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im sad to announce again, alcohol has claimed another youth, in the stupidest way possible, when are people gonna realise there poisioning themselfs................
Parents who overcame their own alcohol issues are distraught at losing a teenage son who drank himself to death in a drinking game.
Cameron Hawkins, 19, a horticulture student at Eastern Institute of Technology in Napier, died of acute intoxication trying to outdrink his mates to win a belt used as a trophy, a Napier inquest was told.
He drank beer and spirits until he could no longer walk.
A blood alcohol reading taken after he died showed a reading of 396mg -- five times over the adult driving limit and 13 times over the limit for those under 20.
His parents, Mark and Shona, are both non-drinkers, having been heavy drinkers in their youth.
They had stressed to their son the potentially destructive consequences of drinking, but had allowed him to make his own mind up once he turned 18.
"One of the hardest things about losing Cam is that was the very thing we had fought so hard all those years, with both of us coming from that background," Mr Hawkins told The Dominion Post.
"To fight hard against it and then lose one of your children to it...it's hard."
The Hawkins, who were working on a farm in the Bay of Plenty, said had not seen their son since Christmas .
"If there was something I could say to other mothers, other fathers, it's that no matter how old your children get, when they're independent and legal, just persevere and communicate," Mrs Hawkins told the paper said.
Their son died in the early hours of March 2 after more than five hours of drinking a mix of beer and spirits.
He told his flatmates: "I want to be the champion of the night with the title", referring to a belt that was used as a trophy for the flatmates' drinking competitions.
After sculling the drinks, he was unable to walk. His flatmates placed him in the recovery position and tried to resuscitate him when they found he was not breathing a short time later.
Coroner Chris Devonport said there was a "fine line" between anaesthesia and death when it came to alcohol, which was a central nervous system depressant.
He said people's tolerance varied and it was impossible to determine the concentration required to cause death
im sad to announce again, alcohol has claimed another youth, in the stupidest way possible, when are people gonna realise there poisioning themselfs................
Coroner Chris Devonport said there was a "fine line" between anaesthesia and death when it came to alcohol, which was a central nervous system depressant.
He said people's tolerance varied and it was impossible to determine the concentration required to cause death
I wonder how long it is going to sink into some of these law makers/ enforcers the difference between an illegal drug ( cannabis) that has NO fatal levels using normal methods , yet a toxic drug like alcohol is both legally and socially acceptable.
Or has the prohibitionist drive by the vested interests over the last 40 yrs entrenched thinking so much they are blind to reality.??
I used to think that too tony, but now I think they're all too busy watching their own wallets to worry about ordinary people.
Must admit to seeing it your way as well Paula.
Having spent the last 6 or so years talking to as many MP's and senior staffers as possible about medpot and cannabis in general ( and thats most MP's) I have realized they are not blind to reality .
As recent events evidence, its not the reality aspect that the MP's are blind to but integrity ..
Drinking and competitiveness are natural buddies, writes The Southland Times in an editorial. Disastrous, but natural. Recreation and competition go together for a host of young people and it's not a tendency that they're likely to be scolded out of. Still, a few sorrowful words of warning are sometimes all that can be offered. In the wider context, for those who didn't know him, that's what Cameron Hawkins' short life may come down to.
He's now a cautionary tale, which is bad enough in itself, and a tiresomely cliched one, which is just that little bit worse. "I want to be the champion of the night," he declared, during an early-morning drinking contest with his flatmates. Whether or not he actually won is something the more recent stories about that March night in Napier disappointingly fail to disclose.
We do know, however, that young Mr Hawkins drank himself to death. He couldn't walk so they put him to bed piss-crook, in the recovery position, with a bucket for his vomit. They must have been really worried because they checked every 10 minutes. One check showed he'd stopped breathing.
Coroner Chris Devonport was moved to remark, for the benefit of anyone beyond the grieving family and friends who had already figured this out, that there's a fine line between anaesthesia and death. Booze is a central nervous system depressant. Put it like that and it sounds like a bit of a downer. Ignore that fact too recklessly and it's a six-foot downer. Drink enough — and we're all sufficiently different that nobody's likely to be able to tell for certain how much that is for any of us — and your breathing, heart rate and blood pressure just bottom out.
