International FASD day

Today is International Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder day.

Alcohol advertising is well funded. Too well funded. £60million for a pretty Peroni ad campaign for instance!!!

SAB, the main driver of the problem, has provided a million rand sponsorship for a thousand FAS children. A R1000 per retarded child? That is what SAB are buying the silence of FASFACTS with.

Read more about FAS here.....

The alcohol industry itself is in denial. The ARA don't mention Fetal Alcohol Syndrome on their industry view points page or anywhere else for that matter.

In the meantime... "drink responsibly"... whatever that means.

Smoking laws to be tightened

Smoking outside, within five metres of your office door, will soon be illegal and companies found guilty of contravening the rule could face fines of up to R50,000

The Department of Health is poised to gazette new smoking laws, including those governing smoking outside, which could come into effect early next year.

Dr Yussuf Saloojee, director of the National Council Against Smoking, said yesterday: "Regulations for smoking within prescribed distances of entrances is coming pretty soon. Exact distances are still to be decided but it will probably be five metres."

But regulating smoking in public areas is not enough for Saloojee.

"Having smoking and non-smoking areas is like have peeing and non-peeing areas in a swimming pool," he said.

Speaking at a conference on cancer in Johannesburg yesterday, Saloojee said the link between smoking and cancer is "so well established that we don't need to do much more work on that".

"The real challenge is what do we do about it?"

Cigarettes, which Saloojee said contained the same products used to make paint stripper, ant poison, vinegar, rocket fuel, mothballs and disinfectant, were linked to an increased risk of contracting 15 types of cancer. They also predispose smokers to medical conditions like impotence, reduced semen quality, and reduced fertility in women.

"But I don't recommend smoking cigarettes as a method of birth control," Saloojee joked.

He said that regulating smoking in the workplace should also apply to domestic workers whose workplace was inside a home.

"There has been a deliberate decision by Parliament to exclude smoking legislation in the home," he said.

During the World Cup, every stadium was a designated non-smoking zone, which Saloojee said was only "partial victory" because right outside stadiums many football fans lit their cigarettes.(Timeslive)

In a ridiculous move the government is now making people walk 5 meters from their workplace's front door to have a smoke. South Africa has had some arbitrary rules in its past. Sticking pencils in people's hair? Welcome to the FIVE METER RULE! I hope the government realises that fining a company in the middle of a world wide financial recession R50000 will bankrupt most small firms. Good luck with that! What happens if a person walks 5 meters from where they work, but now it's right in front of another person's front door? Talk about making one's "own problems" someone else's. Personally I am not particularly fond of people smoking really near me, but this is crazy. Nuts. LOCO. The "doctor" is showing signs of paranoid delusions. No need to joke about unborn children Dr Saloojee... I wish the man would move on and "establish the link between cannabis and cancer", or not as the case may be..

Drunk British tourist falls to his death after night out

A British tourist's last night in Cape Town ended in tragedy when he fell to his death walking up the stairs to his lodgings.

Neil Anthony Woodcock and friends had returned from a celebration at a nearby restaurant to a double-storey Gordon's Bay house at about 11pm on Tuesday when he apparently lost his balance and fell 3.5 metres.

Police spokesman Gert van der Merwe said his friends reported he had been drinking, but didn't say how much, adding: "They also said that he had had heart problems." (from IOL)

Alcohol is JUST ANOTHER DRUG and a dangerous one at that. A heart attack might have killed him, but it's best to just look at the most obvious 3.5metre fall?

Forensic backlogs years long

Backlogs in toxicology testing at South Africa's three skills-strapped forensic laboratories are measured in years, Parliament's health portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.

Briefing members, health department cluster manager Melvyn Freeman said a "reasonable" time frame for toxicology analysis - a service provided to the SA Police Service and National Prosecuting Authority, essential in the investigation of so-called non-natural deaths - was two months.

But responding later to a question from Democratic Alliance MP Mike Waters, he conceded that the actual backlog was much longer than this.

Waters, who paid a visit to the three forensic laboratories in April this year, said the toxicology backlog at the Cape Town laboratory was seven years long; at Johannesburg, eight years; and at Pretoria, four years.

