Mission & Justice

4/6/08

The heads of Australia’s four main alcohol manufacturing and distribution companies have rejected moves to put health warnings on liquor containers. News Limited newspapers report the booze barons who control Australia’s $26 billion drinks industry say drunks are responsible for their own actions. But they’ve admitted binge drinking is a serious problem facing Australian society. “Too many Australians save up their drinking for one big binge,” Foster’s chief executive Trevor Hoy said.

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Shadiah Abdullah; 28/6/08

The number of drug cases in Dubai increased by 37.6 percent during the first five months of this year compared to the same period last year. Announcing the figures during a symposium to mark the World Anti-Narcotics Day, Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar Al-Mazeina, acting chief of Dubai police, said that 142 suspects — mostly from the African continent or South Asia — were arrested in the same period in connection with the smuggled drugs. Al-Mazeina said the busts included 60 kilograms of heroin with a street value of AED30 million and 10 kilos of cocaine worth AED5 million. Dubai police work closely with other law enforcement agencies to catch smugglers who use the UAE as a major transit point for drugs destined for the Middle East countries and other destinations, including East Asia.

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Colum Lynch; 28/6/08

Afghan opium poppy cultivation grew 17% last year, according to the 2008 World Drug Report, released by the United Nations. It continues a six-year expansion of the country’s drug trade and increasing its share of global opium production to more than 92%. Afghanistan’s emergence as the world’s largest supplier of opium and heroin represents a serious setback to US policy in the region. The opium trade has soared since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, which had eradicated almost all of the country’s opium poppies. The proceeds from the illicit trade are helping finance a resurgent Taliban battling US and allied troops.

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Mark Forbes; 28/6/08

Two Nigerian drug traffickers were handcuffed to poles in Indonesia early on Friday morning and shot by firing squads, after announcements that drug executions would be expedited, alarming lawyers for three Australians on death row. Colin McDonald, lawyer for Bali heroin courier Scott Rush, said he would travel to Jakarta next week to formulate new moves to overturn his client’s death sentence. The executions of Hansen Anthony Nwaolisa and Samuel Iwuchukwu Okoye near their prison in Central Java were a grim reminder of the urgency of the convicted Australians’ plight, Mr McDonald said. They are the first drug offenders to be executed in Indonesia in four years, following a call by Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji and police chief Sutanto to accelerate executions as a warning to those involved in the drug trade.

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27/6/08

Indonesia is to speed up the execution process for drug traffickers, in a major blow for three Australians on death row for heroin smuggling. As authorities prepared for the executions last night of two Nigerian heroin smugglers, Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji said other drug offenders on death row could expect their cases to be expedited. “They are all still in the (legal) process and will be accelerated according to existing regulations,” the Antara news agency quoted him as saying. The head of Indonesia’s anti-drugs body said executions must take place more quickly to deter the traffickers. “To give them a lesson, drug traffickers must be executed immediately,” said police chief and anti-narcotics chairman General Sutanto.

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24/6/08; Health and drug experts are backing a call from the Greens for the NSW Government to follow Victoria’s lead and consider mandatory health warnings on “alcopops” laced with high doses of stimulants. Consumer Affairs Victoria is investigating allegations of misleading and deceptive conduct over the marketing of ready-to-drink, high-energy, alcoholic drinks. The Australian Drug Foundation says the drinks are turning many young people into “wide-awake drunks” with delusions of sobriety, placing them at double the risk of injury and dangerous behaviour. The foundation’s chief executive, John Rogerson, has described the combination of alcohol and stimulants such as caffeine and guarana as a highly dangerous cocktail of drugs, while Victoria’s Minister for Consumer Affairs, Tony Robinson, has issued public warnings about the adverse effects of alcoholic energy drinks.

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Susan Maushart 21/6/08;

“Gay! Gay!” shriek the children like some baleful Greek chorus, their kohl-rimmed eyes ablaze with pity. I cover the receiver. “Gay, straight, or scallop-edged, I’m making this phone call,” I hiss. (These days, the word “gay” has nothing to do with sexuality, they insist. Now it just means “loser”. Phew. For a moment there I was worried 40 years of civil rights activism had been in vain.) Teenagers hate it when parents confer about their social arrangements, but in my experience there is strength in collective paranoia.

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21/6/08

One drink driver every three minutes was caught in a massive blitz on motorists in central Melbourne overnight. Police said 105 drivers were found to be over the legal limit, with two motorists also busted for drug-driving during the blitz on vehicles leaving the CBD and inner suburbs. A 37-year-old Glen Iris woman with a blood-alcohol reading of .293 and a 42-year-old Dandenong man who blew .216 were the worst offenders breath-tested as part of Operation Southern Arc.

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Stephen Lunn; 20/6/08

Children as young as two pick up attitudes to alcohol consumption from their parents that will shape their drinking patterns as adults. Yet the vast majority of parents continue to believe their own drinking has no influence on their children. Child psychologist John Irvine said children began at the age of two to mimic their parents’ activities, be it mopping the floor or holding a drink. “At that age they become aware of what the main people in their life do,” Dr Irvine told The Australian yesterday. “It is a survival mechanism. They can’t experience everything so they rely on cues from their parents to stay safe. “About 90per cent of what they learn from parents isn’t from being told, it’s from how they’re told or from the actions of the mum and dad.”

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19/6/08

Six days of walking over rough terrains with huge mountain bags and the determination to finish their trip in Port Moresby, ended all wrong. The seven men spent a good part of this week in the Boroko police cells. What warranted the nightmare was the busting of 79.14 kilograms of marijuana, a big bust according to the drug squad police. On April 8 the seven youths from Kintunu and Netasi village in Henganofi, harvested, dried and packed the marijuana for the trip. The drugs either concealed in farmset bags, rice bags, boxes or black plastic, were compressed, wound and taped.

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