Let’s be clear, everybody, and we do mean every single person on the planet, starts out life as a kind of ‘wheelbarrow’. Now wheelbarrows are empty and powerless vessels that are filled by someone else and pushed by someone else. This is not a bad thing, it’s a design factor. Humans, like no other creature, are created with very little ‘pre-loaded’ stuff – What we do have is an incredible faculty and capacity to learn and learn big!
However, as this is done over a long period of time and only done in connection, in relationship, to other human-beings, how you develop and grow heavily depends on who or what is filling you and pushing you and why.
Up until you hit puberty, you’re set up to learn by that input and instruction. Once you hit puberty, your learning, your input and what you let direct you begins to be determined more by you…. Ah, but how you were prepared (or not) for that stage is a huge factor in you making smarter, wiser, safer, and sound developmental choices. So, the question is, who or what is influencing you and is it the best? (Click here for more)
Today February one, The Australian Newspaper release an article tiled, Exposed: big tobacco’s links to vape research. They report led with…“one of the world’s largest tobacco companies funded research into vapes and e-cigarettes that had positive findings and have since been promoted by Australian researchers”. The Australian went onto report that,
Philip Morris infiltrated academia through the Foundation for a Smoke Free World, which launched four years after the tobacco giant announced it would move into the e-cigarette market. One Italian researcher, who made a submission in support of vaping to the federal inquiry into e-cigarette use in Australia, has worked on at least 17 papers commissioned by the foundation. Philip Morris – the maker of Marlboro and Peter Jackson cigarettes – is the sole funder of the Foundation for a Smoke Free World. It has financed more than 70 academic papers on topics…The foundation has commissioned at least six projects with researchers from Yale University. The research, some of which does not disclose the foundation is funded by the tobacco company, is published in legitimate academic journals …After the research is published, it is then cited by other researchers and becomes part of academic literature. Some of the articles have been cited dozens of times, with that research then relied on by other researchers, sometimes hundreds of them and occasionally thousands. One paper on patterns of tobacco use over the pandemic published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, which is run by Oxford University Press, was cited 82 times. Those 82 research papers were cited more than a 1000 times. That research was then used in more than 6700 papers. The original paper did not disclose the link to Philip Morris but disclosed funding from the foundation. Oxford University Press did not respond to a request for comment.
Exposed: big tobacco's financial links to vape research – The Australian 1/2/23 Well, if one is going to actively manipulate ‘science’ to, if not find, then generate confirmation bias, this all makes perfect sense. However, if truth telling and fact-finding, evidence-based objective science is the right process, then this mechanism is nothing short of… we’ll leave you to conclude that sentence – which will perhaps depend on your bias?
In the article Professor Proctor commented that “cigarette makers liked supporting science when it helped them sell cigarettes… and also support science to make it seem like they are acting as responsible corporate citizens.”
Of course, this is not unexpected at all! Big tobacco has a long and recorded history of ‘muddying the waters’ of science that took a serious, concerted and sustained multi-government effort to finally unravel and remove their ‘smokescreen’. Everyone takes for granted the ‘lies’ told by Big Tobacco, but we forget, or worse, wilfully ignore that history. Consequently, this ‘history’ has a good shot of repeating itself. It kind of makes sense, in a perverse way, Big Tobacco make and promote an addictive product, and when that is railed against, they buy into a vehicle that is supposed to help people stop smoking – or keep it going in a different form? Cash-in on the addiction! Cash-in on the exit or maintenance of addiction.
