The Black Caps Tour of India, 2016

neesham

The return of Jimmy Neesham to the Black Caps Test side, announced this week, might go some way towards filling the Brendon McCullum-sized hole at No. 5 as the Black Caps begin their tour of India later this month.

It’s very difficult to pick exactly what Black Caps side will take the field when the first Test begins in Kanpur on September 22.

For one reason, the bowling attack will likely be very different to that which played in Africa. The last time the Black Caps were in India they opened their World T20 campaign with a shock win over India themselves – and spinners took the first nine wickets (Santner 4, Sodhi 3, McCullum 2).

Gavin Larsen suggested that it was of value to the Black Caps side to have two seam-bowling allrounders in Neesham and Doug Bracewell. If both play, along with the expected two spinners, one of the regular pace trio of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner will have to sit out.

Of interest is that the workhorse of the pace attack, Neil Wagner, is up to 9th place in the Test bowling rankings. This puts extreme pressure on Tim Southee’s position, as Trent Boult is generally considered the more dangerous of the new ball pair. Boult is also 10th on the rankings – Southee is a creditable but not compelling 15th.

If two of Santner, Craig and Sodhi play, there may be only room for one seam-bowling allrounder (likely Neesham) and two of the regular pace trio.

This is unless something changes with the batting. Although Martin Guptill might be the Black Cap with the most pressure on his spot, his primary challenger, Jeet Raval, has been dropped from the squad (along with Matt Henry). That probably means that Guptill will have the whole India tour to make good on the immense potential he has shown as an ODI batsman.

Henry Nicholls was not impressive in Zimbabwe, making only 18 and 15 and playing some rash shots. He didn’t get to bat in the first Test against South Africa. Then, in the second Test, under immense pressure from the strongest bowling trio in world cricket right now in Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada, he outscored even Kane Williamson, coming in at 3/5 in the fourth innings and losing Williamson soon after.

The promise shown against that world-class attack might be enough to dismiss talk of Neesham batting at 5 in order to strengthen the bowling options.

Also, because India at home with Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja is an incredibly difficult challenge right now, the logical thing to do might be to strengthen the batting.

It’s possible that we will see a team that looks like:

1. Latham
2. Guptill
3. Williamson (c)
4. Taylor
5. Nicholls
6. Neesham (2)
7. Watling (wk)
8. Santner (5)
9. Craig (4)
10. Wagner (3)
11. Boult (1)

The War on Drugs Was Known to be a Failure Twenty Years Ago

drugwarfailure

Much recent media attention has focused on the question of whether the War on Drugs has failed in New Zealand. Amazingly, a review of Ben Vidgen’s 1999 book State Secrets suggests that the War on Drugs was widely known to be a failure since at least two decades ago, even at the highest political level.

One of the arguments that John Key has been rolling out to deny the need for cannabis law reform is that it “would send the wrong message”. Apparently his idea is that if cannabis was legalised in New Zealand many vulnerable people would interpret that as a green light to smoke as much of it as possible.

Leaving aside the obvious point that no-one in New Zealand who wants to smoke cannabis is waiting for permission from the government to do so, it’s interesting how much mileage conservatives have got out of that one bit of rhetoric.

On page 33 of Vidgen’s bestseller State Secrets it says that John Howard back in 1998 used the same rhetoric to stymie cannabis law reform in Australia. Noting that already in the late 1990s it was understood by intelligent people that “by removing the profit incentive associated with drug dealing, decriminalisation would, in effect, destroy the capital base from which organised crime’s influence originates,” the book describes how Howard rejected the idea on the grounds of “the wrong message”.

Perhaps depressingly, Vidgen’s book makes it clear that the Establishment has simply ignored the voices of reason for decades now. Writing that the best way to view drug use in society was as a “social and health problem”, it seems incredible that almost twenty years later it would be necessary to make the same arguments.

Given that the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party won 1.66% of the vote in the 1996 election, it’s a shame that we could so stubbornly remain deaf to the truth, even when doing so comes at horrendous expense.

Vidgen agrees with this column that the failure of the War on Drugs is deliberate. He points out in State Secrets that such talk inevitably gets dismissed as conspiracy theory, but that if an objective observer joins the dots it becomes apparent that the legal status of many drugs – cannabis in particular – affords opportunity for extralegal actors to profit immensely from their trafficking and sale.

Some say that intelligence agencies sell drugs in New Zealand to finance off-the-books operations. Probably most people would be horrified to know how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Trip Report – 405mg Mirtazapine

Mirtazipine

I learned from PsychonautWiki that the antidepressant Mirtazapine could work as a psychedelic-deliriant. Thought it sounded fun. Having some mirtazapine left over from a previous prescription I took took 9 x 45mg tablets at about 6.30pm, for a total of 405mg. I weigh 115kg (255lb) and am very drug resistant, so this dose should not be considered a guideline of any sort.

Little happened for an hour. I had low expectations considering this is a legal pharmaceutical. At about 7.30pm I started feeling lightheaded and a bit euphoric. At this time I started watching a rugby match.

Although I have a passion for rugby, it was hard to concentrate after about 8.00pm. My head was swimming and I started to get a generally good buzz, not unlike being drunk but without the sickliness.

