Where there’s smoke, there’s sugar
If there’s one thing Dirty Politics has made clear, it’s that astroturfing (masking who’s really behind the message) is alive and well in New Zealand. Keith Ng reports.
Most people with addiction simply grow out of it: why is this widely denied?
The idea that addiction is a chronic, progressive disease that requires treatment doesn't hold up to the evidence. Maia Szalavitz.argues the ‘ageing out’ experience of the majority is ignored by treatment providers and journalists.
A remarkable lifetime achievement
Tihi Puanaki – a driving force behind award-winning kapa haka group Te Kotahitanga for more than four decades – has just won a Lifetime Achievement award at this year’s Pride of NZ Awards.
Our ‘psycho’ psychoactive substances legislation
New Zealand’s Psychoactive Substances Act has been described as world leading. But in 2014, public moral apoplexy and political disquiet resulted in a reversal of what the legislation was designed to achieve.
A court that heals
Offenders opting to come under New Zealand’s first Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court choose a stretch of healing, rather than jail time. It’s hard work for everyone, but it’s paying off. Keri Welham visits the Alcohol and Other Drug Tr
Nov 1 2014
Drug Policy Briefing to the Incoming Parliament 2014
The Briefing to the Incoming Parliament (BIP), a policy brief prepared by the Drug Foundation for all parliamentarians, was publicly released 8 December 2014.
About a drug: Methamphetamine
Amphetamine, meth’s parent drug, was first synthesised in Berlin in 1887 by Romanian chemist Lazâr Edeleanu, but its potency as a central nervous system stimulant wasn’t really discovered until 1927.
Q&A: I’m Lotta. I’m an alcoholic.
Lotta Dann, the journalist wife of TVNZ political editor Corin Dann and a mother of three, has outed herself as a recovering alcoholic and released a book, Mrs D is Going Without, which has quickly become a bestseller.
Mythbusters: Substance and substantiation
Tobacco plain packaging laws are an experiment that hasn’t worked. Tobacco companies claim the new law has led to a booming black market for cheap cigarettes instead of stamping out smoking.