The Australian Financial Review in February 2021 reported on the start of some of lobbying games for e-cigarettes and the courting of governments to partner with their manipulatively cynical messaging around smoking cessation. How these games were being found out and then starting to get some serious ‘push back’ against Big Tobaccos involvement in e-cigarette promotion. Just how deeply big tobacco is entwined in the push to legalise vaping has come to light because one of the country’s largest industry groups decided it had had enough. The Australian Retailers Association confirmed to AFR Weekend that it cancelled a contract last August with global PR firm Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW) worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote and lobby to get e-cigarettes legalised. The BCW revelation torpedoes the argument by vaping promoters that legalising e-cigarettes will hurt tobacco companies. Not only are they putting submissions supporting legalisation, they have a secret money trail to make it happen. (Australian Financial Review – The Secret Money Trail Behind Vaping)
The Lung Foundation of Australia also chimed in on the ever-morphing tactics of Big Tobacco in the Vaping space. In August last year they posted the following, Lung Foundation Australia are urging pharmacists to not engage with the tobacco industry giant Philip Morris International (PMI) backed patient support scheme for nicotine vaping products. In Australia, nicotine vaping products can only be obtained by prescription through a doctor as a last-line smoking cessation aid. Details of the controversial program, outlines PMI’s plan to give pharmacists payments for referral of patients to get prescriptions for nicotine containing vaping products, providing education about vaping and dispensing fee associated with sale of their product. Tobacco Industry has no place in healthcare – and should have not have the ability to provide incentives (financial or other) to healthcare professionals, directly or indirectly. All current evidence states nicotine vaping products do not have substantial evidence to be used as smoking cessation aids. There is no e-cigarette, regardless of nicotine content, that is approved as safe to use, and in Australia we have many other proven safe and effective smoking cessation aids that smokers who are wanting to quit should speak to their doctor about. Lung Foundation 2022 These are just samples of the shenanigans in play.
Coming or going, Big Tobacco continues to have its hand in any vehicle or mechanism that keeps punters ‘inhaling’… whatever they can sell or enable and it’s our kids who are going to pay the highest price. According to the Australia Bureau of Statistics the demographic that arguably ‘smokes’ the least is the one vaping the most with nearly 22% of 18-24 y.o. using. More disturbingly, 7.6% of children (15-17) are vaping, and heavens knows what. We can declare almost categorically that engaging with e-cigarettes in these demographics is not for smoking cessation, but for uptake of…? Prescription only models is just one starting point to rein in this public health disaster, but much more needs to be done. Your pressure will help this. Keep pushing back in your schools, communities, and homes on this issue.
Exposure to Pro and Anti-Cannabis Social Media Messages and Teens’ and College Students’ Intentions to Use Cannabis
Content analyses have documented that posts about cannabis are increasingly common on social media. The relationship between the cannabis-related content to which teens and college students are exposed on social media and how such content may be associated with intentions to use and use of cannabis is less known, however. We conducted an online survey with teens (N = 350) who lived in Washington state using online survey panel participants in June 2018 and with college students (N = 966) in a Washington state-wide university system in February and March 2019. Participants in both samples reported seeing both pro-cannabis and anti-cannabis messages on social media platforms.
Exposure to pro-cannabis messages on social media was associated with an increased intention to use cannabis.
Exposure to anti-cannabis messages on social media was indirectly associated with decreased intentions to use cannabis through negative outcome beliefs of cannabis use and, among college students, through perceived norms.
Among college students specifically, exposure to pro-cannabis messages on social media was also associated with more frequent cannabis use.
Health communicators could focus anti-cannabis messaging on negative outcome beliefs among teens and college students as well as norms among college students to potentially influence constructs associated with intentions and use.
ustralia have done even less than a No War on Drugs in the past near 40 years of drug policy. Prohibiting dangerous, health and safety harming activities in the public, more importantly in private when it comes to psychotropic toxins, is the purview of any responsible government – Federal and down. “Governments should aim to… a) Protect their citizens from harm. b) Provide environments that enable its citizens to reach their full productive potential.” Gus Jaspert The Deputy Director of UK Home Office speaking at the 3rd World Forum Against Drugs
A flagrant black market is selling vapes and e-cigarettes containing nicotine to young people in plain sight of authorities and in contravention of the law, exposing a new generation to the highly addictive substance. Nearly all store-bought vapes contain the chemical nicotine, despite not stating so on the packaging, threatening to undo decades of public health campaigning on the dangers of smoking. Health experts said the true toll of vaping may not be known for years as convenience stores and tobacconists continue to sell vapes with near impunity. Tobacconists in inner Sydney sold The Oz vapes without asking for proof-of-age identification or a valid prescription for nicotine e-cigarettes, which is a requirement by law. None of the vapes said they contained nicotine on the packaging and only one tobacconist said that the vape they sold The Oz contained nicotine, an IGET Shion Pod. They did not ask for a prescription. Independent testing by the University of Wollongong (UOW) confirmed all but one of the four store-bought vapes – a strawberry lychee flavoured One Vape – contained the highly addictive chemical. Dr Celine Kelso said the UOW’s School of Chemistry has tested hundreds of vapes. She said all contained nicotine except for the one supplied by The Oz For more go to Almost all vapes contain nicotine: health effects still unclear Also see
NO! is one of the most empowering protective factors in the toolkit of well-being. We aggressively – and rightly so – promote campaigns that are unashamedly protective and at the centre of these messages is always a prohibition – a ‘NO.’