Waters also gave figures for the backlogs in the three laboratories' other key functions - blood alcohol analysis, mainly involving drunk driving; and food analysis.

"On drunken driving... it's between 12 and 16 weeks in Cape Town. In Johannesburg it's three years... By that time the court's thrown the case out and the guy's got away with it. And in Pretoria, it's 16 to 18 weeks.(from IOL)

Netherlands closing prisons due to lack of criminals

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty. (nrchandelsblad)

IF only they were to indulge in a war on drugs like the South African government I am sure they could fill all those empty cells.... It's not as if they don't have enough dope smokers!

Child dies after taking unknown "G-fluid" drug.

A friend of Shane Jonker, the boy who died in a Krugersdorp nightclub at the weekend, apparently told medics they had drunk G-fluid, a type of Ecstasy.

"We should never have drunk that stuff," the friend said at the scene.

The friend referred to the type of Ecstasy in liquid form, Corné Ludick, co-owner of Fahrenheit nightclub in Boltonia said on Monday.

She said when she tried to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she saw white granules, "like when you bite into a Panado", in his mouth.

Ludick says she has known Shane since he was a child, when she did pro bono work for children as a practising advocate.

"He was like part of the furniture here (at the club) and always referred to me as 'his mom'."

According to her, he arrived at the club, where a foam party was being held, shortly before 20:00 on Friday with between five and eight friends.

"We were still throwing shirts into the foam as gifts for the kids when one of his friends went to one of the bouncers and said Shane is lying on the floor."

Ludick carried Shane outside. She has first aid training and immediately checked his pulse and breathing.

"His body was still warm. His pulse was 46/50 and he was still alive.

"Then I saw his airway was blocked.

"I saw white granules in the yellow phlegm in his mouth and wiped it out with a tissue so I could open his airway. While I was doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, one of the guests called Netcare 911."

When the paramedics arrived and questioned his friends, Ludick heard one of them referring to G-liquid.

Shane was declared dead on arrival at the Netcare Krugersdorp hospital.

Police spokesperson Odette van Staden said a preliminary post-mortem was done but further tests are needed.

According to Ludick there was no violence toward any child at the club.

No irregularities or under-18s are allowed at the nightclub, and five security officers search guests for weapons and drugs and check their ID books. (from News24)

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I smell a rat. This the gung ho one sided story of a woman nightclub owner/advocate who has a child die in her club while on drugs. Not even drugs I've heard of mind you. G-fluid? What are we talking here? GHB maybe? No wonder the child is dead if alcohol was around. She found him alive, but his airway was obstructed? BY WHAT? Little granules like Panado doesn't obstruct breathing. If someone's airway is obstructed you have to clear their airway before starting CPR. When did his pulse stop? Where was the party's medic? Or did this woman think she had it all in hand, being first aid trained and all, but standing there with no equipment. And finally.... notice this woman KNOWS about G-fluid?

If anyone who reads this has ever heard of G-fluid please do write in the comments. I would of course check on the CDA's database, but it doesn't exist.

Three cheers for drunk driving Cape Town

The Western Cape has a shocking record for drinking, driving and killing people on our roads. Statistics include:

So far this year nearly 2 000 people have been arrested for driving under the influence in the province. This past weekend alone, 96 people were arrested for drunk driving.

From January to May, 296 people were killed on provincial roads - 87 drivers, 101 passengers and 108 pedestrians, says the Western Cape Department of Transport and Public Works.

"Speeding and drunk driving are the two major causes of road fatalities," said Solly Malatsi, spokesman for the department.

Caro Smit, director and founder of the NGO South Africans Against Drunk Driving (SADD), said "people drink drive in South Africa because they can and they have got away with it for so long". (from IOL)

Nothing strikes harder than IRONY. Not even the strikers!

Premier Helen Zille was struck by the IRONY of SAB being a sponsor in the "War on Poverty"! Why is she struck by this? Has the War on Poverty superceded the War on Drugs? Has she all of a sudden realised that alcohol is a drug and that the Western Cape has a chronic drinking problem?

