Pentridge Prison Memorial

*Ricky Morris* 29/10/2005-18 Years Later "Thinking Of You And Missing You" Gone But Never Forgotten.

It all started back in May-05 when I decided to do a website on the memory of my brother 'Ricky' and that's when it all began for myself a journey I never imagined. From that date forward to this I have received a lot of information and spoken to all sorts of people from high up to general people whom either knew nothing or some that knew it all.

Today I still speak to a few who have supported me through this journey, without them I'm not sure where I would be today with all of this. Some say "go get them Cheryle" some just show there sympathy for all that has happened and wish me well with it all.

Its been a hard road after 18yrs, I bring all this memory up for some people and for myself I learn the truth about my brothers death, hard yes, heartbreaking yes, pissed off yes, lots of looking back at the early days when Ricky was inside I use to think "what could I have done to make it all different"?

And there has been lots of "If only I did this or done that" but as I have learnt now I cannot blame myself for the time I couldn't be there for him. Lots of issue's raised their ugly heads but I have had to deal with them one by one during this time. I after all this time can see a bit clearer and now all I can say is I have to move forward and fight for what Ricky would have wanted and get out of my sad-anger stage.

Grieving is one of the hardest things I've have had to go through and in this case really hard as a lot of things didn't add up, corruption within the system, so many lies and yet still looking for answers to all of this shit. I guess I have received the answers but they weren't the ones I was looking for.

When I started all this I went full forward and not to mention at high speed. I contacted so many people and received so much information it was a great help, but some wouldn't tell as they are still in the system today, although a couple gave me some info that was enlightening. A few that were on the inside at the time contacted me and either sent their wishes whilst others just bragged about there time there and it followed with the typical macho stuff, some I contacted were rude and didn't want any part of it (this showed me who the real dogs were).

I came to accept that it was a hard thing to drag up after so long and to some it was an horrific time and their avoidance in this matter was okay to be left until - if they ever felt comfortable to get back to me with anything, I wont hold my breath.

3 months into this I went bang and hit a wall I was so full of anger and hatred towards the system it wasn't a nice feeling. I was so angry with Robert Wright for starting the protest, I was so sad and in pain as I learnt what my brother had been going through and had been through whilst on the inside... Dirty mongrel screws I hope they suffer today for what they had done back then. I say this to the negative ones who were actually in the unit on the day but then again I say it to any screw who mistreated any prisoners back in the Pentridge, Jika-Jika days "any prison actually".

As sad as it is there were some that had committed suicide or became drunks or just left the system after the Fires back in "87". Those who were there and played their part the best they could no longer stand that dreaded day, tormenting their head. Along another line I have learnt that not all are the same, there a few and far between whom really did the job.

On a positive note, some were around but they had to keep their mouth shut in order to keep their jobs, a few have said to me "it should not have happened Ricky shouldn't have been in such a unit" but as usual there is always one story after another, lies-truth-fear-regret-and lots of sorry's.

Somehow I will get the summary of the 'coroners inquest' files added to my site for all to read if you haven't read it yet. I need to do it in a PDF file this I will do, just not sure when.

I have done a few pages of a journal from prisoners that they did back in '88'. Oh, and there is some truth in that. Once completed, I have 7 pages to type out and shall add it to my site as well.

It's been a difficult past 6 months for me, as a person who suffers with depression I could only imagine what I have endured with all of this. Thank you to all who have supported me and whom are still here with me today to help me get to the end of my journey. Credits are in my thank you page.

Where am I going with it all? Well after having a meeting with a fellow friend whom is going to help me and contacts he has, *we have a plan* its going to take a bit and a few walls to break through. The system can forget that day as much as they want but hey "I WONT!"

The day it will all come alive will be the 29-10-07, this will be the 20yr anniversary.

Please be sure to drop in to my guest book and remember all those who lost their life on this day back in '87'. For Ricky he never got to spend his 18th birthday outside so please help me by acknowledging him on Saturday 29th October for the 18th yr of his death.

Time of deaths 4.15 to 4.35... R.I.P

I will be adding more please keep checking back or send me your email addy and I'll inform you of updates as they come..

