Press Release
Libertarianz
Health

Health Minister Jumps On The Ban Wagon

Health Minister Annette King proposies to inconvenience all New Zealanders by placing a total ban on remedies containing pseudoephedrine, warns Libertarianz Spokesman for Health Deregulation Dr. Richard Goode.

Pseudoephedrine is a safe and highly effective decongestant that helps to clear the stuffy noses and blocked sinuses of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders suffering from colds and flu each year, but it can also be used in part to manufacture the popular party drug methamphetamine, also known as 'P'.

King has asked government drug safety agency Medsafe for a report by mid-January into whether pseudoephedrine products should be banned throughout New Zealand, and she can hardly wait. "If Medsafe recommends a ban, then King will happily - and quite literally - tell us all to get stuffed!" observes Goode.

"The twin notions of individual freedom and personal responsibility are alien to this minister," Goode laments. "King got this idea into her head after hearing of the self-imposed ban on the prescription and sale of pseudoephedrine by a group of Rotorua doctors and pharmacists. However, there's a world of difference between a voluntary, self-imposed ban and an involuntary, nanny-statist, government-imposed ban. This is yet another threat to the liberty we still have left to make our own health decisions and to run our own lives."

But Goode remains optimistic that King's proposal will come to nothing. "Even Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton - leader of the anti-drug party - opposes such a ban." In conclusion, Goode offers, "Methamphetamine users, at least, can rest assured - no ban can stop the 'P' epidemic. Where there's demand, the black market will supply."

Dr. Richard Goode Libertarianz Spokesman for Health Deregulation Email: richard.goode@xtra.co.nz Mobile: 021 340 057

www.libertarianz.org.nz

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>