This coroner's report comes hot on the heels, or at least the toe-tag, of the Circle of Death drinking game that led to a calamitous piece of drink-driving in which a car plunged over a cliff, taking the life of passenger David Moodie and leaving guilty-pleading driver Philip Seyb convicted in the High Court at Timaru last week of dangerous driving causing death. That, of course, resulted not simply from the binge-drinking game, but the subsequent, addled-but-still-criminal decision to drive. In their drunken state the kids probably felt they were seizing the day.
Five months ago, the aftermath of a "fines session" drinking game at a motel ended with the conviction of Southland representative sportsman Duncan James Finlayson for indecently assaulting an intoxicated female team-mate.
A drinking game organised by Mid Canterbury Young Farmers last year was canned after the plan was made public and the Alcohol Advisory Council (Alac) went crook. Charmingly, it was billed as a competition to find "the last man standing" and entailed participants sculling drink on a turning platform at a woolshed near Ashburton. Alac chief executive Sandra Kirby made the dispirited admission at the time, "I actually thought, and I think most New Zealanders would agree, that we were past this type of behaviour" .
Most New Zealanders? Maybe. In spite of advertising campaigns against binge drinking, people, especially the adventurous young, are getting dangerously hammered in unmissably significant numbers.
Gore teenager Marc Hansen ended up on life support from drinking the ridiculously potent spirit absinthe in August. Later that month, another Gore teen followed him into hospital by the same route. Really, though, it's pretty much all the same route.
Joined: Jun 22, 2008 Posts: 88 Location: Whangarei, New Zealand
Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:05 am
I don't mean to be stuck up or anything, but fucking hell. Are we really that stupid? Yes, quite often every couple of weekends or so you can spot me with a drink in my hand, almost falling over and thinking that I'm incredibly, incredibly funny. But theres a difference between drinking to much and drinking yourself dry. And as people have allready mentioned, is our government infact blind to reality? Tell me if I'm wrong (because I've heard this from my mother and y'kow..) but she told me that alcohol is worse and more harsh on brain cells? She carried on to say that alcohol actually kills them, wether as pot actually numbs them (..does that mean they spring back?)
Any way, practicly it's ridiculas the fact that pot is illegal in comparison to hooch. What would Mr. Society prefer? Happy mildly-functional person going about their stuff? Or "oh shi-ii, im gonna vom--blleeueurgh" "Hahaghahahaha I just smashed so and so and hahahaha im gonna go beat some people hahahaqh i think I'm really hot shit hahahahaSMACK" (the smack was on their silly little hand.) Bloody fuck, I think I'm still on topic....
Anyone seen the draft alcohol strategy? Now under consultation by Ministry of Health. Interesting plan of attack.
In a nutshell - "say no to alcohol" - especially some ethnicities. Zero consumption apart from at communion seems to be the goal. A template perhaps for "no pot lest it be to observe religious rites" - as with peyote.
One part talks about delaying or preventing alcohol uptake, and includes the phrase - particularly by Maori and Pacific or poly people. And I always observed that Asians had the lowest threshold for drunkenness!
So its' say later or no to licit drugs (some) kids. The same message that is called non evidence based so far as illicit drugs go - for which the evidence says is not so effective as ummm indirect methods for HARM minimisation, like increasing emotional intelligence and social integration.
They came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up
Is it wise to let this alcohol (and the related tobacco) policy become a template for policies on other drugs?
Whats the eidence base for running 2 policies here (most triculturally) - harm minimisation for non Polynesian descent and War on (alcoholic) Drugs (breeding curiosity / rebellion) for the remainder of the population?
Am left wondering if the dry zone in Waikato in Granpas era actually worked to promote abstinence. And if so - whether such a policy could ever work today... now that different cultures mix socially much more.
Good question. Maybe pollies take donations from gas dealers and alcohol peddlers I'd say. Or maybe its just that drinkers aren't greenies.
Shall we insist on reduced parking spaces - only for designated drives?
block the carparks off, taxi stands only, area well lit, increase noise deflection to give the neighbours more peace....
breathalizer fitted to all vehicles blowing a tube is only way to start vehicle, that should cut down on all but the most stupid. _________________ A pain free day the marijuana way.
If someone want to drive or for that matter any form of antisocial behavior while drunk just stick them on an antibus program for a period .. minor just a few months to life for a multiple offenders.. Means they don't drink but can still work and do community service. Works much better than fines or jail..
Oh yeh did I mention also allowed to use medpot to help with managing withdraws if applicable..
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Good question. Maybe pollies take donations from gas dealers and alcohol peddlers I'd say. Or maybe its just that drinkers aren't greenies.