Pentridge Memorial

It all started back in May-05 when i decided to do a website on the memory of my brother 'Ricky' and that's when it all began for myself a journey i never imagined. From that date forward to this i have received a lot of information and spoken to all sorts of people from high up to general people whom either knew nothing or some that knew it all. Today i still speak to few who have supported me through this journey, without them i'm not sure where i would be today with all of this. Some say "go get them Cheryle" some just show there sympathy for all that has happened and wish me well with it all.

By Cheryle M posted 31 October 05

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Row over acupuncture for prisoners

Acupuncture is believed to help alleviate depression, anxiety and insomnia.

UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Prisoners at Bristol prison are referred for acupuncture sessions at their health centre as part of their access to NHS primary care services.

But a victim support group was reported as describing the sessions as a "luxury" and said it illustrated the "huge disparity" between the way prisoners and victims of crime are treated in the UK.

Acupuncture specialist and director of the centre for complimentary therapy and integrated medicine in Southampton, George Lewith, said that acupuncture can help to alleviate depression, anxiety and insomnia although the evidence was limited because little research had been carried out.

Dr Lewith, who has been practising acupuncture for nearly 30 years, said: "There is lots of circumstantial evidence that acupuncture should help with anxiety because it triggers the release of calming transmitters which are like opiates.

"I don't see any reason why these prisoners can't be offered acupuncture as it is available on the NHS - particularly for patients who need physiotherapy and pain relief." The Home Office said that since 1999 doctors working within prison health services were entitled to refer patients for complementary or alternative therapies if the money was available and the treatment was appropriate. Therapies on offer include yoga, meditation and osteopathy as well as acupuncture.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Holistic therapies are being used successfully in a number of prisons across the UK to tackle health issues such as self harm and drug addiction, as well as anger management, as and when appropriate.

"They are unlikely to be available to all prisoners. Prisoners most likely to benefit from holistic alternative therapies might include those at risk of self harm, those with mental health problems and those withdrawing from drugs." A spokesman for the charity Victim Support said that some victims of crime might be outraged that money was being spent on offering acupuncture services to inmates.

He said: "Others may say that they see some sense in it. Although this is something which might raise eyebrows, it is an issue which needs to be looked at."

But earlier today the director of another victim support charity, Norman Brennan, told the Daily Mail: "The amount of money spent on victims of crime is pitiful, yet prisoners are given luxuries which may people cannot afford.

"There is a huge disparity between how well we look after criminals and how well we look after those whose lives they destroy."

By Debbie Andal posted 3 June 05

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Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
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England tops the EU in imprisonment
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State axes problem gambling research

Melbourne: The State Government has abandoned research into problem gambling's links to crime and depression, prompting criticism from gaming reform advocates.

It has also shelved studies into the media's role in influencing gambling behaviour and an analysis of gaming operators' loyalty programs.

Research into cultural influences on gambling and the early detection of problem gamblers has also been cancelled.

The decision not to proceed with the research - set by Victoria's recently abolished independent Gambling Research Panel - comes as the Government faces pressure to release completed gambling studies.

Confidential research revealed last month found Labor's policy of moving gaming machines from low-income areas had failed to stem problem gambling. This research, and at least two other gambling studies, are yet to be released.

Interchurch Gambling Taskforce chairman John Dalziel said the cancellation of the studies, particularly those examining crime and depression, was disappointing.

Mr Dalziel, a member of the Responsible Gambling Ministerial Advisory Council, said research into crime and depression was urgently required.

"Crime and depression are two key elements of measuring the social impact of gambling," Mr Dalziel said. "I think that research had the industry and the Government worried because it had the potential for being so negative that it would become absolutely clear gambling in certain areas should not be allowed."

Former Gambling Research Panel chairwoman Linda Hancock said shelving the research meant there would be no new gambling research in Victoria for at least 12 months.

Professor Hancock said the Government should do more research on the impact of problem gambling. And studies into gambling and crime and depression should be a priority.

Responsible Gambling Advocate Kerrie Cross is in charge of gambling research following last December's demise of the research panel.

She is yet to develop a research agenda but has signalled she favours a national approach.

The recently revealed confusion in senior Government ranks over the future of the study into gambling and crime.

Ms Cross said last month she did not believe the study was appropriate for her to do.

But Gaming Minister John Pandazopoulos said the research would be valuable.

Senior counsel Philip Dunn said research into gambling's links to crime was essential because the courts were becoming clogged with people who had gambling problems.

