million, and are expected to top $1.5 billion in 2018.

Over the 5-year period, recreational sales generated 78% of sales revenue. The most recently published sales data shows combined 2018 sales though October of $1.27 billion.

$247 million in tax revenue

Tax revenues jumped 266% during the period, from $67 million in 2014 to $247.4 million in 2017. Colorado's tax revenues have risen each year since recreational legalization, and currently represent about 1% of the state's 2018 - 2019 fiscal year budget.

Marijuana taxes are spent on public school projects, human services, public affairs, agriculture, labor and employment, judicial affairs, health care policy, transportation and regulatory affairs.

The financial data, read together with a social impact report released this week by Colorado's Department of Criminal Justice, is insightful for Colorado and states considering legalization.

Social costs of legalisation

The report presents a mixed bag of encouraging and frustrating data.

The number of marijuana-related arrests during the 5-year period, shows overall arrests decreased, including for African-Americans, though African-Americans were arrested for such offenses at double the rate of whites.

DUI traffic citations with marijuana-impaired drivers increased 3%. In a subset of arrest data from 2016, where blood tests were performed, 73% returned a positive screen for cannabinoids

"The number of fatalities with cannabinoid‐only or cannabinoid‐in‐combination positive drivers increased 153%, from 55 in 2013 to 139 in 2017," the report states, going on to note that "detection of cannabinoid in blood is not an indicator of impairment but only indicates presence in the system."

Fatal traffic accidents involving a THC-positive driver, on the other hand, decreased 5%.

Cannabinoids characterize both THC and CBD. Cannabidiol "CBD" is a non-psychoactive biochemical found in hemp and marijuana plants. Tetrahydrocannaabinol "THC" is the psychoactive biochemical found in marijuana.

Both biochemicals are cannabinoids that interact with neurotransmitters, known as the endocannabinoid system.

Marijuana-related hospitalizations, including possible marijuana exposures, diagnoses, or billing codes, increased from 575 in 2000 to 3,517 in 2016.

Emergency room visits and calls to poison control related to marijuana increased.

The numbers are likely to disappoint lawmakers and politicians who tout recreational legalization as a cure for discriminatory criminal justice practices. Continue reading

It "violates the virtue of temperance" and should be avoided unless being used for medicinal purposes.

"The virtue ... ‘disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco or medicine,'" Frank Leo, general secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops says.

"In a particular way, the catechism underscores that the use of any drug, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is also a ‘grave offence' - for the use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life."

Another Canadian bishop says: "Recreational use of substances - whether marijuana, other drugs and opioids - is part of a continuum of consumption of substances that allow people to escape what they regard as the burdens and challenges of life.

"Bishops, priests, catechists, youth and pastoral care workers will need to give teaching on temperance and how it comes into play in the decisions we take.

"Guidelines for confessors should help them assist penitents with wise guidance in this matter."

He says the guidelines will be comparable to "addressing other contemporary problems such as the plague of pornography."

Parental involvement in teaching their children not to use marijuana is important.

"Our bodies are ours to use, but we have to account one day to the Lord as to how we took care of them and what we did with them," he says.

"Is it a good idea to knowingly use a substance that produces harmful effects? Is this wise stewardship?"

In 2017, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement pointing to studies showing "marijuana as a 'gateway drug,' underscoring the propensity of users to consume it in combination with other licit and illicit drugs, including some which may be 'harder.'"

Canada's minimum age for the legal use of marijuana has been set at 18. However, many provinces are planning to increase the minimum age to 19.

Source

• Crux Now
• La Croix
• Image: Gambit Weekly

Dubbed the "International Church of Cannabis," the group says it will ultimately serve as a "spiritual home to adults who seek to become the best version of themselves by way of the cannabis flower — a sacrament regarded as a gift from the universal creative force."

"Church members are called Elevationists. "Our lifestance is that an individual's spiritual journey, and search for meaning, is one of self-discovery — and one that may be accelerated and deepened with cannabis use. Continue reading

Some people find this church deeply offensive;

Not everyone was happy to hear about the new church. Dan Pabon, a Democrat in the state's House of Representatives, had a bill on marijuana regulation making its way through the legislature. On Thursday morning, he tried to add an amendment banning cannabis consumption in churches.