So what happened? How did South Africa double its alcohol consumption in the incredibly short time of 8 years? In the 1998 it was 10 litres of alcohol per person per annum, but by the 2006 National Drug Master Plan it had climbed to 20 litres!(p.8) The cost of alcohol to the country is beteen R10Billion and R20Billion per annum.(p.5/8) SAB's turnover from South Africa in 2008 was $US4,4Billion while employing 9200 people. Accepting lower figure means each SAB employee COST the country just over a million rand each in damages which the country bears rather than SAB. Whatever happened to product liability?

SAB happened. 200 000 shebeens happened. SAB accounts for 90% of beer sold in South Africa. Quite how SAB beer gets into the shebeens is just a mystery. There is apparently a bootlegging industry:

"One group who may feel marginalised by the normalisation of shebeens are the bootleggers - the independent retail distributors (IRDs), who supply the shebeens. Like the shebeen owners, the IRDs are illegal and in a new dispensation would no longer supply many of the resulting taverns. But necessity is the mother of invention and many IRDs will find alternative outlets to ply their trade. In practical terms, SAB could never supply all shebeens/taverns in the townships." (Financial Mail)

Who are these people selling such large quantities of alcohol to obviously illegal operations? There's no bona fides here.

Who is responsible for alcohol? Surprisingly it's the National Liquor Authority, which is part of the Department of Trade and industry.

If the Department of Trade and Industry knows there are 200 000 shebeens in the country what steps has the NLA taken to close these down? What steps has the NLA taken to find how the shebeens get the stock into their SAB sponsored fridges reserved for SAB products only? And are these not practices not uncompetitive in terms of the law?

Perhaps the National Liquor Authority has some answers for the premier. They have a highly informative FAQ, but it's not what you're thinking. No one is asking what about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? What is the rate now? No one is asking about all the dead pedestrians 60% of whom were blind drunk? (NIMSS 2007) 57% of all violent deaths in South Africa had drunk victims. 50% of all drivers killed were intoxicated. 46% of victims of "other unintentional deaths" were drunk.

The answer might lie in first National Drug Master Plan of 1998 which put alcohol in the care of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The alcohol industry has a public face. Unlike alcohol the website is safe, smiling and non threatening. The website is of course propaganda through and through. For instance the obfuscation regarding whether alcohol causes violence:

"Violence clearly occurs independent of alcohol consumption, even in countries whose populations largely abstain from drinking. For example, both domestic and other violence are prevalent in countries where alcohol consumption is discouraged or forbidden."

I do wonder if the Premier likes her tea "met ys"?

SAB 'irony' strikes Zille

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has been "struck by irony" after discovering the sponsor for a "War on Poverty" event in one of the poorest regions of the Western Cape was South African Breweries.

According to the Premier one of those visited "Was so drunk he could not stand on his feet and kept referring to me as 'baby'."

"When the master of ceremonies moved the vote of thanks for the day's proceedings, I was struck by a final irony.

"The major corporate sponsor of the event was none other than South African Breweries. Go figure." (From News24)

Largest cannabis bust in South Africa for 10 years

East London police seized over four tons of dagga with an estimated value of R5.8 million on Wednesday night in what has been labelled the biggest dagga bust in the area since 2000.

The arrest was made by members of the East London Dog Unit .

“We then took the truck through to East London to the fire brigade and got them to cut open the locks at the back with an angle grinder and found the massive haul of dagga inside,” said Captain Robert Muller

“We suspect it is from deep inside the Transkei and the driver was heading to Cape Town. The N2 is one of the main dagga-smuggling routes in the country.”

Each bale had a unique marking on it, which police said was used by the smugglers to identify who had placed the order.

In total, some 135 bags weighing 4.48tons were removed. The dagga has an estimated value of R5.8 million . “This is easily the biggest consignment of dagga that police have confiscated in the last 10 years,” said police spokesperson Captain Stephen Marais.

Marais said the man would appear in the East London Magistrate’s Court on Monday on a charge of dealing in dagga. (from the Dispatchonline)

Massive cocaine bust in Port Elizabeth

Cocaine with a street value of about R1.4bn, was seized in an "unusual" container at the Ngqura harbour in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday, police said.

"The container was unusual in that it looked like a petrol tank and had a construction with pillars holding it together," police spokesperson Captain Sandra van Rensburg said.

"Inside the container we found 22 000 litres of oil and inside the pillars, the cocaine was hidden."

