Lisa Pryor joins Board of Australia21

We are delighted to announce the recent appointment of Lisa Pryor to the board of Australia21.

Lisa is a journalist, author and medical student. She is the author of two non-fiction books, A Small Book About Drugs: The Debate We Need To Have About Recreational Drugs (Allen & Unwin) and The Pin Striped Prison: How Overachievers Get Trapped in Corporate Jobs They Hate (Picador). She was previously the opinion page editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, where she also worked as an investigative journalist and wrote a weekly opinion column. She has a law degree with first class honours, and an arts degree, from the University of Sydney. She returned to the university in 2011 to study medicine. Lisa first became involved with Australia21 through the illicit drugs project.

We appreciate her continued contribution in this area and look forward to drawing also on her experience in the broader area of media and communications, where she is known as an incisive and entertaining commentator.

Placing global change on the Australian election agenda

Next Monday evening 17 June, at the National Press Club in Canberra, Professor Ross Garnaut will launch a booklet of essays published by which draws attention to the global changes which must be urgently addressed by the next government.

Australia21’s Board has become increasingly concerned that a number of grave challenges is being ignored, bypassed or placed in the “too hard” basket, and that there is no sign of this changing as we head into vitally important national elections.

Accordingly, we commissioned the preparation of a series of essays by a multidisciplinary group of Australian experts, most of whom are Fellows, Directors or Associates of Australia 21. They focus on a number of issues that are vital to Australia's future and are being largely or completely ignored by the current political process.

The purpose of the booklet is to provide the basis for dialogue between voters and aspiring politicians during the coming election, that will more adequately address the realities of anthropogenic climate change, population and refugee pressures, the risks to our economy, deteriorating ecosystems and declining agricultural and liquid fuel capacity.

The report will be available for download from our website www.australia21.org.au shortly after it is launched.

Rat Park: debunking myths about drug addiction

Canberra based cartoonist Stuart McMillen has drawn an entertaining and informative cartoon about the work of Professor Bruce K. Alexander, psychologist and Professor Emeritus at the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and has kindly shared his work with Australia21.

McMillen’s cartoon covers the “Rat Park” experiments conducted by Professor Alexander in the 1970s, which demonstrated the importance of psycho-social context to the issue of an individual’s response to exposure to drugs.  According to the Wikipedia entry on Professor Alexander:

The Rat Park experiments, published in psychopharmacology journals in the late 1970s and early 1980s, flatly contradicted the dominant view of addiction in their day. They quickly disappeared from view, having evoked only negative responses in the mainstream press and journals. Lauren Slater’s controversial psychology book, Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century helped to bring them back to public attention in 2005. These experiments are now widely known and cited.

The Rat Park experiments were among the first to show the error in the once dominant myth that certain drugs, particularly the opiates, convert all or most users into drug addicts. In the 1970s, this myth was said to be demonstrated by the high consumption of opiates and stimulants of rats isolated in specially modified Skinner Boxes that allowed drug self-administration. Alexander and his colleagues demonstrated experimentally that rats isolated in cages of about the same size as Skinner Boxes consume far more morphine than rats that are socially housed in Rat Park.  Subsequent research has confirmed that social housing reduces drug intake in rats and that the dominant myth was wrong both for rats and for human beings. Nonetheless, the myth is still embedded in popular culture.

Access Bruce McMillen’s cartoon strip here.

For more about Professor Alexander’s work visit his Globalization of Addiction website.

To see the citation on the Simon Fraser University’s website marking Professor Alexander’s being awarded the 2007 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy click here.

Club 300

Australia21 is grateful to all of our supporters – those who make regular or one-off donations, those who contribute funds for projects that are of particular importance to them, and those who subscribe to our news updates or follow us on Twitter (@australia_21) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/australia21.org). It encourages us to know that there are people who are interested in and support the work that we do.

The past year has been a busy one and, subject to the availability of funds, this is set to continue. As a general overview of Australia21's agenda for the next six months or so:

-  We continue to work on illicit drug law reform through regular commentary and liaison with illicit drug advocacy and support organisations, and we take opportunities as they arise to publicise the vast amount of evidence which supports the need for a move away from prohibition.

-  Our report on a voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide roundtable held in January this year was launched on April 26, by Emeritus Professor The hon. Peter Baume, and we will be continuing to promote understanding of the need for reform in this area.

-  Our report on a transforming Australian landscapes roundtable held in February this year will be launched later this month.

-  We continue to work on our ecosystem services project and will have some exciting announcements on this soon.

-  We are designing a new project, subject to funding, designed to inject into the election campaign a need for our policy debates to consider the longer term issues that are important to our future and that of our children and grandchildren. For this purpose, next month we will release a collection of opinion pieces a diverse range of Australia's leading thinkers. The opinion pieces – all of which are being contributed pro bono – are well on the way, but we need funding to publish the collection and launch it in a way that captures the necessary public attention.

-  We are planning a major youth engagement project for mid year  

These important projects aim to make a positive difference to our country's future. All – with the exception of the ecosystems work – have been developed through donation or sponsorship. We do not receive ongoing operational funding. And this is where Club 300 comes in. We are looking for 300 people who would like to contribute $5 a week – little more than the price of a cup of coffee – so that we can continue this work which is so important for all of us. Just $20 a month would make a huge difference to Australia21's capacity to deliver in the future. This is not meant to be restrictive – if you would like to give more or you would like to give a one off donation please feel free, but if you would like to support us in an ongoing way Club 300 may be for you.

If you would like to become a Club 300 member by committing $20 a month to Australia21, click to make a secure online donation or send a cheque to:

Australia21 Limited

PO Box 3244

Weston ACT 2611.

We rely on your generosity to fund our work. All donations are gratefully received and are tax deductible.

If we reach our target, we will celebrate with an exclusive Australia21 online event for Club 300 members.

We look forward to welcoming you to Club 300.