Drug Action Week Launch ACT: Dr Ken Crispin Retired Supreme Court judg

[grace]

Commonwealth Of Australia Constitution Act

(Preamble)

An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia. [9th July 1900]

 

(The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster)

 

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/const...on/preamble.htm

 

 

Drug Action Week Launch ACT: Dr Ken Crispin Retired Supreme Court Judge

 

The address to launch Drug Action Week in the ACT was given by Dr Ken Crispin, the recently retired Supreme Court judge of the Australian Capital Territory . He was appointed President of the ACT Court of Appeal in 2001. He was first admitted to the Bar in 1972 and appointed as a Queens Counsel in 1988. He was the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions during 1991-94 and President of the ACT Bar Association during 1996-97. He has been Chairperson of the ACT Law Reform Commission since 1996 and Chairperson of the ACT Criminal Law Consultative Committee since 1998.

 

In his address he said this:

 

"During the last four decades, western governments have waged what has been described as a war on drugs. New offences have been created, penalties have been massively increased, law-enforcement bodies have been given new powers and hundreds of thousands of people have been arrested and sent to prison BY JUDGES

 

Politicians and senior officials have constantly told us that they are winning the war, that the flow of drugs into our countries is being stemmed by the rigorous enforcement of the law, and that sooner or later the problem will be wholly overcome.

 

I wish I could believe them. I wish I could believe that narcotics and other dangerous drugs will one day be driven out of our lands like St Patrick is said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. I wish I could believe that there will be no more need for rehabilitation programs, that the courts will see no more drug dependent offenders and that I will never have to attend any more funerals for young people who were little more than children when their lives ended in misery and squalor"....

 

Read the full text of his speech here>>

 

quote]

Dr_Ken_Crispin_DAW_Speech.pdf

[mull]

Beside the book plug, a solid speech Ken, about time.

[Radic]

the legal policies send important messages to potential drug users

that this reduces the overall level of consumption. We are presumably asked to believe

that teenagers constantly respond to the offer of joints by saying, “No. I am sure that our

wise political leaders ban the bad drugs and permit the safe ones, like ...er ... tobacco and

alcohol.” In fact, of course, many teenagers regard our drug policies as the product of

ignorance and hypocrisy.

 

An American study found that by 2003, fully 14 per cent of

those being admitted to drug-abuse treatment facilities had first used drugs when 12 years

old or even younger

 

few parents whose children had fallen

into bad company and were using drugs would think that the solution lay in having them

spend 24 hours a day with drug dealers and other criminals, even in the most enlightened

prison.

 

There is, I suggest, a desperate for fresh approaches. In the long run the best

strategy would be licensing and control of currently illegal drugs and addressing usage

rates with the much same strategies we use in dealing with tobacco usage.

 

yes

but he just canna seem to get his lips to say

legalize all drugs

 

how sane is dat

 

why do these lerneard pillars of society have to retire before they have the gumshin to speek the truth?????????????

[snooch]

why do these lerneard pillars of society have to retire before they have the gumshin to speek the truth?????????????

 

The cynic in me says it's because of money. He's spent a lifetime cashing in on illegal drugs. And ya cant rock da boat when ya sittin in it!!

Now he's retired, he written a book which in part tells us all how illogical it is to waste time and money on illegal drugs. The proceeds of that book, one would have to assume, go to him.

 

But hey, at least there's someone with a degree of credibiility and power speaking out, even if too little too late and someone with somewhat of a vested interest still...

 

The day I read about a magistrate or judge outright refusing to prosecute a drug user (who has done nothing else but use a drug) because the law is fundamentally flawed is when they'll get my respect, but I'm thinkin' there's gunna be a bit of a wait for that...

[cybergenesis]

Honestly there is no point in pot being illegal.

 

Its not addictive or destructive enough to warrant it.

 

Its purely based on MORAL beliefs, thats whats really under it. Most the people in power in this country and Christians and regardless of their religious beliefs (though often influenced by such beliefs) they believe drug use of any type is morally wrong.

 

It must be so easy to obstain from "evil drugs" like marijuan when you come from a rich, elite background.

 

I mean hey I probably could be convinced to reduce my pot usage if you sent me on overseas holidays everytime I feel like a little blue.

 

Most the kids I know that smoke pot- all of them are good kids. None of them can I see any evidence that pot is causing any notable harm... This is in contrast to when I have seen youth use other drugs, whereas the destructive effects are blatantly obvious (ie Alcohol, meth).

 

I think poor kids from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to smoke pot for entertainment... Its a cheap way to entertain yourself when you have little money. Unlike people like Kevin Rudd who have probably travelled the world from a young age, most the teenagers I know have never even set foot on a plane before, indeed most of them their whole childhoods have never been on a single holiday, and thats only the very start of the tale of their disadvantaged lives.

 

Weed might not be completely harmless, but it is much safer than any other drugs taken to "feel good" and any harms it does have are best addressed through education and age restricted trade. Any harms that marijuana does have are subtle and quite hard to discern. Even occasionally when I have been depressed, I have found myself slipping towards thinking "Hmmm maybe the weed is messing me up"... Its just paranoia really, given the climate towards pot, and the effects of pot, its not surprising some people become paranoid about pot and blame it for anythign really. Believe me I have heard various people (though its only a small percentage of overall pot users) blame EVERYTHING and ANYTHING on pot.