Police were still trying to establish the amount of drugs in the container. By late on Wednesday afternoon, they weighed out about 100kg, with an estimated street value of about R1.4bn.

Police suspect there was about 250kg of "pure cocaine".

"Right now, we still need to pump oil out of the container to see if there are more pillars inside," said Van Rensburg.

No arrests had been made yet. (from News24)

How was the figure of R1.4billion was reached? If you divide that by the price of cocaine per kilogram (R350000) you get to 4000kgs!!! IF it is pure cocaine it can be cut into three for sale and the total drug amount is 750kg's at R350000/kg which only amounts to R262million. Either way there is some funny SAPS maths going on.

The police are highly premature in announcing their "find" before they have made any arrests. Perhaps they got all "chatty" once they had handled and played with 100 kg's of cocaine and they just couldn't keep it IN any more.

Zille, Motlanthe's boozy welcome

Drunken residents opened the doors of two of the first three houses visited by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Western Cape premier Helen Zille during a door-to-door visit to two Plettenberg Bay townships yesterday.

In one house the householder kept calling Zille "baby".

Motlanthe is on a countrywide anti-poverty campaign driven by the Presidency.

They were welcomed by drunken residents in KwaNokuthula, where houses are supplied by the government.

In one house, a 47-year-old woman told the delegation that she was unemployed and asked if the government could provide her with food parcels. She said until two months ago the family had lived on their 89-year-old mother's pension grant, but she died in June.

The woman, who is also HIV-positive, is getting free anti-retrovirals from the state.

Zille said she was shocked by the levels of alcohol abuse. In the case of this woman, the state had done all it could do. "It has provided a pension, medical care and housing."

In another house, Zille found a couple who complained about unemployment, but they were so drunk that the man kept addressing Zille as "baby".

- Cape Argus

Embedded reporters join war on drugs

On Thursday the Cape Argus accompanied police as they raided two suspected drug houses and a brothel in Woodstock. The first house raided was in Church Street, at 11.15am. (from IOL)

No mention made of search warrants., just more one sided propaganda. It's as if the journalists have all stopped thinking.

Whatever happened to decriminalising cannabis?

For those of you NOT in the know, the 1998 National Drug Master Plan called for the decriminalisation of cannabis to be investigated (page 18). It's 2010 now. So what happened?

In 2006 the new National Drug Master Plan was rolled out and "decriminalisation" and other "harm reduction measures" just dropped right out.


Whatever happened to the call for decriminalisation? The government DID do a study called the "South African Cannabis Position paper". It is NONSENSE and it's available here. The government hasn't released the document mind you. That would be too embarrassing. The paper would have you believe that cannabis smokers can hold their breaths for "minutes"!! The paper is defective primarily because it failed to properly examine the "harm done by cannabis." Just how many deaths are we talking? None I tell you. I wish I could bring you good news, but the sad reguritated propaganda produced by people singing for their supper is what we have to deal with.

So there you have it. Decriminalisation has gone NOWHERE.

Decriminalisation is not the answer though. Decriminalisation is bad for the law. Decriminalisation means that the police just get to "ignore" the law - usually when involving small amounts only. This is bullshit. Imagine a law stating you were not allowed to carry more than 6 beers at a time? If you've got a seventh one the police can arrest you. It doesn't make sense. Decriminalisation is based on a lie. The law is wrong and the law has to change. The prohibition of cannabis has ruined thousands of lives and with the police now getting big pats on the back for each arrest the rate of injustices perpetrated is accelerating.

On a personal note two weeks ago a friend of mine was caught in possession by 5 policemen. When they weren't expecting it he jumped over the handcuffs, grabbed the joint and ate it. The cops didn't take too kindly to this and beat the shit out of him and then maced him while he was lying on the ground. All this for a joint? I ask you.

Leading doctor urges decriminalisation of drugs

One of the UK's leading doctors said today the government should consider decriminalising drugs because the blanket ban has failed to cut crime or improve health.

"I'm not saying we should make heroin available to everyone, but we should be treating it as a health issue rather than criminalising people," said Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians.

"This could drastically reduce crime and improve health," said Gilmore, who added that drugs should still be regulated. (from the Guardian)