Liberal Party - "Gets tough on Drugs"

[chugs]

i can smell that snivilling little chris payne (sec of health) involved in this bullshit...

 

[Splatt]

What about precursors of precursoers?
Or a plantation of Ephedra?

This is lame. Wonder how long until Howard makes a death sentence.

 

[lovemytrips]

Why can't we all get along

If they don't want to take drugs, thats fine by me but it pisses me off when they try to control what goes on in MY head.

^love your pic Splatt

 

[S-R]

hoptis and comfortably numb make really valid points, but i'd like to expand on them a bit.
marxists use a term called the "ideological bullets of the bougiosie" - it relates to the whole state infrastructure from schools to the media to the courts that tells us that the systems fine, nothing can change anyway etc.
For drug users, we cop not just bullets but a full-blown artilllery assault with air-supporrt from pretty much day dot - "Drugs are bad mmmkay; if you use you're fucked up; users don't care about or health etc."
Running peer education programs, particularly in reallly disadvantaged areas, most users come along thinking we're going to regurgitate that message to them. When they hear something completely different it can take a long time to shift headset. Sometimes you can almost see the moment, and it can be glorious - "Wow, what i'm doing is valid; users can care about our health etc"
Unfortunately the moment doesn't change evrytrhing - i've been a user activist for 10 years and you still know, deep down, that i put myself through shit i shouldn't.
Or when trying to do a degree at uni i attend lectures where they say that all the children of drug "addicts " are neglected and malnourished, and as a father and and a user i still, after 10 years, find it easier to walk away than tgo challenge a statement which, if it was made about any other social group, would almsot certainly lead to the academic being disciplined.
In terms of mass shifts in conciousness however; that takes mass social movements behind it. This generation can change things, but we have to ber active. we have to challenge the system.
30 years ago same-sex relations had very similar social stigmas attached to what we cop now. Movements changed that.
Its not a question of which major party has power - its a question of what the communityh does in action.

Seriously, what could the community actually do? I like your thinking in general, it's just in todays "Western society" your idea does not seem logical at all. Unless you are in power and in parliament I believe we have no chance of ever changing anything. We are following someone else's system for a start, fighting a "drug war" that doesn't exist... To change, the people that control the system will need to change. This is no longer the 70's, sadly...

 

[surrealthoughts]

Seriously, what could the community actually do? I like your thinking in general, it's just in todays "Western society" your idea does not seem logical at all. Unless you are in power and in parliament I believe we have no chance of ever changing anything. We are following someone else's system for a start, fighting a "drug war" that doesn't exist... To change, the people that control the system will need to change. This is no longer the 70's, sadly...

hi s-r. i strongly disagree with you, and i believe what you think is exactly what the incumbent 'powerholders' want you to think.

as an example of effective people movements look to the refugee issue of previous years. here we see the success of years of work by grass root organisations. widely publicisied protests initially brought the issue into the public spotlight. then for a few years widely publicised protests were few and far between but there was a lot of grassroots organisations, coalitions, and refugee support services. after further 'trigger' events (cornelia rau, etc) liberal politicians started working with the movement and succeeded in dramaticaly improving our treatment of refugees.

liberal politicians only began working on the refugee issue due to the movement keeping the issue in the spotlight, changing public attitudes about refugees and investigating circumstances surrounding mistreatment of refugees to expose the truth. without that work and persistence, nothing would have ever changed.

alot of people have a perception that social change only occurs through the powerholders, and that the only form of expression of social disatisfaction is protests and "negatively percieved activism". as hopefully you can see above, there is a wide range of roles for all sorts of people in enabling social change.

 

[diving4pearls]

alot of people have a perception that social change only occurs through the powerholders, and that the only form of expression of social disatisfaction is protests and "negatively percieved activism". as hopefully you can see above, there is a wide range of roles for all sorts of people in enabling social change.

Absolutely, althought there is wide-spread belief that democratic govts lead, they infact follow. They used to more closely follow the beliefs (ofetn varied) of the electrorate. Now they simply follow the money. The idea that somehow "all is lost" in our struggle in the war on drugs is not only defeatist but highlights the strenth of propaganda used by the current administration.

With regard to ex-users/abusers looking down their noses. Yep, it happens. Age brings with it a fantastic sense of self-righteousness but do not forget the insidous nature of that other drug most of these people have turned to...alcohol.

"Drugs bad, beer good" is simply another reflection of the power of propaganda driven by those who have a vested interest in keeping booze the number one drug of choice.