The report, Nga Tukunga Iho - The Things We Inherit, offers an annual assessment of the country's social progress - this year especially -

• children and youth
• housing
• crime and punishment
• social hazards
• work and incomes

Lt-Colonel Ian Hutson, The Salvation Army's Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit director, notes the new government has inherited a mix of successes and obstacles from its predecessor.

He emphasises the impact current policies will have on future generations and the responsibility to foster a better living environment for all New Zealanders.

While the report acknowledges significant progress has been made in recent years - reductions in child poverty, an increase in social housing units, sustained low unemployment - it also points to worrying trends.

These trends include the deepening cost-of-living crisis hitting lower-income households hardest. Rising rental costs are outpacing inflation and there are overall increases in food insecurity and financial hardship.

The State of the Nation report is unequivocal in its call for the new Government to take decisive action.

Hutson stresses the need to build upon the progress achieved and to adopt successful strategies to navigate the challenges ahead.

Concerns for Maori wellbeing

One of the report's key findings pertains to Maori wellbeing.

Persistent inequities affecting Maori in education, housing, employment and the criminal justice system need to be addressed, it says.

To achieve this, the report advocates for the importance of resourcing kaupapa Maori approaches to enhance well-being for whanau, hapu and iwi.

Children and Youth

The report's Children and Youth section has both positive and negative news.

On the plus side, it rates child poverty reduction as a significant achievement.

However, it also notes poverty's disproportionate impact on Pasifika, Maori, and children living with disabilities. It stresses the need for targeted efforts to meet Government poverty reduction targets.

The report also states that young people continue to tell of high levels of mental distress.

Housing

The report's Housing section paints a grim picture of unaffordability and homelessness. This is exacerbated by a decline in new housing consents and a surge in inward migration, it says.

The report calls for an urgent increase in public housing supply to address the growing backlog.

Crime and Punishment

In terms of Crime and Punishment, the report indicates an overall increase in reported and unreported crime and notes that violent offences are increasing.

Enhancing access to housing, employment, education and social services would be more effective in reducing crime than implementing harsher punishments, the report suggests.

Social Hazards

The Social Hazards section notes a positive decline in alcohol and drug consumption.

At the same time, it points to rising gambling losses and signs of increased financial hardship. One such indicator is the increasing number of calls for early KiwiSaver withdrawals on the grounds of financial hardship.

Work and Incomes

Under the heading Work and Incomes, the Salvation Army State of the Nation report highlights the continued high levels of employment but raises concerns about the rising unemployment and the persistent wage inequality affecting women and ethnic minorities.

It says high inflation is putting pressure particularly on low-income households. Furthermore, food insecurity for households with children has increased.

Source

• Supplied: The Salvation Army
• The full report is available from the Salvation Army.

"Think about ladies of a certain age who go to Mass," said Coppola, who was elected in 2020 as part of a conservative coalition. "With a sex shop in the vicinity, they might have felt under-protected. Who do you think they'd blame for that?

Coppola insisted, that he hadn't acted under any pressure from the local church, led by Archbishop Francesco Alfano of Sorrento - Castellammare di Stabia.

"I just used my brain," Coppola said. "We Sorrentines live our sexuality in reality, as protagonists. We don't need phalluses exposed in a window."

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The proposed legislation would legalise the sale and consumption of cannabis at licensed premises.

Cookie Time founder Michael Mayell has partnered with Abe Gray, the founder of New Zealand's first cannabis museum to build a cannabis education centre in the historic Shands and Trinity buildings.

The Trinity building was formally Trinity Congregational Church. It was damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes.

The community hub will contain a museum, a hemp emporium, a plant medicine shot bar, a cannabis dispensary, a café, a hemp eatery and an alcohol-free night club.

"After the earthquakes and the subsequent re-developing of the city, Christchurch lost a great deal of its heritage," says Mayell.

"More than 1300 buildings in the inner city have been demolished".

"It's wonderful to have the opportunity to preserve such beautiful buildings as these."

Trinity will be used for the museum during the day, an education space Mayell dubbed "cannabis university" in the evenings, and for the alcohol-free plant shot bar at night.