We say NO to violence against women and children
We say NO to Bullying and abuse
We say NO to an ‘acceptable’ road toll through the ZERO campaign
We say NO to Tobacco through the QUIT Campaign
We say NO to Crime, to Littering, to Neglect to various abuses and so on….
We say NO to things that harm, hurt, diminish and/or take from our children, families, and communities.
But there seems to be one exception that is trumpeted from a small but increasingly influential group.
The pro-drug protagonists in our culture continue to wage a War FOR Drugs, and a key tool in their kit is that you, ‘CAN’T SAY NO TO DRUGS!’
Why? Because they say, “it’s a ridiculous expectation on a ‘freedom’ focused culture!” or the other fallacious meme “Kids are rebellious, they’re always going to try stuff, and saying NO, is just pointless.”
All behaviour is learned, and the above toxic postures are not protective. All they are doing is teaching a generation to self-harm, not self-actualize.
What an individual says ‘NO’ to is one of the most profound indicators of what they value.
It is not a prohibition posture; it is a protective one. As ‘fences’ can be used at times to keep things in or out – as if ‘restrictive’, most often fences are used to ‘keep people from’ danger.
A person’s NO does not just point at what they put down, but more, it directs us to what they want to pick up instead.
The formative years of both Brain and Body development from birth to around 28 years of age, are the time when protective factors are most needed, not denied.
On this World Day Against Drugs, let us focus on empowering, enabling, and equipping our children and their families to enact the protective power of NO!
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The not so ‘clueless’ Nancy Regan!
The mocking line of “you can’t just say ‘NO’ to drugs!” was an attempt to malign First Lady Nancy Reagan’s Anti-drug programs when in office. However, the facts, not the pejorative meme, tell a different story…
When the Reagans moved into the White House on Jan. 20, 1981, drug use, particularly among teenagers, was hovering near the highest rates ever measured. Of that year’s graduating class, 65 % had used drugs in their lifetimes and a remarkable 37 % were regular drug users. Eight years later, when the Reagans left Washington, only 19.7 % of 1989’s graduating class were regular drug users, a 47 % reduction. And the trend that began under their leadership persisted until it reached an all-time low of 14.4 % in 1992, 61 % lower than 1981.
While it is too simplistic to credit Nancy Reagan alone with this downturn, it is impossible to ignore her leadership and the massive shift she led against the drug culture. Her off the-cuff response to a young Oakland girl who asked her what to do if confronted with drugs became a clarion call: “Just say no.”
But this powerful protective option in best-health and well-being practice is being aggressively eroded by small but vociferous pro-drug actors in the public square. Actors who are being aided and abetted, not so much by ‘pushers’, but more disturbingly, promotors in the political and policy making space.
The capacity to exercise NO particularly in the incredibly self-harming drug use space should be bolstered not diminished. The Dalgarno Institute continues to work tirelessly with its very limited resources to put up relevant, contemporary, engageable and evidence-based resources to empower the ‘NO’ for our vulnerable young.
This World Day Against Drugs, take the time to exercise, and help others exercise, best practice health and well-being around #toxic #drugs
“Don’t Drug Yourself Down!”
Can't say no!? (You Can't Say No to Drugs 101)
The Thief (You Can't Say No to Drugs 105)
One thing for everything (You Can't Say No to Drugs 106)
Also check out – “It’s my Right to Use Drugs!” Video and “Wreckreational Drug Use” Graphic Novelette
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Find a range of teaching/learning as well as coaching tools for educators of all types. Assisting you to build resilience into your community/school/family setting and better understand best-practice around AOD issues
