Fiona Patten, CEO of the Eros Association & Leader of the Australian Sex Party will be speaking at the second Yarra Drug and Health Forum Community Forum for 2012: ‘Kronic Hysteria: emerging drugs, the internet and the consequences of legislative controls’

Fiona will be presenting “Synthetic Cannabinoids: An Industry and Consumer Perspective”

Time/Venue:
Monday April 16th 2pm - 4pm The Reading Room - Fitzroy Town Hall – Napier Street

Themes:
• By tweaking the molecular structure of banned chemicals, new drugs have been developed that circumvent the law – or at least require the scrutinising of legislation.
• These new drugs are often professionally packaged and have been marketed online using social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
• Some of these products, such as synthetic cannabis (e.g., Kronic, Northern Lights, etc.), have been available in herbal high shops, tobacconists and adult stores.
• While clinical cases of psychosis and dependence have been reported, most use of synthetic cannabis produces no serious harm according to user reports.
• The availability of the products has created legislative chaos as authorities scramble to grapple with this phenomenon.
• What does the evidence and research have to say? How should we deal with these emergent drugs?

Other Speakers:
Stephen Bright – Psychologist at Peninsula Health & Coordinator of Addiction Studies at Curtin University: “Not for Human Consumption: Plant Food, Bath Salts, Room Deodorisers, and Everything In-between”

Monica Barratt – Research Fellow at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University: “Patterns of Synthetic Cannabinoid Use and Legislative Impacts: Results from an Online Survey of 432 Australians”

After the final presentation there will be questions and discussion in a panel format. This will be followed by afternoon tea and networking.

RSVP by April 11th please for catering purposes: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Australian Sex Party president, Fiona Patten, will be speaking at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention.

She will be on a panel speaking on the intersection of Religion & Politics. Other speakers will include Dick Gross, Colleen Hartland and Marion Maddox. The moderator will be Derek Guille. This event will be held at 10.55am on Saturday the 14th of April. You can view the entire program of the convention here.

Details:
A Celebration of Reason
2012 Global Atheist Convention
13 - 15 April 2012
Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre
Click here to book tickets.

Let’s talk about SEX!

Event date: Thursday 12 April 2012 - 07:30pm to 09:00pm
Book tickets for this event.

Sex is a natural bodily process, yet most are hesitant to talk about their experiences. Why? Meet our panel of “sexperts” including Sex Party president Fiona Patten, as they discuss sexual wellbeing.

The event will include an early screening of ABC TV’s Catalyst sex special. Interstate Catalyst viewers can join the discussion online.

It’s going to get hot in here! Rated 18+.

Free, but booking required

More tickets have been released, but hurry the number of seats is limited. If the event becomes fully booked you can place your name on the waitlist you may be offered a ticket should more become available.

The event will also be livestreamed.

Source: RiAus

The Parliamentary Christian Fellowship is a non-party political group of strongly Christian MPs in the federal parliament, who meet unofficially to discuss politics, parliamentary life and faith. Way back in 2004, the convener, Bruce Baird, put its membership at 60 out of a total number of 226 federal MPs.

However, one of his religious colleagues (who did not want to be named) said the figure was more like 75. Talk among non-religious members of the Press Gallery now suggests that there may be as many as 90. This means that the percentage of highly religious MPs in the parliament could easily be around 40 per cent.

The latest National Church Life Survey quotes a figure of 9 per cent of Australians who are regular weekly churchgoers. This could roughly be said to equate with the degree of religiosity evinced by most members of the PCF. This means that these people are over-represented in the parliament by four times that of the general community.

The PCF represents an important gauge on how far religion has infiltrated Australian politics in recent years. Membership of this group means you go to church every week and go down on your knees to an all-powerful, patriarchal God.

You probably say grace before meals at home, mostly believe in some sort of virgin birth, believe that the Bible is the literal word of God and believe in some sort of creationism or a ‘hand-made’ human rather than an evolved one.

In 2010 when Eros lobbyist, Robbie Swan, asked the Chair of the House of Reps ‘Billboard’ Committee, Graeme Perrett, for members on the Committee to declare their religious affiliations, 80 per cent of them said they were religious. A week later when he fronted a Senate Committee on Censorship, his request was denied by the religious Chair, Guy Barnett. However it was clear that 70 – 80 per cent of this Committee was comprised of medium to highly religious MPs