The café and restaurant would sell hemp food, a boutique with a range of hemp products and an alcohol-free plant shot bar.

Hemp seeds will be cultivated and used to make milk for ice cream, butter and cheese and the bar would have kombucha on tap, medicinal teas and mushrooms in the diner.

The business is trading as the Whakamana Museum Limited.

Whakamana launched a Pledge Me campaign to transform the church building on November 12.

On December 5, with 11 days to go, 219 people had pledged $126,531. The minimum target is one million dollars

Whakamana shares are also available for purchase.

Source

• facebook
• stuff.co.nz
• cannabisinstitute.ac.nz
• pledgeme.co.nz
• Image: screen shot pledgeme.co.nz

Clergy members have become spiritual first responders in the opioid crisis, often leaving the pulpit to minister on the streets.

They can be reverends, rabbis, priests or pastors.

Though their faiths differ, they invariably approach people with addiction as equals.

No Bible-thumping, no blaming.

Quite a few are in recovery themselves.

Despite some signs of a slowdown, the nation's all-time deadliest drug overdose epidemic endures.

Opioids were involved in most of the deaths, killing nearly 48,000 people last year.

A spiritual element to recovery is familiar to people who have worked 12-step programs, with their references to an undefined higher power.

Scientific studies have found evidence that religious faith can help substance abusers with their recovery.

Working with addicted people means trips to hospital rooms and fresh graves. But there are flashes of light in the darkness, too.

Three dispatches from the front lines:

A church for imperfect people

Nine minutes into his sermon, Pastor Brad Hill made a confession.

"I gotta be honest. I ask myself a lot of the times, 'God, why did you allow me to be an addict?" Hill says from the pulpit of his Grace Downtown Church.

"Why are my friends dying of an overdose? ...

I gotta ask God, 'Why, God, do you allow this?'"

Hill hears those questions a lot.

The church Hill started in the back of a Winchester, Virginia, bar moved this year to a space that can accommodate hundreds, many trying to turn the page on their addictions.

Six and a half years in recovery, Hill calls it a totally judgment-free zone, "a church for imperfect people."

Hill has a salty beard, smiling eyes and booming voice to sermonize about the suffering he sees so often in the Shenandoah Valley.

His phone lights up constantly with messages from struggling people and their loved ones. One recent text read: "Do those who commit suicide still go to heaven?"

Too often, Hill speaks at funerals for overdose victims, three in the past three months alone.

He honors the dead while telling survivors, "You don't have to be like this person. There is a way out."

A funeral in September for a 38-year-old married father of four was especially hard on Hill.

They were friends, and Hill had been talking to him about his struggle just a week before he died.

It was Hill who welcomed the man's grieving family to a Sunday service.

"They lost one of ..." Hill swallowed, clapped his hands together twice, and continued in a softer voice.

"They lost one of my favorite people. So I just ask that we pray real quick for them, OK?"

Clergy members have become spiritual first responders in the opioid crisis, often leaving the pulpit to minister on the streets.

Hill's own addiction to painkillers led to a prescription fraud conviction in 2007 and a yearlong jail sentence that cost him a thriving church in Virginia Beach. Continue reading

• Image: America

In an interview with the UK, Sunday Times 76-year-old star said he was "humbled" by the experience. Read more

The programme has had some success helping hard men to turn their lives around.

Here are two examples that have recently received publicity.

Paris Winiata was a drug dealer but, after joining Destiny, he stopped taking drugs and has been alcohol-free for a decade.

Toko Kopu has traded in life in one of New Zealand's most feared gangs to help young men become better fathers.

Paris Winiata

Paris Winiata had a troubled family background but, as a teenager, he was a star in the St Bernard's College first XV.

When he was 17, he was offered a development contract by the Melbourne Storm. But things did not work out.

Returning to New Zealand, he moved in with a couple of older friends and began selling drugs.

He had a brush with the law and received diversion.

"It was what really woke me up and made me realise that it was not the life I wanted to lead."

At the suggestion of a friend he went to a service at the local Destiny Church.