 

END RANT

Edited June 23, 2010 by cybergenesis

[Nooby]

I see no moral component in imbibing any particular substance, I also see no Biblical objections to it.

 

When people object regardless of their beliefs it is because they are acting like the monkeys n the famous experiment.

 

The experiment involved 5 monkeys, a cage, a banana, a ladder and, crucially, a water hose.

 

The 5 monkeys would be locked in a cage, after which a banana was hung from the ceiling with, fortunately for the monkeys (or so it seemed…), a ladder placed right underneath it.

 

Of course, immediately, one of the monkeys would race towards the ladder, intending to climb it and grab the banana. However, as soon as he would start to climb, the sadist (euphemistically called “scientist”) would spray the monkey with ice-cold water. In addition, however, he would also spray the other four monkeys…

 

When a second monkey was about to climb the ladder, the sadist would, again, spray the monkey with ice-cold water, and apply the same treatment to its four fellow inmates; likewise for the third climber and, if they were particularly persistent (or dumb), the fourth one. Then they would have learned their lesson: they were not going to climb the ladder again – banana or no banana.

 

In order to gain further pleasure or, I guess, prolong the experiment, the sadist outside the cage would then replace one of the monkeys with a new one. As can be expected, the new guy would spot the banana, think “why don’t these idiots go get it?!” and start climbing the ladder. Then, however, it got interesting: the other four monkeys, familiar with the cold-water treatment, would run towards the new guy – and beat him up. The new guy, blissfully unaware of the cold-water history, would get the message: no climbing up the ladder in this cage – banana or no banana.

 

When the beast outside the cage would replace a second monkey with a new one, the events would repeat themselves – monkey runs towards the ladder; other monkeys beat him up; new monkey does not attempt to climb again – with one notable detail: the first new monkey, who had never received the cold-water treatment himself (and didn’t even know anything about it), would, with equal vigour and enthusiasm, join in the beating of the new guy on the block.

 

When the researcher replaced a third monkey, the same thing happened; likewise for the fourth until, eventually, all the monkeys had been replaced and none of the ones in the cage had any experience or knowledge of the cold-water treatment.

 

Then, a new monkey was introduced into the cage. It ran toward the ladder only to get beaten up by the others. Yet, this monkey turned around and asked “why do you beat me up when I try to get the banana?” The other four monkeys stopped, looked at each other slightly puzzled and, finally, shrugged their shoulders: “Don’t know. But that’s the way we do things around here”…

[snooch]

Honestly there is no point in pot being illegal.

 

There's no point in any mind-altering substance being illegal imo - the urge to obtain such a state is a natural one, and one we humans share with a lot of other species on this planet. There's no doubt any drug can be dangerous if abused, but we have the ability to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. So when a drug user blames anything and everything on the drug, what they are doing is actually absolving themselves (in their own conscience anyway) of any responsibility for themselves or their actions. And that goes for any drug, including the legal ones.

 

And you also have to know what does and doesn't work for you. For example, I refuse to drink red wine any more, because (in large doses anyway) it makes me get violent and black out. And it's the only alcoholic drink that does that, so I don't do it.

 

I agree with what you're saying about moral beliefs, and certainly religion, being a part of prohibition. There's no doubt about it. But I wouldn't say pot is illegal purely because of this. Don't forget the economics. Prohibition is big, big business that feeds into a lot of industries - religion being one but also politics, police, the judiciary and particularly big pharma, just to name a few.

 

I agree with what you and nooby, with his monkey analogy, say in that education is the key. A lot of people I know who are opposed to pot are that way because of ignorance. All they know is what they've been taught, or what they've seen or heard through the media, TV etc. What we need is proper education, facts, the whole truth. Not scare campaigns that just highlight the extreme negative end of drug use, outright dishonesty, vested interests and half-truths, which is what we seem to mostly have now in the public arena when it comes to illegal drugs.

[Vortex]

The speech made sense, apart from the Taliban growing drugs. The Taliban are anti drugs and it is the West's intrusion that has undermined thier strict no drugs policy, resulted in the increase of drugs grown.

 

The original financiers behind Bin Laden and the building of his underground hide out in the mountain were the CIA. Coincidentally? they were also behind Saddam Hussains rise to power.

 

Terrorists and drugs sound good together, but given the idealistic and sometimes religious motivation behind such people, they scorn drugs.

 

If you want terrorists using drugs to finance thier campaign of terror, look no further than the government's 25% slug on tobacco smokers, to finance thier harrassment of stoners. , Vortex

[mull]

Nooby: I see no moral component in imbibing any particular substance, I also see no Biblical objections to it.

 

When people object regardless of their beliefs it is because they are acting like the monkeys n the famous experiment.

 

Thats right Nooby, the way you read that particular book is how you interpret it. Others, many with influence over us, use their interpretations to scorn some drug use and further their agendas. Although wine is cool, but not drunkeness, unless you are forgetting poverty..

 

Is that a real experiment, or analogy like snooch said?

Use of the word sadist is interesting.

 

Considering all it's trying to prove is what we already know of how group punishment functions. Not sure if they do it anymore, but it used to start at school. Could think of adult examples still going on today to - bashing and all