Did you know? The topic is an ode to a beautiful friend, the most beautiful person in either of my worlds, a person who thinks she is terrible when she is the pinnacle of beauty and love, Emma.
Aboriginal Communities
Did you know that Aboriginal people living in government created communities throughout Australia are living in third world conditions?
Sometimes, often, in a two-bedroom house, there are upwards of 15 people cramped together in one room, only the one room.
Diseases of hygiene and poor nutrition that most Australians only think existed in the days of pirates and Captain James Cook live here. Scabies, malnutrition, children who look like they are living in the middle of an Ethiopian famine.
The life expectancy of Aboriginal people in Australia remains nine years less for men and eight for women. I wonder what it would be when the data for Aboriginal communities is isolated? I know, for a fact, from my own eyes, in a place like Maningrida there is a funeral every second week, there is wailing at the airport regularly. The funerals are rarely just the old and frail, often young men and women, teenagers, abused, murdered, suiciding. This is the continuation of genocide that Tony Armstrong talks about, if he only he knew why he was saying what he is saying.
Camp dogs roam the streets, litter the shops, make it completely unsafe to go to certain places. Scenes most Australians think only exist in the most dirty of dirty countries.
Young women, and men, prostitute themselves for services. Men involved in a program to remove abuse from their community, to protect women from abuse in an environment where they are 33 times more likely to be hospitalised than the greater population due to family violence, violence at the hands of their partner, will trade a 17 year-old girl’s body for cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana.
The health debate
Did you know, in 2024 tobacco use contributed 7.6% of the total disease burden in Australia, in 2024 obesity contributed to 8.3%?
Yesterday, I bought a packet of cigarettes, brand new warning labelling all over the packet, even the darts themselves have them now. Where are the warnings on McDonalds hamburgers, KFC chicken, all confectionary dressed up as food? What about confectionary and chips, alcohol, and many more terrible products.
From a personal observation I do not know and have never met a single obese person who can run five kilometres in under 30 minutes, could hike to the top of Mount Barney in one day, has the flexibility to touch their toes. I know beyond doubt, with absolute evidence that there is a long-term smoker who can do the run in 18, walk to the top of the mountain with only cannabis and cigarettes for snacks, is able to wrap his hand around his toes. The same person can also do 35 chin ups, muscles ups, pushups a plenty, hundreds of situps, can stand on a fitball and perform squats unaided, again have never seen a fat person do any of this.
In 2024, alcohol use in Australia contributed to 4.1% of the total disease burden. It was the leading risk factor for males aged 15-44, with the disease burden including alcohol dependence, cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic liver disease and injuries. In 2024, cannabis use does not register as a percentage of total disease burden.
2024 again, alcohol use contributed to 14% of the overall burden of injury, 17.5% of injury fatalities and 13.2% of intentional self-harm and non-suicidal injury in Australia. Cannabis contributed to 0.2%.
During the past 12 months 75% of Australian people surveyed stated they had consumed alcohol, 11% cannabis. Were I to work the above data, increasing the cannabis part by seven times to make the two substances statistically relevant the cannabis data still does not come close to comparing to the poor health figures related to alcohol. Comparitively barely compares.
In 2024, one in four, a total of approximately 30% of all vehicle related death in Australia has linkages to alcohol, drivers registering over 0.05 on the blood alcohol scale. I cannot find any statistical data on vehicle death related to cannbis use behind the wheel.