It was, he said, a move inspired by the International Church of Cannabis.

Elevation Ministries "is basically leveraging and capitalizing on the usage laws that we have in Colorado," he said. "I think it offends both religious beliefs everywhere, as well as the voters' intent on allowing legalisation of marijuana in Colorado. Continue reading

Marijuana on Religious Grounds?]]> 93384 https://cathnews.co.nz/2016/06/24/good-times-drugs-just-encourage-delusion/ Thu, 23 Jun 2016 17:10:05 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=83950

In a strange twist to last week's big meth bust in Northland one commentator ruminated on that popular theme, the decriminalisation of all good-times drugs. I call them good-times drugs because people use them to make their lives seem more exciting and themselves more interesting - a compelling reason why they should stay banned. We shouldn't encourage delusion. Read more

But that was when she was a "good mid-western Catholic girl," and the drug did nothing for her.

Years later, after her first marriage had come and gone, after she moved to Atlanta to work for General Electric, Kate tried weed again (not to mention cocaine.)

This time was different, she wrote on her blog: "I learned that weed goes better with wine, that weed is calming, that weed left me with no side effects. … I gave up the powder and partying, but kept the weed and the wine, in moderation, like medicine."

Cannabis became the beginning and end of Kate's prescription list. It was not just her "drug of choice" — it was the only drug she used, according to her blog.

Thirty years later, she sells her favorite kind of medicine under the brand "Sisters of the Valley," an Etsy business devoted to medicinal products infused with cannabidiol, one of two main extracts from marijuana plants.

Although the venture is just a year old, all of the sisters' offerings — from tonics to salves — have sold out already, and Kate has recently become one of the loudest voices opposing California's Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act.

Enacted in October, the law gives cities a choice: develop local marijuana regulations by March 1 or yield control to the state.

The city of Merced, where Sisters of the Valley is based, voted last week to ban medical marijuana cultivation pending further deliberation. The decision has prompted Kate to start a Change.org petition.

A video shows Kate in a uniform closely resembling a Catholic nun's habit and condemning the Central Valley legislators, whom she says have "their heads up their butt" and who have reacted to the regulations pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) by prohibiting medical marijuana cultivation in their jurisdictions. Continue reading

Sources

• The Washington Post, from an article by Yanan Wang, a reporter in Washington, D.C.
• Image: True Activist

Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse is holding hearings in Canberra.

It has heard about failures by the Marist Brothers to act on repeated warnings against former brother Gregory Sutton and Br John Chute.

The pair are collectively suspected of molesting 69 victims at schools between 1960 and 1991.

A lawyer assisting the commission said Sutton was "sent for counselling" to the Southdown Institute for sex offenders in Ontario, Canada.

Although New South Wales Police issued 24 arrest warrants for Sutton between 1992 and 1993, he left the institution in 1992 and worked as headmaster of a Catholic school in St Louis, Missouri, between 1994 and 1996.

The commission is examining "what assistance, if any" the Marist Brothers provided in extraditing Sutton back to New South Wales, where he was eventually sentenced to 18 years jail.

The commission heard Sutton admitted paedophilia to the order's then-head, Alexis Turton, in 1989.

This was after Sutton received a "tip off" from a family that two teenage girls had reported him to police.

A long-standing suppression order keeping Sutton's identity secret was lifted after an application from the commission.

One of Chute's victims, Damian De Marco, also testified before the commission.

He said his complaints to the brothers about his abuse and the fact that Chute was abusing others were ignored.

He was also given false assurances that Chute would be kept away from children.

Mr De Marco took strong exception to Church and the Marist Brothers lawyer Peter Gray insinuating that his memory had been affected by past marijuana use.

The witness said he was driven to drug use to cope with the trauma of the abuse.

Mr DeMarco accused the Church of a "sociopathic disregard for the welfare of victims".

An apology from Chute was read out accepting that DeMarco had always told the truth.

Chute was jailed for two years in 2009.