And, after joining Destiny, he stopped taking drugs and has been alcohol-free.

Winiata is heavily involved Man Up.

Toki Kopu

Toki Kopu is one of several former gang members to join Man Up.

He was heavily into using methamphetamine and selling it.

Kopu ended up in prison but, while there as a chapter leader, he devoted himself to "keeping the peace", earning respect for helping families visit prisoners.

When he got out of prison he was ready to do something good.

"If I didn't want to change I wouldn't have stood up."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

"It's hard to find a vein," he said, but he finally found one in his forearm and injected himself with the brown liquid. Blood trickled from his arm and pooled on the step, but he was oblivious.

"Are you O.K.?" Rita Lopes, a psychologist working for an outreach program called Crescer, asked him.

"You're not taking too much?" Lopes monitors Portuguese heroin users like Mario, gently encourages them to try to quit and gives them clean hypodermics to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Decades ago, the United States and Portugal both struggled with illicit drugs and took decisive action — in diametrically opposite directions.

The U.S. cracked down vigorously, spending billions of dollars incarcerating drug users.

In contrast, Portugal undertook a monumental experiment: It decriminalized the use of all drugs in 2001, even heroin and cocaine, and unleashed a major public health campaign to tackle addiction.

Ever since in Portugal, drug addiction has been treated more as a medical challenge than as a criminal justice issue.

After more than 15 years, it's clear which approach worked better.

The United States drug policy failed spectacularly, with about as many Americans dying last year of overdoses — around 64,000 — as were killed in the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars combined.

In contrast, Portugal may be winning the war on drugs — by ending it. Today, the Health Ministry estimates that only about 25,000 Portuguese use heroin, down from 100,000 when the policy began.

The number of Portuguese dying from overdoses plunged more than 85 percent before rising a bit in the aftermath of the European economic crisis of recent years.

Even so, Portugal's drug mortality rate is the lowest in Western Europe — one-tenth the rate of Britain or Denmark — and about one-fiftieth the latest number for the U.S. Continue reading

• Nicholas Kristof, writes about human rights, women's rights, health, global affairs for The New York Times.

That's why he's giving magic mushrooms to religious leaders, for a research project based at Johns Hopkins University and New York University. Continue reading

And he is hoping that churches will stand together in this fight.

The bishop wrote to Governor Lolo last week offering the support of the Catholic Church for recent initiatives reported in the media to address "a growing critical illicit drug problem in our community which is especially affecting our youth."

The bishop referred to a task force that the government is establishing to formulate strategies to remove drugs in the territory.

He told Governor Lolo, "As an organization deeply involved in the spiritual and community care of people in American Samoa we are fully supportive of this initiative taken by the Government."

"Also with 18 parishes and five schools on Island we are very much aware of the proliferation of illicit drugs available to our young people today."

Brown wrote, "By this letter, I wish to offer any assistance to the Task Force that we can provide or maybe of use in establishing a meaningful response to this important community issue in American Samoa.

Earlier this month American Samoa's Homeland Security director, Samana Semo Ve'ave'a, called for the community to join together to eliminate a drug problem in the territory.

A taskforce in American Samoa is working more closely with communities to combat the growing use of illegal drugs.

RNZ's correspondent Fili Sagapolutele said crystal meth is such a commonly used drug now that the taskforce was created to formulate strategies to curb the use of illicit drugs and narcotics.

"They are working with the community and they've started to conduct outreach, working with government officials and village leaders, just in the hope to get this drug problem down."

Source

• talanei.com
• radionz.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: fleetowner.com

President Rodrigo Duterte openly compares his bloody anti-crime war to Hitler and the Holocaust.

He says he would be "happy to slaughter" three million addicts.

The Catholic Church in the Philippines is opposing Duterte's crackdown.

The Church has launched a Huwag Kang Papatay" (‘Thou shalt not kill') campaign

It has also issued an official appeal to the police.

The country's bishops say killing on the grounds of suspicion is not morally justifiable.

Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users last Friday after visiting Vietnam.

He had been discussing his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders.

