Cars ruin everything

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Reallocating $30M does seem like weasel piss.

The report doesn’t offer a specific dollar number but if we look at what’s successful overseas and take into account the number of people needing help, NZ would probably need more like $100M/yr to be on par.

It will be an even bigger cost if we wait for it to grow more entrenched in society. New black markets for stolen goods grow and become systemic parts of the problem. When someone knows they can get a hit for a stolen bicycle, it becomes much harder to prevent bike thefts.

I wonder if there is a tracker somewhere for the number of thefts per region over time?

“Surely there must be more we can do! Have you tried creating incentive structures that ensure the cost of housing is unaffordable?”

This is not an exciting way to activate a voter base that had previously lost confidence.

It’s a bit too vague at this point to understand how they might roll it out but in the meantime we can look at what our neighbour does:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Fund

drugs, alcohol and speed.

That sounds like a party!

Reminds me of the 2015 film "The 5th Eye"

From imdb:

A priest, a teacher and a farmer breach the security of a NZ spy base in Waihopai and deflate a satellite dish dome to draw attention to NZ co-operation with illegal US wars. The extent and implications of mass government surveillance.

See the trailer at NZ On Screen.

Yeah, it's all fallen out of patent and generics are available. Dr. John David Sinclair did a lot of research in the 80s and devised "The Sinclair Method". I've seen it work to disrupt decades of entrenched behaviour. It might not be the silver bullet but it's definitely a stepping stone in the right direction.

The winning point from my perspective is that the person is usually instructed to take the pill and continue to drink normally, which almost anyone is willing to try. Continued drinking is actually how the pill works, it dulls to "reward" which means that the drinking behaviour isn't reinforced. Over time, the brain rewires itself to forget that "alcohol = good". The drinking behaviour must continue to achieve the rewiring. Then over time, the person just stops caring about alcohol so much.

There's a TEDx talk if you want to hear someone talking about their personal experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EghiY_s2ts

But in New Zealand, despite efforts by governments, councils and individuals, sustained increases in the use of alternative modes of transport remain elusive.

The article links to a 2023 Auckland census. Anecdotally, when I ask my Auckland friends if they ride to work, they share horror stories about riding in the city.

The article then goes on to showcase a success story in Christchurch where the council invested in cycle ways and better transit while the university also worked to encourage alternative modes of transportation.

Perhaps they the article should have said "Auckland" instead of "New Zealand" in that sentence.

It's only fair to mention that I took the bite out of the pizza. It didn't come that way.

I am mostly just surprised at how few mushrooms there are.

From Schedule 5 of the legislation:

• 3 ng/ml is the "high-risk blood concentration level" for THC.
• 1 ng/ml is the "tolerance blood concentration level" for THC.

What is the difference?

Medsafe says:

Schedule 5 has two blood concentration levels for each listed qualifying drug: tolerance and high-risk.

Exceeding the lower level (tolerance) is an infringement and could result in a fine or licence demerit points.

Exceeding the higher level (high-risk) could result in a criminal charge and the driver may be disqualified from driving or sentenced to prison.

To get an idea of what other countries are doing see https://www.ncids.org/2021/marijuana-impairment-faq/

How long can THC be detected in the blood after ingestion of marijuana?

“Low THC levels of a few nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) in blood can result from relatively recent use (e.g., smoking within 1 – 3 hours) when some slight or even moderate impairment is likely to be present, or it can result from chronic use where no recent ingestion has occurred and no impairment is present.” - Compton at p. 7.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be on the road with a bunch of stoned people but it seems pretty bleak to me. A medical user could definitely hit 1ng/ml without being impaired.

There is another RNZ story on this from 11 Oct.

I really like:

Okay kids, we're going to take a nap and then when we wake up we're going to clean the house!

They nap for ages...