Category: new zealand

Why Are Psychiatrists Allowed to Violate the Bill of Rights Act in New Zealand?

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Giving someone medical ‘treatment’ against their will and very arguably to their own long-term detriment is explicitly forbidden under Section 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Despite this, it happened on at least five occasions last year in New Zealand with electroshock therapy alone. How?

The answer lies in the Mental Health Act. Specifically Section 60, which allows a psychiatrist to override the Bill of Rights Act if they feel that it’s in the best interest of the patient.

Note that the will of the patient is considered a non-factor here.

Note also that a short few centuries ago, people were burned at the stake because authority figures decided that it was in the best interests of their immortal soul. Have we really come out of the Dark Ages? One suspects that the people getting electroshock therapy despite having explicitly refused consent may be inclined to think not.

Section 59.4 of the Mental Health Act reads: “The responsible clinician shall, wherever practicable, seek to obtain the consent of the patient to any treatment even though that treatment may be authorised by or under this Act without the patient’s consent.”

Who decides what is practicable? Certainly not the patient – and here the problem lies.

If treatment may be authorised without the patient’s consent by the Mental Health Act then the Mental Health Act overrides the Bill of Rights Act in New Zealand.

There’s only one reasonable conclusion to draw from this: mental health patients are lower than criminals in our society.

This proposition can be supported with a little thought.

It’s a common experience for a mentally ill person to come into contact with a system that refuses to help them, especially if that person’s illness makes it difficult to hold down a work schedule (or to work full stop) and so they need financial assistance.

Even worse, there is no obligation whatsoever on the part of the mental health services to make sure that the people who come to them for help are treated fairly.

Complaints against abusive mental health practitioners are usually treated with the same stonewalling as complaints against soldiers or police officers. Once a person is diagnosed with a mental illness, any allegation of abuse they make is simply written off as a delusion.

Contrast this state of affairs with what happens if a person chooses of their own free will to chop the head off another human being and rape the corpse.

In the case of such a grisly, senseless rape-murder, that murderer will be provided with a lawyer to guide them through the whole process of arrest, detention, custody, trial, sentence and aftermath, making sure that at each step they are fully aware of their rights. That lawyer, who will be provided to a murderer for free if they have no money, will ensure that nothing untoward happens to his client at any point.

If the murderer doesn’t like the punishment handed down for his act of murder he has the right to appeal to a higher court (his lawyer will naturally advise him at length here).

And if justice is still not done to the murderer’s satisfaction, there are Supreme Courts to help him, Ombudsmen, Police Complaints Authorities etc.

There is nothing like that for mental health patients in New Zealand. If you need a benefit because you are in an advanced state of psychosis and don’t want to starve to death in the meantime, you have 30 minutes with a psychiatrist and if you can’t convince them in that time it’s fuck off and die for you.

No appeal to a higher authority, no-one advising you of your options, nothing. Just out onto the street to fend for yourself, even if you’ve paid taxes for many years. The assumption seems to be, then, that you were just a parasitic malingerer trying to bludge a benefit.

In New Zealand it’s easier to find a doctor to perform electroshock therapy on a patient who has explicitly withdrawn their consent (five cases known in 2015) than it is to find one who will help their patients acquire medicinal cannabis (zero cases known in 2015).

That’s a sobering thought to anyone who believes the healthcare system is looking out for them.

If you want another, think that all the New Zealand has to do to destroy anyone deemed a thought criminal in 2016 is to find a psychiatrist who agrees and that psychiatrist will have the legal right to destroy that thought criminal’s mind with ‘medication’ or ‘treatment’ that could have any desired effect out of all the neurological reactions known to human biochemistry.

One of the best understood of which is sedation.

The thought criminal could be placed on a medication such as Olanzapine, a heavy enough dose of which will slow down the mind of the patient/victim to such a degree that stringing together ‘subversive’ thoughts would simply not be possible. This ‘chemical lobotomy’ is how people are silenced nowadays, now that physical lobotomies are illegal.

Giving someone electroshock therapy when they have explicitly refused treatment is as barbaric as the corrective rape practiced in Africa to try and ‘cure’ women of lesbianism.

It’s a very sad state of affairs when mentally ill people cannot have any confidence that the system they need to ask for help actually intends to help them. Yet, that is the state of affairs in New Zealand today.

Does the End of Key Mean the Chance of Sanity for NZ’s Drug Laws?

jkgallery

Million of lines will be written about John Key’s shock resignation today, and most of them will be about the impact of this event on business and politics. For New Zealand’s 400,000 cannabis users, most of whom are already disadvantaged, the concern is more whether Key’s resignation will herald a shift to a sane and humane drug policy in New Zealand.

The National Party neglected its duty of care to the youth of New Zealand. Although the Baby Boomers generally cashed in royally on the booming house prices, the youth of New Zealand found themselves paying for those same increases in their rent and bigger debts.