These talks looked for ways their governments could fight trans-national crimes, including illegal drugs.

Duterte said he had been "portrayed or pictured to be a cousin of Hitler," without elaborating.

Moments later he said, "Hitler massacred 3 million Jews … there's 3 million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them."

He was referring to a Philippine government estimate of the number of drug addicts in the country.

Source

• Crux
• Image: cnnphilippines.com

Groups from Matautu and Leone, Saint Anthony, Vaimoso and Samalage and Aiga Paia took part.

They took part in a dance and singing competition.

But Father Losi Numia said the event was not about who wins.

What the church wanted was to promote the understanding about the impact of drugs and suicide on families, churches, and the whole country.

"We're talking about the importance of learning to say no to drugs and suicide," he said.

"It's a way of delivering the message to these young ones especially our youth that suicide is not the answer.

"There are people out there that each and everyone of us can share with if we need help…most importantly, don't forget to pray."

On Wednesday Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, led a crowd of 200 enthusiastic walkers through the heart of Apia in support of the Fa'ataua La Ola (F.L.O) organisation's annual event, Walk for Life 2016.

The event certainly was a celebration of life, with a glorious sunrise, the music of the Samoa Police Band and the happy faces of the students from Loto Taumafai School supporting the walkers.

In 2014, statistics showed that in Samoa the rate of suicides reached up to 30 out of every 100,000 inhabitants - with an undefined but even higher rate being among young people.

Suicide rates in the Pacific Islands are some of the highest in the world and have reached up to 30 per 100,000 in countries such as Samoa, Guam and Micronesia, double the global average, with youth rates even higher according to a 2014 report in the Inter Press News Agency

The Pacific Islands has an escalating youth population, with 54 percent of people in the region now aged below 24 years and those aged 15-29 years are at the greatest risk of taking their lives, according to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

Source

• sobserver.ws
• sobserver.ws
• ipsnews.net
• Image: soberver.ws

For counselling and support

• Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time
• Lifeline - 0800 543 354
• Samaritans - 0800 726 666
• Chinese Lifeline - 0800 888 880
  (for people who speak Mandarin or Cantonese)
• Youthline - 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz
  (for young people, and their parents, whanau and friends)
• What's Up - 0800 942 8787
  (for 5-18 year olds; 1 pm to 11 pm)
• The Lowdown - visit the website, email team@thelowdown.co.nz or free text 5626 (emails and text messages will be responded to between 12 noon and 12 midnight)
• SPARX - an online self-help tool that teaches young people the key skills needed to help combat depression and anxiety.

I call them good-times drugs because people use them to make their lives seem more exciting and themselves more interesting - a compelling reason why they should stay banned. We shouldn't encourage delusion.

Few things are more tedious than a droning drunk. I should know because I've been one, and been cornered by many. Likewise, a drugged-out good-timer feeling like they're the centre of the universe makes for dull company. I've known a few of those, too.

The argument that the drug problem would be solved overnight by making it legal is one I agreed with ages ago, when everyone I knew seemed to be out of it every chance they got, in the first flush of LSD and cannabis use.

What seemed glamorous then looks, in hindsight, to have stopped many of those people in their tracks, reliving the glorious groundhog days before their hair and teeth fell out, before a new set of knees became a more alluring prospect than listening to old Jimi Hendrix CDs.

They've become could-have-beens who weren't, and I blame drugs for that. They were a substitute for real experience, discouraged achievement, and we're still at it, research tells us; the over-55s smoke dope more often than any other age group.

Growing up in the aftermath of World War II we were reluctant to get serious, seeing where that had led the world, I guess. Being self-centred seemed to make more sense.

I no longer think that legalising good-time drugs makes sense, not when drugs that can cure cancers or ease suffering have to jump through so many hoops before they're deemed to be safe. If the state is going to get involved in drugs it has a responsibility to be that thorough, and drugs people take for fun or to feel fabulous are unlikely to ever pass any safety tests, not if they deliver the intense impact users seem to crave. Continue reading

• Rosemary McLeod is a New Zealand writer, journalist, cartoonist and columnist.

The company is the last major drug manufacturer to take this action.

