During my career as a prison boss if I could of implemented a safe injecting room I could have saved many lives & minimised the spreading of communicable diseases such as Hepatitis C virus (HCV) where the prevalence in NSW prisons is 20-30 times higher than in the community.

Criminalisation of drug use results in the mass incarceration of people who use drugs. Illicit drug offences represent the second most common offence for custodial sentences in Australia.
There are currently no needle and syringe programs (NSPs)operating in any Australian prisons. This is despite a growing body of international research clearly demonstrating that NSPs have been shown to be safe, beneficial and cost-effective within a variety of prison settings.
Australia cannot afford to continue to avoid the serious implications of not implementing prison-based NSPs, both to protect prisoners’ health and human rights, and to limit the spread of BBVs as individuals are released back into the community.
The vast majority of injecting episodes inside prisons occur with shared injecting equipment – a practice identified to be one of the most effective ways to transmit HIV and HCV.12. I have found needles that have been used by multiple inmates for months on end.
Beating the drug epidemic is going to take a holistic approach.There is no one-fit all solution to the scourge of drugs it has to be a combination of education, good parenting,mental health services, better rehab facilities in our regions & prisons & getting tough on dealers.
Harm minimisation programs such as pill testing and safe injecting rooms & needle exchange programs won't solve the drug epidemic but they do save lives, they do make the community safer & they minimise the harm to the drug user, their families & the community.
Once a drug addict arrived at my prison the damage has already been done to the addict, to the families of the addict and to the community.
We don't need issues like this to become a political point scoring debates. Whilst our politicians continue to ignore that harm minimisation programs work young people continue to die from bad pills at music events and from dirty needles.
End-
@threadreaderapp unroll please

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There is little understanding within Australian society of the requirement to and legitimacy of adopting special measures.


Government policy does not acknowledge the applicability to Indigenous people of the right to self-determination. In 1997 the cruel Howard government actively rejected self- determination as the basis of Indigenous policy.

Key reports which make recommendations for redressing Indigenous disadvantage, including the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and Bringing them home, .....

the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, have ’NOT’  been fully implemented.

Many recommendations, particularly those concerning the application of the principle of self-determination, have been actively rejected.
Would having the testosterone limit for transgender women at 10nmol/L (5-10 times what’s considered “typical” for women) give them a massive advantage over their cisgender opponents?


Absolutely not, is recognized an XY chromosome body is seen as unhealthy <12nmol/L or less. A XY female as they lose the ability to produce natural occurring testosterone, falls into a range of 0.4nmol/L.

Which we know too, the individual falls into menopause at 9.6nmol/L, and due to complete androgen deprivation eventually into the position of that would equate a XX female = who had had a complete hysterectomy including her gonads.

We can be assured, one this is extremely unhealthy – Moreover, and most important, we can be assured that there are no women either XX and or XY competing internationally like this.

This is not for anyone a desired state and for the participation high performance sport eventually impossible to participate longterm.

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I like this heuristic, and have a few which are similar in intent to it:


Hiring efficiency:

How long does it take, measured from initial expression of interest through offer of employment signed, for a typical candidate cold inbounding to the company?

What is the *theoretical minimum* for *any* candidate?

How long does it take, as a developer newly hired at the company:

* To get a fully credentialed machine issued to you
* To get a fully functional development environment on that machine which could push code to production immediately
* To solo ship one material quanta of work

How long does it take, from first idea floated to "It's on the Internet", to create a piece of marketing collateral.

(For bonus points: break down by ambitiousness / form factor.)

How many people have to say yes to do something which is clearly worth doing which costs $5,000 / $15,000 / $250,000 and has never been done before.
Fake chats claiming to be from the Irish African community are being disseminated by the far right in order to suggest that violence is imminent from #BLM supporters. This is straight out of the QAnon and Proud Boys playbook. Spread the word. Protest safely. #georgenkencho


There is co-ordination across the far right in Ireland now to stir both left and right in the hopes of creating a race war. Think critically! Fascists see the tragic killing of #georgenkencho, the grief of his community and pending investigation as a flashpoint for action.


Across Telegram, Twitter and Facebook disinformation is being peddled on the back of these tragic events. From false photographs to the tactics ofwhite supremacy, the far right is clumsily trying to drive hate against minority groups and figureheads.


Declan Ganley’s Burkean group and the incel wing of National Party (Gearóid Murphy, Mick O’Keeffe & Co.) as well as all the usuals are concerted in their efforts to demonstrate their white supremacist cred. The quiet parts are today being said out loud.


The best thing you can do is challenge disinformation and report posts where engagement isn’t appropriate. Many of these are blatantly racist posts designed to drive recruitment to NP and other Nationalist groups. By all means protest but stay safe.