Alcoholism

ᔥ NZ Herald

…or banning the use performance enhancing drugs:

Russian athletes might have to be sneaky if they want to celebrate a medal with a traditional vodka at this year’s Olympics.

The Russian government announced today that alcohol will be banned during all receptions involving officials and athletes at the London Games.

Russian newspaper Kommersant reported the story under the headline ‘Stone Cold Sober’.

“Olympic values are not commensurate with the consumption of alcohol,” a spokeswoman for Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak told the newspaper, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Poor performances at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 has been cited as a reason behind the booze ban.

The NZ Herald has run a story about a Mana Party volunteer who crashed his car into a family and is now in hospital in a coma, unlikely to ever recover.

The article raises more questions than it answers.

Awanui is a small place and the street where Hone Harawira lives is even smaller…my sources tell me that the accident occurred less than 1km from his house, where a pre-wedding party was in full swing and had been all day. The article supports the distance being short from the party:

Members of the Harawira family, who were partying at home ahead of a family wedding, ran to help in the aftermath of the accident.

Is it really believable that Joseph “Reti” Nathan was never at Hone’s house during the day. Hone Harawira is adamant that he was “never” at his house….a Mana party activist, in Awanui where a party is being held full of Mana party people and he was “never” there….yet smashed his car just 1km away necessitating Mana party people to run to the scene…not to save Joseph or assist in the rescue of the poor bastards he drove into…no instead they ran to retrieve a flag:

…Mana Party members were waiting at the cordon wanting to retrieve a flag in the back of Nathan’s car but were restrained by police.

So, let’s get this straight…Hone says Nathan wasnt at the party or his house at all yet moments after the accident Mana party people and Hone’s family are running towards the accident…to retrieve a flag…How did they know there was a flag in the car of the person who was never there, or that the person who was never there had been involved in an accident less than 1km from the house he was never at.

My local sources also tell me that the reason this story has taken a month to get out was because of a culture of intimidation. The local media initially ran a story but have been told to remain silent. People are now all singing from the same song sheet in a Kahui style culture of silence.

Which is all in stark contrast from Hone Harawira’s public stance on the evils of alcohol:

Mr Speaker, today is Armistice Day – the day we remember the deaths of soldiers and civilians sacrificed on the altar of war and greed.

And today we also remember the deaths of soldiers and civilians sacrificed on the altar of ignorance, drunkenness, profit, greed, and government’s ongoing unwillingness to put an end to the destruction visited upon our communities by alcohol in all its pernicious and evil forms.

And today we remember the families who bear the scars of lives lost to cirrhosis of the liver, cancer, depression, alcoholism and heart disease, and those families suffering the lasting effects of drunk driving, and alcohol-related falls, drownings, poisoning, assault, injury, and foetal alcohol syndrome.

There is more to this story, and I suspect that the Herald on Sunday has withheld some information because there is now a wall of silence from all involved. Hone Harawira needs to come clean on what happened that day.

Why didn’t someone stop a mate from driving drunk…no legends up North apparently:

The Atlantic has some scientific cures for hangovers and the reasoning behind them:

Drinking a lot of water is the biggest and most obvious preventative measure and cure. That’s because the main thing happening in your body when you have a hangover is that you’re dehydrated. Alcohol, as we’ve established, is a diuretic, and most of what you lose when you pee is water. In fact, that George Mason article contains this terrifying little gem about where that hangover headache comes from: “The body’s organs will attempt to replenish their own water, usually by stealing water from the brain, which causes it to decrease in size and pull on the membranes which connect it to the skull, which in turn results in a headache.” Shudder. So outside of drinking water, and sports drinks, a good option comes in soup broth, which will also replentish your sodium intake.

I saw a number of articles on the weekend about people being offended. There was the case of the woman upset at drinking games being sold:

The sale of a drinking game by major retail stores has been labelled irresponsible and as promoting excessive drinking.

Masterton woman Lyn McDonald said she was disappointed to see drinking games on sale in several local stores.

“I just thought that given the reputation us Kiwis have got with drinking, I don’t think they should be selling them,” she said.

“I don’t understand where the responsibility is in promoting drinking games when [alcohol is] a dangerous substance.”

Mrs McDonald said with so much information about the negative effects of alcohol, the sale of drinking games seemed inappropriate.

Of course there were also people offended at Jeremy Clarkson’s comments on suicide and a major union has called for his sacking because they are offended at his comments about striking workers.

There are far too many people having a whinge and cry about being offended. Here is a little video to help them with their affliction.

Tv3 ran a news story last night about a supposed alcohol problem amongst our troops in the NZDF.

They cited 500 drinking related offences over 5 years. That is just 100 per year out of total of 10,000 troops or just 1%. They have 61 bars, that’s one and half bar incidents a year per bar. What a massive beat-up of a non-problem. Who are the wowsers that fed this crap to to 3News?