The decision has seen campaigners against the death penalty in the US say they are now close to ending the practice.

Continue reading

Politicians need to reject knee-jerk law changes and understand the real agenda behind liberalising drug laws and also the potential abuse of medicinal marijuana. Continue reading

That friend handed me two pills, telling me that they would help me get through it.

This was the day I met the love of my life, opiates.

I can remember the feeling I got from taking those two small pills: it was a feeling of complete elation. All of the anxiety that normally consumed me disappeared.

It was as if I was having an out-of-body experience and I somehow morphed into a different person, one who no longer cared about anything. This was a feeling I wanted to feel for the rest of my life. The next day I remember waking up wondering where I could find more of these pills.

When somebody makes the decision to take a drug, they do not intend to become an addict. Still, it wasn't long before I was skimming through the medicine cabinets of every residence I entered to see if they had any narcotic pain medications.

Getting high became more of a priority to me than going to school, and I started leaving after I checked into homeroom. Since I managed to make up all of my missed school assignments, my teachers passed me.

By the end of my senior year, in order to make it through the school day, I would have to stand my textbook up on my desk so I could hide behind it and take pills without being noticed.

When high school ended, finding and using drugs became my main focus. I decided that college would have to wait. Continue reading

• Alisha Choquette is a 2015 graduate of the Community College of Rhode Island where she obtained an associated degree in substance abuse.

There are dozens more prisoners on death row and the government has declared there will be no mercy for those convicted of drug offences, meaning more executions are likely.

The Guardian has spoken to a police officer who has been part of the firing squad which operates on the prison island, Nusa Kambangan.

His story is one that reveals the grim reality of Indonesia's justice system but also the conflicting emotions of those responsible for upholding it.

Pulling the trigger is the easy part, the officer says as he contemplates the executions which are to come.

The worst part is the human touch, he says, the connection with those who are about to die.

The executioner has to lace the prisoner's limbs, hands and feet to a cross-shaped pole with thick rope. It is that final moment of brutal intimacy that haunts.

"The mental burden is heavier for the officers that are responsible for handling the prisoners rather than shooting them," he says. "Because those officers are involved in picking them up, and tying their hands together, until they are gone."

The officer - a young man who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of his role - is part of a wing of the Indonesian police corps known as the Mobile Brigade ("Brimob").

The brigade carries out the executions on top of its regular duties. They are not full-time executioners but rather special police officers assigned to the job.

They are paid less than $100 on top of their existing salary to carry out their grim task. Continue reading

Sources

• The Guardian
• Image: New Vision

The Pope's remark came in a private letter to a director of an Argentine NGO that tries to combat drug crime.

Francis wrote, "I hope we're in time to avoid Mexicanisation. I was talking to some Mexican bishops and it's become a thing of horror there".

Mexican foreign minister Jose Antonio Meade said Francis's remarks had "stigmatised" the country.

"Mexico is making enormous efforts to combat drug trafficking," he stressed.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, said Francis meant in no way to offend the Mexican population "for whom he holds a special affection, nor to underestimate the commitment of the Mexican government in its fight against narco-trafficking".

The Pope was merely trying to emphasise the seriousness of the problem, Fr Lombardi said.

Continue reading

The policing community will act as eyes and ears on the ground reporting any suspicious activity to police.

Community Policing Commanding Officer in the Central Division Superintendent Tevita Waqabaca said the programme gave students a sense of ownership and pride in making the community crime free.

"What we are doing now is training the children to be disciplined and also on leadership skills which means that they can identify what is wrong and what needs to be reported on," Waqabaca said.

He said the alarming trend of glue sniffing and students spending school hours in internet shops means there is a need to instil discipline in the lives of students.

School principal Sister Genevieve Loo said the Toorak Police and Schools Neighbourhood Watch Zone was a very good initiative and they were happy to get two billboards to mark their partnership.

"Our school will now be able to build a strong partnership with the Police and help combat crime," Sister Loo said.

Eight other schools are participating in the initiative.

Source

• FijiSun
• The Fiji Times
• Image: FijiSun