Sources

• The Australian
• The Guardian
• Image: The Obamacrat

The problem has its roots in a rectangular tent made of black plastic that looks like an oversized mobile wardrobe. It's as tall as a man, almost completely odor-tight and provides space for four fully grown cannabis plants. The "Growshop" in the Prague city district of Zižkov sells the tent for the equivalent of €400 ($520), including a fan, ventilation ducts, a 400 Watt spotlight, fertilizer and a bag of potting soil. It's easy to set up this black contraption at home and start growing your own weed. Any 14-year-old can do it — and that's the problem. The market is flooded with marijuana.

"Prices are falling," says Marek, a local dealer with a hairdo that looks like a wire wig. He has picked out a restaurant near the Charles Bridge, where he orders goulash with mashed potatoes and complains about declining profits. The dope-dealing business has seen better days, he says. He currently gets 1,500 crowns, or roughly €60 ($78), for 10 grams of weed. Regular customers — who Marek prefers to calls "friends" — buy on credit.

To avoid boring his "friends," he regularly brings them samples of new strains. "White Widow" is currently doing well, meaning that it gets you high as a kite. Marek stresses that his product is far better than what the competition offers. "My stuff is grown with love, not like the shit that the Vietnamese produce. They grow their weed in warehouses." The Vietnamese are the second problem. Marek says they only care about business, not quality, like the Czech growers do. They aren't devoted to the art of gardening, he claims.

Both Marek and his suppliers benefit from the fact that reefer has become an integral part of Czech folklore since the early 1990s, like pilsner beer and dumplings with sauce. Half of all Czechs between the ages of 15 and 34 have smoked pot at least once in their lives. According to statistics by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the Czech Republic ranks among the top cannabis-smoking nations in Europe, right up there with Italy and Spain. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: The Prague Post

At St. Patrick's Cathedral yesterday, Dolan was asked about rumors that he would be named the first American pope when the College of Cardinals convenes next month to select Pope Benedict's successor.

"I'd say those are only from people smoking marijuana," Dolan said.

In answer to the question about bringing forward the conclave, Dolan expressed a little concern.

"I haven't heard anything," he said.

"I'm eager along with the rest of the cardinals to hear some information and instructions about what will happen."

"I would think one would not want to rush into the conclave," he added. Continue reading

I follow his case with interest. Nobody who was at university at the same time as Rick could forget him, in part because he was a top English literature student, in part because of his vocals in local bands, and partly because he was there in the great late 60s rush into dope, which back then was a novelty.

I'm not breaking confidence here, since Rick has admitted to a long-standing use of cannabis.

He has now been jailed twice for drug crimes, has 14 previous drug convictions, and is three months into a two-year sentence for having cannabis to sell, along with having small amounts of cannabis oil, ecstasy and cocaine at his place.

My point is not about him in particular - I'm sorry to see he's in this position - but about the attitudes among middle-class people of that era that surface when they run into difficulties with the police.

They adopt a posture that's part aristocratic disdain, and part disbelief: police exist to hassle other people, surely, not people who've read Dostoevsky and know how to hold a knife and fork. You get this, too, with fraudsters who are suddenly called to account, and with bad drivers.

Perhaps it was this instinctive understanding that made ACT leader Don Brash, keen to slash Government spending, moot legalising cannabis and making dope-dealing OK.

That might be the one politically appealing idea Brash will ever come up with that could attract old stoners, though unfortunately they're the last people who would vote for him.

Rick wants home detention, and who can blame him? He has a music room at home, and creature comforts, and could easily pretend the whole darn court thing had never happened. Prison is not a nice place: he knew that already: its unpleasantness is meant to be its point.

But his arguments could only have been dreamed up by a white middle-class offender who'd woken from a bad dream only to discover he was living it.

No Maori, let's say, the 12 per cent of the population who make up half this country's prison population, would dream of appealing on the grounds - among other things - of not belonging there because you don't get enough sunshine, and you don't like air conditioning.

What made me think about this is Hone Harawira, who snarled about the appalling Maori rate of imprisonment on TV7 the other night. I wonder how successful Maori are at getting home detention.

Harawira is hard to take, but often right.

Read the full article

• Source: Rosemary McLeod in The Press
• Image: topnews.net.nz