ASP News & Updates

Bureaucrats, beagles and backlash: What can we learn about a regulated “legal high” market 3 months into New Zealand’s novel approach?

Details: Published on Monday, 11 November 2013 22:58

Ross Bell, Executive Director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, will provide an update about New Zealand’s world-first attempt to regulate New Psychoactive Substances. Ross will highlight some of the devils that have been found in the details of implementing a new regulatory regime, including public backlash during the transition phase, delays in promulgating regulations and the matter of determining risk using animal testing. Talk open to all. No charge.
Friday, 15 November 2013 - 11:00am
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre 22-32 King Street Randwick NSW 2031

http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/event/bureaucrats-beagles-and-backlash-what-can-we-learn-about-regulated-“legal-high”-market-3

Advice for Recreational Drug Users

Details: Published on Wednesday, 30 October 2013 05:29

Eros Association Researcher, Nick Wallis

Drug prohibition in Australia is blindly lurching its way toward new lows. Queensland, New South Wales and now South Australia have all introduced extensive drug prohibition laws based on this century’s ‘Reefer Madness’ - the Synthetic Scare. This has in turn led to a chemical arms race, a battle of innovation between legislators and chemists.

What on Earth is a ‘synthetic drug’, anyway? And what’s it got to do with the price of fish apart from being a political Red Herring.

Let’s clarify a few of the terms used in the debate.

Something is defined as ‘synthetic’ if it has simply been created by the combination of two or more parts. Although this can happen naturally, we assume in this context that we are referring to things that have been created by humans. This means that a synthetic drug is any drug that humans have created, rather than harvested directly from an organism. How many of your medicines do you think were harvested directly from an organism? Unless you’re a purely herbal remedies sort of person, then the answer is: Hardly any.

The Greens Vs The Micro Party Alliance

Details: Published on Wednesday, 30 October 2013 05:20

New Matilda.com | Robbie Swan

During the last federal election campaign the Greens waged a campaign against anyone whose preferencing they didn’t like - and the strategy backfired, argues the Sex Party’s Robbie Swan.

Not since the People for Nuclear Disarmament party (led by Peter Garrett) were done over by the Socialist Workers in the mid 1980s, has there been a war of such intensity among left-leaning and progressive minor parties as there is now.

Sensing a lack of support prior to the latest federal election, and desperate to hold on to their seats, the Greens developed a strategy to rope in as many votes as they could that were floating around just outside their reach on the progressive spectrum. They adopted a “take no prisoners” approach and attacked parties that up until now were considered “friendly” and “feeders” in terms of preference flows.

Sex Party hot on ALP's heels for Senate spot

Details: Published on Monday, 16 September 2013 00:38

The Sex Party is within a nudge and a wink of getting a senator up in Tasmania, with party co-founder Robbie Swan running third on preferences behind the Liberal Party and the Palmer United Party.

Mr Swan faces stiff competition from Labor, but if he manages to overtake its vote, he could slip in to the Senate on fewer than 5000 primary votes, with Labor preferences pushing him ahead of the conservative parties.

At the close of counting on Friday afternoon, the Sex Party was about 300 votes behind Labor, after preferences. The result would be an extraordinary outcome for Mr Swan, who splits his time between Canberra and Melbourne.

He said he would move to Tasmania ''in a flash'' if elected, and said one of his priorities would be to lobby for legal marijuana crops to be grown in Tasmania, alongside poppy fields.

Faulty fax machine blamed in Sex Party spat over Senate seat

Details: Published on Monday, 16 September 2013 00:31

A malfunctioning fax machine might have cost the Sex Party its first seat in the Senate.

An argument has broken out between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Australia on one side and the Sex Party over a failure to lodge group voting tickets with the Australian Electoral Commission.

Liberal Democrat leader David Leyonhjelm said his party’s tickets for Victoria were not lodged by the required deadline because a wrong number was dialled on a fax machine.

The fax machine then chewed up the documents.

The list of preferences, known as the group voting ticket, needed to be lodged to allow the party to qualify for an above-the-line box on the ballot paper in Victoria.

Video: Sex Party Drug Policy Reform

Details: Published on Wednesday, 04 September 2013 00:02

Vicki Nash - Sex Party Candidate for McEwen in the 2013 federal election explains her take on drug legislation, and the best way she sees for Australia to move forward.

The Australian Sex Party: (Safe) sex and (legal) drugs

Details: Published on Tuesday, 03 September 2013 23:50

In time for SEXtember, Meld is talking sex and politics! Leon Saw discusses the Australian Sex Party, legal drugs for Australians and safe sex for international students – with the leader of the Australian Sex Party and Australian Senate candidate for Victoria, Fiona Patten.

Whatever your first impressions, there’s more to meets the eye with the Australian Sex Party. Formed in 2009, this small yet well organised political party is not one to shy away from the contentious issues of the day.

That’s because the Sex Party is basically a civil libertarian party, once you look past its unusual name.

“We’re a civil liberties party and our policies go broader than just sex,” says the leader of the Australian Sex Party and Australian Senate candidate for Victoria, Fiona Patten.

Governments seem to think that the best way to address something is to create more laws around it, and whether that’s business or individuals, and I think business and individuals are backing away from that. They’re saying actually that’s not the answer. – Fiona Patten, leader of the Australian Sex Party.

Laying Down For What Matters - Internationally!

Details: Published on Monday, 02 September 2013 08:34

The Australian Sex Party Federal Election campaign has been making an impact in every state and territory, and now it's having an impact overseas.

Last week Nevena Spirovska (Sex Party candidate for Calwell) and Adrian Trajstman (Sex Party candidate for Wills) featured in a video called 'Laying Down For What Matters' (inspired by John and Yoko) that detailed why they are running for Parliament.

Sex Party's euthanasia ad banned from television

Details: Published on Monday, 02 September 2013 05:10

The Australian Sex Party has released a commercial promoting voluntary euthanasia ahead of the 2013 election.

A series of election commercials made by the Australian Sex Party have been banned from running on television just days before it was due to air.

The ads, which simply features the words "voluntary euthanasia", breach the guidelines set by Commercials Advice (CAD) as they were deemed to promote suicide.

Guidelines from CAD, a division of FreeTV Australia, state commercials must not depict "realistic methods of suicide, or promotion or encouragement of suicide".

A 15-second advertisement titled "Dying With Dignity" features Australian Sex Party president Fiona Patten and a pitch about the party's core theme: "A vote for more freedom and less government".

But what has irked the Sex Party so much is that CAD initially approved the ads for broadcast in early August, only to backflip and ban them 48 hours before they were due to air on Sunday unless they were amended.

Labor MP creates second how-to-vote card 'to avoid upsetting Jewish voters'

Details: Published on Monday, 02 September 2013 00:32

Labor MP Michael Danby has become embroiled in a spat over voting preferences after downgrading the Sex party from first preference position on his how-to-vote cards to avoid offending Orthodox Jews.

Danby, MP for Melbourne Ports since 1998, created two different how-to-vote cards, with one specifically aimed at Orthodox Jewish voters.

Campaign literature seen by Guardian Australia places Melissa Star, the Sex party candidate, in the top preference slot, ahead of Steven Armstrong of the Stable Population party and Margaret Quinn of the Rise Up Australia party.

A second how-to-vote card, distributed at pre-polling booths, relegates Star to ninth position, switching places with Family First's Robert Keenan, who is pushed up to first preference position.

Danby, who holds Melbourne Ports with a comfortable 7.9% margin, told Guardian Australia that the move was designed to avoid upsetting Orthodox Jews.

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