For those young and poor, the Key era was more like an inquisition. Funding for rape crisis centres was slashed, cannabis prohibition was enforced as aggressively as ever, and access to financial help was restricted, mostly to pay for tax cuts for wealthy old people.

In fact, it could be argued – if somewhat cynically – that the purpose of National Party policy, especially on the drug front, is to destroy the young for the sake of the profits of the rich.

Not only was John Key strongly against even having a discussion about drug law reform, he even appointed the most aggressively anti-drug MP in Parliament, Peter Dunne, to the position of Associate Minister of Health, from where he was able to block all efforts for drug law reform.

John Key didn’t seem to have a problem with Dunne’s hamfisted efforts to ‘fix’ New Zealand’s archaic drug laws. He stood to one side when Dunne opened up the borders to Chinese legal highs of completely unknown origin. Even when reports of mental health casualties poured in from all corners, Key refused to criticise the blundering Dunne.

When Dunne brought in the disastrously flawed Psychoactive Substances Act, John Key voted to make it law, all the while ignoring the cries of thousands of Kiwis who have discovered medicinal benefit in cannabis. New Zealand was 12 years behind California on medicinal cannabis law reform when Key came to power – now we are 20 years behind, and still not a hint of progress.

No doubt the mainstream media will, in coming weeks, join in a chorus of “Rockstar, rockstar!” as they prepare New Zealanders to support globalist forces in the 2017 General Election.

Outside of the mainstream, and away from the arse-licking sycophants who have a corporate platform, Key will be remembered with bitterness for a long time.

Bill English, Key’s anointed replacement as Prime Minister, is also an old dinosaur, but he is known for being something of a pragmatist. In any case, chances of any meaningful change before the 2017 Election is extremely unlikely.

The best one can realistically hope for is that, with the resignation of a man who was like Torquemada to medicinal cannabis users, the country can finally have the long-suppressed rational conversation about drug law reform.

Once that happens, it’s simply a matter of time until the collective realisation dawns that cannabis prohibition must be repealed.

Steve Smith a Colossus as Australia Win First ODI

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Steve Smith had the sort of day that all cricketers dream of. From the moment he won the toss and elected to bat it was his day. Smith scored 164 out of Australia’s total of 324/8, then he took a flying screamer of a catch to dismiss BJ Watling and Australia won by 68 runs.

New Zealand won the first session, with movement on the grassy Sydney Cricket Ground pitch inducing both Australian openers to chop on. They were in an excellent position at the fall of the fourth wicket, which came when a solid straight drive from Smith went through the hands of Jimmy Neesham and ran Mitchell Marsh out at the non-striker’s end. At that point Australia were 92/4 and it felt that only Smith stood between competitiveness and disaster.

He then embarked upon a 127-run stand with Travis Head, who was fortuitously dropped by Matt Henry at mid off early in his innings. When Head was brilliantly caught and bowled by Trent Boult, Matthew Wade joined him at the crease, and the two went on the counterattack.

They scored 83 runs in 6.1 overs, and even a flurry of wickets at the end couldn’t stop them from posting a very strong total, in this case 324/8.

Australia won the early session much like New Zealand had, accounting for Tom Latham and Kane Williamson for single-digit scores. Jimmy Neesham came in at 4 in place of Ross Taylor, and was able to hit through the line well, scoring 34 off 36.

Perhaps the decisive act in the match came again from Smith, only this time in the field. A short and wide ball from Marsh to BJ Watling was dispatched, but Smith threw himself to his left and caught the ball at full stretch on his thumb, taking a face plant into the SCG turf so as to not spill the ball.

From there it was up to Guptill, and while he and Munro put on a brisk 45 Guptill was dismissed against the run of play, slapping an Adam Zampa long hop to Glenn Maxwell at midwicket. Guptill had scored 114 from 102 balls and looked set for another titanic innings, timing almost everything out of the very middle, before the dismissal.

At that point New Zealand still needed 140 runs in 17 overs with 5 wickets in hand, but the run rate was accelerating out of range of their hitting power.

Colin Munro and Matt Henry gave the Black Caps some late hope, getting them to within 72 runs before Henry was deceived by a clever Pat Cummins slower ball, which he skied to George Bailey for 27 off 15. When Munro was next out in a very similar fashion for 49 off 59 the Black Caps were unable to offer further resistance and were dismissed for 256.

Despite the loss, New Zealand will take heart from the performance, and may be regretting the decision to not review an lbw shout on Smith when he was on 13. Replays showed the decision would have been overturned and from there it would have been a very different match.

In the end, the catching skill of Australia was probably the decisive factor, as a Watling-Guptill partnership at that time of the match might have brought the Black Caps very close to a win.

The series continues in Canberra on Tuesday.