Network Against Prohibition

[white_cluster]

I was just bored looking around and came across this site.Network against Prohibition.

 

I reckon this shit is fucking wrong eh, they seem to think pot smokers and junkys are the same thing, Syringe Festival?? I think thats just fucked, a fucking diesease festival, and the poster for it with a bunch of junkys directing a syringe at a cop car, what are they trying to do there?? force cops to take drugs or give them aids/overdose, I dunno, who can understand a junkies mind.

 

Maybe I sound like a christian right now, but I dont think a pot leaf should ever be seen next to a fucking syringe, I got nothing against opiates, thats your own business, but using syringes to take drugs is fucking stupid, even if used responsibly they could still cause alot of harm one day even in a bottle in the rubbish tip. like if you wanna fuck up your own life on drugs whatever, thats your choice, but that shit can fuck up innocent peoples lives.

To put a harmless and very useful drug like cannabis on the same page as a syringe is something I've only ever seen before on police drug identification charts.

 

They like to depict amsterdam a fairly interesting way. In the pictures section, they have a picture called anti pot protest with a passed out dreadlocked guy in the street with a guy walking past him, fuck that must have been some good pot.

 

anyway these fuckers shit me, check them out and tell me if you think I'm a dick or they are.

[Guest Wilderbud]

Yeah I disassociate myself with people using hard drugs [even alcohol].

 

Its a 'its their world and Im supposed to deal with it' thing.

[d_amo]

id have to agree with wc that these cunts are total fuckwits - i feel that they are giving mull a bad (worse) image by associating it with 'syringe festivals' etc. Edited November 18, 2003 by d_amo

[sols]

g'day; do yourselves a favour and read the site before you comment too harshly.

they want reform of laws for ALL drugs, as it should be,imo.

every illicit drug should be regulated and deemed to be not a criminal offence.only by regulation and legalization , can the black market be slowed to almost a stop (black markets always survive somehow).

 

i am not a member and i do not support them.but i do agree with a lot that they have written on there site.

[Guest niall]

I reckon this shit is fucking wrong eh, they seem to think pot smokers and junkys are the same thing

 

Howso?

 

Syringe Festival?? I think thats just fucked, a fucking diesease festival

 

How is it a disease festival? It sounds like your own bias on injecting drug users is affecting your interpretation of their views. Syringes don't cause disease any more than drug users do, free availability of syringes actually reduces the spread of disease.

 

The Syringe Festival is tongue in cheek, of course. Network Against Prohibition have been protesting some of the harshest drug laws in Australia - the "festival" is as much a media event as it is a sarcastic way of protesting against prohibition. It sounds sick, but that's the point.

 

and the poster for it with a bunch of junkys directing a syringe at a cop car, what are they trying to do there?? force cops to take drugs or give them aids/overdose, I dunno, who can understand a junkies mind.

 

Are you suggesting NAP are junkies? I couldn't find anything to support this view on their website. What they're trying to do is demonstrate the opposing forces involved in the Drug War - simple users vs. the cops. They're actively fighting the police on several fronts, and we all know this is a health and social issue. The NT police and legislature seem to think this is still about enforcement, and this is what they're trying to demonstrate - the absurdity of the whole situation. I thought this was pretty clear myself.

 

Maybe I sound like a christian right now, but I dont think a pot leaf should ever be seen next to a fucking syringe, I got nothing against opiates, thats your own business, but using syringes to take drugs is fucking stupid, even if used responsibly they could still cause alot of harm one day even in a bottle in the rubbish tip. like if you wanna fuck up your own life on drugs whatever, thats your choice, but that shit can fuck up innocent peoples lives.

To put a harmless and very useful drug like cannabis on the same page as a syringe is something I've only ever seen before on police drug identification charts.

 

Sure, but as sols points out they're opposing prohibition of all drugs. Symbolism is very important in the media. Syringes and pot leaves are, without a doubt, the two most iconic illicit drug symbols there are. They're not advocating intravenous drug use - they're trying to get out their message in a very unfriendly Australian territory.

 

They like to depict amsterdam a fairly interesting way. In the pictures section, they have a picture called anti pot protest with a passed out dreadlocked guy in the street with a guy walking past him, fuck that must have been some good pot.

 

I'm not sure that we're looking at the same picture, do you mean this? The guy is not passed out, he's having his dreadlocks stamped upon by a police officer. He's involved in a peaceful protest against prohibition, and he's being assaulted. They're trying to break up a peaceful demonstration with the use of force.

 

anyway these fuckers shit me, check them out and tell me if you think I'm a dick or they are.

 

Network Against Prohibition are certainly not your average guys, they use extraordinary and confrontational tactics to get their message across. While I don't agree with some of their tactics, some of them seem downright stupid, I admire them for taking a stand for what they believe in. I'm also incredibly grateful to Gary Meyerhoff as he is newshawking the Northern Territory for MAP.

 

NAP oppose prohibition and are actually doing something about it. Are you? I'd suggest you read a bit more about their activities and their background before you write them off as junky dickheads white_cluster

[Guest Wilderbud]

They have syringes over a marijuana leaf - thats association and pictures tell a thousand words you know.

 

Ive already been called a junky many times because beople associate marijuana use with other drug use and now we have this group getting stoners to help legalize harmful drugs - thats not helpful to changing marijuana laws.

 

I do not care about the legal status of hard drugs but I sympathize for anyone addicted to them - the risk is well-known.

[Guest niall]

They have syringes over a marijuana leaf - thats association and pictures tell a thousand words you know.

 

I agree, but how does this make junkies and pot smokers out to be the same? They're associated because they're illicit, that's the point NAP are trying to get across, but nowhere do NAP suggest that are the same thing, aside from both being users of illicit drugs.

