John Jiggens | Politician
John Jiggens
Reviews
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14.01.2022 On the war on ice and regulating MDMA (Drug Law Reform Launch Sun June 19 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2pzGzn-IIE
13.01.2022 https://www.facebook.com/events/599067320251123/come along and here Dr Jiggens and the other candidates I also need help with how-to-vote cards. If you can help message me.
08.01.2022 The example of Dr Pot (Nimbin Goodtimes article) The latest casualty in the war on the underground medical cannabis community in Australia is Dr Andrew Katelari...s, aka Dr Pot, a medical cannabis pioneer, who has been languishing in various NSW prisons since December 5, 2017. Dr Katelaris has been charged with multiple offences, including supplying commercial quantities of a prohibited drug and manufacturing and producing a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug, charges which could see him jailed for decades. His wife, Maria Katelaris, said, Andrew has been lobbying for decades to decriminalise a plant, namely cannabis, and in the process he's become criminalised himself. She says that, for the crimes of the compassionate use of cannabis and for being decades ahead of NSW laws on medical cannabis, Dr Katelaris is being treated by the NSW police and the Department of Public Prosecutions (the DPP) as a major criminal. Nimbin people are familiar with Dr Katelaris who regularly speaks at Mardi Grass and at medical cannabis workshops and they know that he is not a big drug dealer, as the police charges imply. Katelaris has been a pioneer in the legalising of cannabis debate forever. Governments claim that since medicinal cannabis has been legalised in Australia, the black market in cannabis medicines must be suppressed. Michael Balderstone of the Hemp Embassy disputes this: We are in a position now in Australia where cannabis is sounding from the politicians like it's legal but in fact it's now virtually impossible to get it legally, so a lot of people are risking their necks to help people access medical cannabis. Maria Katelaris points out that governments haven't legislated for a moratorium for those who supplied medical cannabis before the alleged legalisation and who continue to supply it to tens of thousands of patients who cannot obtain the extremely scarce legal cannabis. Because there is no amnesty, Andrew's fallen right between the cracks, she said. Suppressing the medicinal cannabis insurrection Before 2016 all medicinal cannabis was illegal in Australia and all supplies whether for childhood epilepsy, for cancer patients, or for those with intractable pain were illegal and had to be sourced from the black-market. Medical cannabis was a crime. The injustice of the prohibition on medicinal cannabis changed due to an extraordinary campaign of testimonies for the beneficial uses of cannabis that were aired on the mainstream media between 2013 and 2016 by numerous champions of medical cannabis including Andrew Katelaris, Tony Bower, Dan and Lucy Haslam, Elizabeth and Matt Pallet, etc. As Australians learned about using cannabis for the treatment of childhood epilepsy and pain relief, support for medicinal cannabis sky-rocketed, reaching over 90% in several polls. Given this level of public support and the growing international acceptance of medicinal cannabis, Australia’s politicians were forced to accept that criminalising sick people for using a drug that eased their suffering looked heartless, and many switched sides to support legalisation. However, the enemies of medicinal cannabis, the police and the health authorities, have shaped the medical cannabis laws the politicians brought in and these regulations, or rather over-regulations, continue to make legal medical cannabis as unworkable as possible and cannabis medicines almost unobtainable from any other source besides the black market. Lucy Haslam of United in Compassion, spoke of the deep shame she felt in politicians who had imposed a system designed primarily for the pharmaceutical companies, which was bureaucratic, convoluted, time-consuming, over-regulated and expensive, where the overwhelming majority of medical cannabis users were still forced to the black market. I think that New South Wales voters should realise they have been duped at both the state level and the federal level. Politicians have been very quick to stand in front of the camera and to take the accolades for making medical cannabis available when in fact they've done the opposite. In practice, the laws allowing access to medicinal cannabis are so strict that not more than thirty or forty patients are able to access legal cannabis in New South Wales. Lucy Haslam estimates that the black market contains tens of thousands of medical cannabis users. While access to medical cannabis is administered in this highly-restricted, bureaucratic manner, many of the activists who campaigned for legalisation continue to be arrested by the police and their supplies and their plants have been confiscated. The names of those who have been raided and arrested before Andrew Katelaris include Jenny Hallam, Matt and Elizabeth Pallett and Tony Bower, and reads almost like an honours list for medicinal cannabis activism. Maria Katelaris remarked: Letting Andrew languish in jail for the next 20 years over a principle that he has held dearly for several decades is mediaeval. Dr Katelaris will next appear in court on January 24, 2018 when his bail application will be debated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr John Jiggens is a writer and journalist who has published several books including Marijuana Australiana and Sir Joseph Banks and the Question of Hemp. He currently works as a journalist at Bay FM in Byron Bay.
07.01.2022 Hi John, Just letting you know Dr Alex Wodak’s video has gone live this morning.
07.01.2022 Dr John Jiggens Candidate for Griffith "Drug Prohibition falls largely on Australia's young adults." Dr John Jiggens is a writer and journalist who currently edits the Kurilpa Citizen in Brisbane. ... As an academic and long-term campaigner for drug law reform, Dr Jiggens wrote his Ph.D on the history of cannabis prohibition in Australia, ‘Marijuana Australiana: Cannabis Use, Popular Culture and the Americanisation of Drugs Policy in Australia 1938 1988‘. Other published books of his include; Sir Joseph Banks and the Question of Hemp, The killer cop and the murder of Donald Mackay, and The man who knew too much. As a historian of prohibition Dr John Jiggens is standing for the Drug Law Reform Party in Griffith to argue for sensible drug policy such as the decriminalisation of cannabis and legalisation of medical cannabis, pill-testing, and for the regulation of MDMA as the only way to counter Australia’s extraordinary flood of ice, which has been one of the many unintended consequences of the War on Drugs. Dr Jiggens has seen how alternative communities are chiefly targeted by drug prohibition while the "Mr Bigs" and organised crime figures are protected and continue to profit from this prohibited but protected, illegal drug trade. With approximately 85,000 drug offences prosecuted and 3,000 Australian citizens imprisoned for drug offences in Australia each year, we need reliable figures on the exact dimensions and economic cost of Australia's dysfunctional drug policies. Let’s find out just how many hundreds of millions of tax payer's dollars are spent on Prohibition. How much money could be raised if we regulated and taxed drugs sensibly? John can be contacted at [email protected]