I walked outside. Walking was very difficult and I stumbled like a drunk, almost taking a header down a flight of stairs, but wasn’t concerned about falling over.

At the bottom of the stairs I decided to take a piss on the lawn. My cat ran up to me and I thought to be careful as it was getting close to the stream of piss. I looked again, and it wasn’t a cat at all – just a field of long grass that formed a dark shadow and which appeared to move in the wind.

I looked at the night sky. For some reason my visual acuity had sharpened tremendously. Even without my glasses, I could clearly see many stars in the Southern Cross. Normally I can see four, and five if I stop and look hard. Now I could see about ten. I didn’t even know there were than many, and I found it incredible.

Looking at a wider field, I could see hundreds of stars surrounding the Southern Cross and the Pointers, and then I could clearly see the Milky Way galaxy itself, appearing in a broad band across the sky.

The Milky Way stretched right across the sky, and I had the most bizarre sense of the entire galaxy being alive, and that I actually could comprehend my place in it. Here I was, on a planet facing away from its star, beholding the entire galaxy, which I knew to be utterly full of every kind of life imaginable. Somehow I comprehended that out there was all manner of life that would and will astonish us in all kinds of ways.

Then I was in front of my laptop, doing some reading and eating some chocolate (that tasted orgasmic). I heard music, and realised that it was coming from somewhere non-physical. It sounded some Asian pop, and it seemed like my brain was tuning into its frequency despite that frequency not being the same as my physical one.

That was the psychedelic part of the experience. The delirium came shortly after. I forgot who I was and what I was doing, but there was a deep sense of everything being alright.

I returned upstairs and lay in bed, now feeling sleepy. I could not sleep and had a bit of restless leg syndrome but also had amazing closed eye visuals. I saw what looked like psychedelic drawings of Robert Crumb, only in full colour, and in the psychedelic greens and purples so characteristic of late sixties iconography.

These displayed themselves as posters that were advertisements for a movie or band of some sort. They looked good, and they flashed before my eyes at a rate of four or five per second, always different, as if viewed through a kaleidoscope.

I was conscious enough to be astonished at the range of creativity showed by whatever force thought up the formation of these movie posters. Being an experienced psychedelic user, I remembered then that the brain filters the Great Fractal out from the conscious experience so that consciousness can focus on the consensual reality of this frequency, and that I had temporarily broken that filtering, hence I was seeing the movie posters.

I slept lightly, coming to awakeness only when something loud happened in the cricket that was playing on the television. Soon I felt a deep, relaxing, physical euphoria that made my body very sensitive.

When I woke up the next day I felt relaxed but a bit slow and irritable.

I think a high dose of mirtazapine would be good for making love on, because of the enhanced physical pleasure. It is hard to concentrate on it though, and the deliriant effect was moderately strong, which makes it poor for socialising. Probably the nicest use for it would be out in nature during a summer evening.

– CERVANTES DE LA HOYA

If Cannabis is a Mental Health Medicine, Then We Are Killing People With Prohibition

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High in the news at the moment is the story that six young people have killed themselves in three months in the town of Kaitaia, population 5,000. Kaitaia is in the search for solutions; so far suggested is a youth space and more streetlights in some back streets.

Predictably, no-one in the New Zealand ruling class has the courage to suggest the legalisation of cannabis.

According to a study by Montana State University, suicides among men aged 20 through 39 years fell roughly 10% after medical cannabis was legalised compared to those states that did not legalise.

The study says that the lower rate of suicide in states that have legalised medicinal cannabis “is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events.”

This is something that almost every young person in New Zealand knows! Almost 100% of New Zealand youth know that cannabis should not be illegal. They’ve seen most of their parents smoke it and they know it’s less dangerous than alcohol. I personally can credit the use of cannabis with saving me from a desperately dark psychological situation.

But the ruling class puts young people in prison for this medicinal plant that saves lives, and then says the problem is a lack of streetlights! The fact that the ruling class is so appallingly out of touch is another reason why it’s so difficult to be a young person in New Zealand.

How stupid are they? Why don’t they ask the young people with mental illness what they want, instead of assuming that because they are mentally ill they can’t possibly know?

85% of Kaitaia live on some kind of benefit. If you are on the benefit in New Zealand and don’t have cannabis, then insanity is never far away. Being a young person in New Zealand is difficult, due to the almost total absence of stimulation.

Being a young person on a benefit in economically depressed small-town New Zealand is an extremely difficult psychological challenge.

If a person doesn’t understand that, then they don’t have the empathy necessary to be involved in the process about how to solve our mental health problems.

Mike King has it right when he said “If we’re going to put a dent in these appalling numbers we have around suicide then we’re going to have to start listening to communities,” he says.

Well, at least 90% of these young people want the right to relax, to calm down, and to stimulate their artistic and creative endeavours by smoking cannabis. Are you going to listen to that?

This is what the community is saying: smoking cannabis takes our suffering away. Cannabis prohibition takes away a mental health medicine that we could be using to make our lives better. It’s even backed up by the statistics.

Young people are dying because you’re not listening.