NORML - The Queensland Cabinet has approved a plan to allow those caught with less than 500g of cannabis to be diverted to a rehab programme.

This means that ALL states in Australia now favour some other approach than arresting and convicting cannabis users.

Premier Peter Beattie is however facing some opposition to the 500g limit, and so it may be reduced to be in line with other states, which are mostly around 50g. It's interesting to note the reaction of Drug-Arm Australia, who are not disputing the rehab approach, but think a 50g limit is more appropriate.

Their counterparts in New Zealand are irrational and obsessive supporters of the "lock 'em up" approach.

While Australia has reached agreement that a strict prohibition is unworkable and counter-productive, we have a stiffling public consensus that "drugs are illegal because they are bad"; this so-called consensus means rational debate is almost non-existant, that privately held views on drug policy are seldom aired publicly, and that school kids are often in possession of more facts than Government ministers.

ends

© 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>>