 

and now we have this group getting stoners to help legalize harmful drugs - thats not helpful to changing marijuana laws.

 

Do you honestly think harmful drugs should be illegal? How can legalising and regulating them be anything but an improvement on what we have now? Keeping them illegal maximises the harm.

 

I do not care about the legal status of hard drugs but I sympathize for anyone addicted to them - the risk is well-known.

 

If you truly sympathised with them, I think you'd care about the legal status of their drug. This "well-known" risk (is already tiny but) would be significantly reduced if they could purchase their drugs in pure, medical grade form, for less than black market prices. Most of the harms and risks with intravenous drug use is in not knowing how to inject properly, using unsterilised and infected equipment (not just syringes), overdosing because the purity is unknown, overdosing because you don't actually know what drug you're injecting in the first place, being forced to get involved in violent crime, burglary and prostitution to pay artificially inflated black market prices and pay back "debts" that are barely indistinguishable from slavery.

 

I too pity anyone who abuses drugs, but I think you need to recognise the difference between harm caused by the drug itself and the harm caused by prohibition of the drug. They're not one and the same. Heroin users can function perfectly well in society, and experience far less harm than the typical binge-drinking teenager, if they have a pure, cheap supply. Just look at "maintenance" programs the world over, they get their smack from a chemist, shoot up at home and go to work like the rest of us. Take away the profit and the shite they cut it with, the entire black market, and you're left with a very small but entirely manageable problem. Most people don't realise how small it truly is, at a medical/health level, when it's on a level playing field with regulated suppliers of alcohol and tobacco.

 

We can't stop people using drugs, we never have and we never will, but we can reduce all of the other harms - the ones we inflict upon them unnecessarily. They've got enough problems as it is, we shouldn't kick them while they're down or tie their hands behind their back so they have no hope of fighting back.

 

You may disagree with NAP, and possibly because you don't understand their message, but don't call them junkies and dickheads guys

[white_cluster]

How is it a disease festival? It sounds like your own bias on injecting drug users is affecting your interpretation of their views. Syringes don't cause disease any more than drug users do, free availability of syringes actually reduces the spread of disease.

 

well the last time I heard blood to blood contact was a big way that dieseases were spread, maybe I'm wrong but I always had the idea that using syringes involved blood.

 

And yeah my view is tainted, prolly 7-8 years ago I was swimming with all these lads in this creek in coffs harbour, we were jumping off this bridge and all landed amongst syringes floating towards us with there container floating next to them, my friend caught himself hepatitus C.

 

I wonder if they we're these free syringes that solve diesease problems you speak of. Syringes might not cause diesease, but to think junkies clean up after themselves is a fucking joke, everyone has seen needles in the street, everyone has had to deal with that shit, except maybe you.

 

What they're trying to do is demonstrate the opposing forces involved in the Drug War - simple users vs. the cops. They're actively fighting the police on several fronts, and we all know this is a health and social issue.

 

so why are they using a big syringe as a weapon, Im still lost here???? I understand the picture is of simple users vs the cops, Im not blind, what I dont understand is why they need to direct a big syringe at the cop car???

 

Sure, but as sols points out they're opposing prohibition of all drugs. Symbolism is very important in the media. Syringes and pot leaves are, without a doubt, the two most iconic illicit drug symbols there are.

NAP oppose prohibition and are actually doing something about it. Are you? I'd suggest you read a bit more about their activities and their background before you write them off as junky dickheads white_cluster

 

Yeah Im doing something about it, Im realising that showing my shitty self in public looking like a shitty feral and yelling stupid shit making a dick of myself is the reason people dont like pot smokers. No I'm not doing something about it Australian Activist, because unlike you I smoke and grow all day everyday, and I have noticed that the cops dont affect that very much, If a person as unrespectable as me stated they support legalisation they would end up in jail.

 

Anyway, so the symbolism of pot leaves and syringes next to each other is ok?? to me its like pictures of marijuana next to toxic waste, why a syringe and why not opium pods or flowers?? a syringe is not a drug.

 

As i've said a million times taking heroin is your own business, its syringes I have a problem with, to put a cannabis leaf next to a weapon that has caused millions of deaths (regardless of what was in it) is wrong. It personally offends me alot. In medical industry syringes are put in two big barrels that have obvious warnings all over them, but none the less they are still dangerous, they should be instantly incinerated.

 

My missus mum cleans in a hospital and all the time in the troilets junkies sit there syringes down on the ground when there is a syringe disposal bin in there.

 

Anyway if you cant see the differance between a pot leaf and a syringe I'm sorry for you, I dont think anyone has died off a discarded bong, you could maybe cut yourself if you trod on an old glass bong but that couldn't lead to diesease.

Edited November 18, 2003 by white_cluster

[Guest Wilderbud]

They're [soft & hard drugs] associated because they're illicit...

Do you honestly think harmful drugs should be illegal?

 

Like mutagens and bombs - yes.

 

If you truly sympathised with them, I think you'd care about the legal status of their drug.

 

I do but not as much as I care about the legal/moral status of marijuana.

 

This "well-known" risk (is already tiny but) would be significantly reduced if they could purchase their drugs in pure, medical grade...

 

They [opiates/amphetamines] are addictive and potent in medical grade form.

 

If you care about the legal status of marijuana then you should realize why people use it. Marijuana is many things but it is not addictive and isnt very potent.

[Guest Wilderbud]

We used to play with needles when I was a kid and we got them from open bins at the back of a chemist.

 

I have seen a big pile of needles also WC - they were spread all over a shopping centre carpark. Ive seen hundreds of needles as I walk a lot - mostly theyll have a crushed needle disposal bottle near them too so its a lie to say free needles or needle use at home will solve a problem.

 

Needles are a problem.

 

I dont like prescription drugs either but sometimes theyre a necessity.