It is a massive over reaction and actually poor reporting on the part of 3 News.

When you compare the NZDF with the rest of New Zealand it is actually the rest of New Zealand that has the drinking problem not the NZDF.

In New Zealand a third of crimes in 2007-2008 were carried out by a person affected by alcohol and in serious offences, such as homicides, it was about half of cases.

Each year police here take 21,000 drunk people home or to the cells because they cannot remember where they live.

In fact if you look at Police crime statistics you can see public disorder offences (like disorderly conduct) which are highly likely to involve alcohol for the past year were well over 40,000, for just one year.

500 offences by the NZDF over 5 years seems small beer if you ask me. A total beat-up by 3News, they should actually apologise to the NZDF.

The Clown of Campbells Bay is unrepentant about this late night drunken emails about me and Dad.

He is unrepentant about his insults to all sufferers of depression and he is in denial.

I have to face my demons every day and do so in a most public way, Andrew Williams should face up to his demons and try to do so without facing them through the bottom of a bottle.

Never once in all my attacks has he come clean, despite every one of them proving true. The Clown of Campbells Bay refuses to address his wrong-doings instead preferring to blame his bad press on everyone but himself.

There are around 50 days left in this local body campaign and I promise him that there is a post a day about his excesses, his drinking and his stupidity.

He should apologise to sufferers of mental health issues and make a donation via John Kirwan to a suitable charity then resign. Now ll I need is a calendar of his public appearances to make sure I front foot this outrage of a person at each and every occasion.

I’m confused. Just a bare few months ago we had Geoffrey Palmer, wearing his Law Commission hat, recommending draconian changes to our liquor laws, allegedly because of our “binge drinking” culture.

Then the Government is said to be considering raising the drinking age from 18  to 20, despite the party voting resoundingly to oppose such a move at its National conference.

And just last week we had Steven Joyce announce changes to drink driving laws adding even more confusion around the drinking age. Essentially the government is saying that at 18 you can drink, but you can’t drive with any alcohol in your system until your are aged 20 years.

This is all horribly confusing. To make matters worse the Government administration select committee yesterday heard submissions on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill which would make it easier to grant urgent approvals for temporary activities and facilities during the tournament.

So on one hand we have the Law Commission saying we have a binge drinking culture and on the other a government enabling quicker licensing for booze premises for the World Cup.

Mixed messages? I think so. Or perhaps there is a fair bit of lobbying going on behind the scenes filling the coffers of the lobbyists. Who would know?

I think for once the government has got it right on drink driving.

They have announced today that there is to be a zero alcohol limit for driver under 20 and for repeat offenders of drink driving.

Government changes creating a zero drink-drive limit for under 20 and recidivist drink drivers found widespread support this afternoon, but both the Labour Party and an alcohol watchdog say the moves don’t go far enough.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce today announced a zero drink drive limit for recidivist drink drivers and drivers aged under 20 from early next year.

It will be imposed on drivers after their second drink driving conviction and is likely to last three years after their disqualification period ends.

But the Government didn’t lower the legal adult blood-alcohol limit from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to 50 milligrams.

Mr Joyce said that the Government will first do some New Zealand-specific research on the level of risk posed by drivers with a blood alcohol limit between 0.05 and 0.08.

I think they have got the balance right here. I’m not convinced on the general limit being lowered, but then I don’t drink and drive at all. If I am driving then i don’t touch a drop. Having a zero limit for recidivists is a brilliant move, though i suspect the drunks will still roll out thinking they can run the gauntlet…they have already proven their mental incapacity by driving drunk in the first place.

It seems that the public agree with the changes as well, especially for under 20 drivers. The Herald poll that goes with the story shows that 91% of respondents agree with the government. Labour of course disagrees, like the idiots they are.

But Labour said the Government had attempted to kick the issue of drink driving into touch by postponing a decision.

Labour’s transport safety spokeswoman Darien Fenton said the Government had failed to act decisively over the issue.

“Anything that will save lives on our roads is worth doing,” he said.

Darien Fenton is a miserable wench. She has a perpetual smack bum look about her that even the most talented photoshopper would have trouble fixing. Glad to see she is advocating the removal of all vehicles from the road, I hope Labour takes that position into the election, after all having no vehicles would definitely save lives and Darien Fenton thinks that is worth doing.

In other road related matters I had an email from an expert in roading matters who suggested, in relation to doddery old fools driving the wrong way down motorways, that the matter could be solved easily.

Surely the way would be to ban all traffic on motorways unless it is travelling on the wrong side.

This would deal with the difficulties 83 year old unlicenced drivers have, and would also allow us to import left hand drive cars to capitalise on the change.

In one quick move we could legalise Chevy Suburbans and Cadillac Escalades to allow more greens to be carried in one vehicle.

Then we could be like Samoa.