Opposition gaming spokesman Ken Smith said the Government was "crazy" to cancel the research and the Gambling Research Panel should be reinstated.

Debate over the research comes as the Government seeks to replace two key staff members from its gambling policy area.

Sources say that the Government's director of gambling policy and research, Michael Wheelahan, has decided to take up another public service position. Ms Cross's assistant, Leigh Barrett, has quit to join gaming giant Tabcorp.

By Richard Baker posted 24

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Grandma's cooking pot

Marrakesh Chicken (Recipe Below)

Patricia Tabram last week became a convicted drug dealer for serving casseroles and cakes laced with cannabis to her friends. But, as she tells Laura Barton, she's unrepentant - the drug has solved her health problems.

UK: 'There is a new strain of very strong cannabis called organic skunk," Patricia Tabram explains of the crucial ingredient in her controversial cookery range. "Before I had the privilege of being able to obtain the organic skunk, I used one quarter of a level teaspoon of powdered fresh cannabis bud. Now I only use five-eighths of a level teaspoon of the organic skunk - that's half of what you'd put in a cannabis cigarette, so I have no way of getting high and it keeps me pain-free for 24 hours."

On Friday, the 66-year-old from Hunshaugh, Northumberland, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for cooking an array of cannabis-laced culinary delights for her friends, four elderly MS sufferers.

She was rumbled, she says, by a police informer on her street and remains utterly unrepentant.

"Cannabis lifts depression! Queen Victoria used it for her period pains!" Now she is hoping to tackle the secretary of state for Wales, Peter Hain, on the electoral battleground of his Neath constituency, on a platform denouncing most mainstream medicine. (She is standing in Wales for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, which is targeting the principality as a key battleground.)

"Since I started medicating with cannabis I don't use my walking stick any more, I don't wear my neck collar, I don't wear my hearing aid."

Tabram recalls quite vividly the first time she tried cannabis. "Originally, I suffered terrible depression after the death of my son when he was 14," she says. "And my husband had died and I had nursed my mother till she died, and I was placed on medication for the depression. Then I started to develop arthritis in my knees, and was placed on another kind of medication for that. And I developed - from the combination of medication - a lumpy red rash around my face, tinnitus, lost the hair from the top of my head and had very bad bruising on my arms and legs, blood in my stools and bleeding from my waterworks area. When you get up close to my face I look like an ugly old fossil.

"A year gone February, I was lying in bed and I was very depressed. And I said, how can I kill myself easy and quick? And I thought about alcohol and I thought about pills. But then I remembered a film called Thelma and Louise and I thought, that's what I'll do: I'll drive to South Shields where I was born; I'll drive along the coast road and I'll rev my car up and I'll drive off the cliff, and no one will get hurt because it's February and there'll be no one on the beach."

Before she could do so, however, a neighbour called round, concerned that she hadn't seen Tabram for a while. Worried by the physical and mental state in which she found her, the neighbour sought out a cannabis cigarette to calm her down. "I took one puff," she says, "and you know Tweety Pie? How her head is bigger than her body? I felt like that, and I started giggling and singing." Though she didn't enjoy smoking or being high, she did note that it improved her sleep, lifted the fug of her depression and significantly reduced her physical pain. She asked her friend whether there was any other way of taking it and was told that she might try cooking with it. Soon afterwards she found two cannabis recipe books in a shop in Newcastle. The problem was that they were recipes for people who wanted to get stoned.

"I started with scrambled egg, and I put in one teaspoon of cannabis and of course I threw it all up straight away. I never made that mistake again."

She has made other mistakes, too, in what she describes as her "voyage" of cannabis investigation.

In October, she spent two days in London, the first time in months that she had been without her "medicated" meals. and without her pain relief, Tabram noticed she had something of a toothache. The cannabis had so successfully masked the extent of her dental problem, that she had to have all of her bottom teeth removed. Consequently, she now uses cannabis only five days a week, "because I think if I have an appendix that wants to go off it will tell me on a weekend, won't it?"

And yet Tabram's habit has the unfortunate complication of being very explicitly illegal. Doesn't she worry about the fact that she now has a criminal record for supply? Tabram prefers not to engage herself with all that, repeating instead her assurance that conventional medicine has countless ghastly side- effects, and citing eye-popping figures of the many thousands it supposedly kills each year. "The government are so silly about cannabis - I believe it's because the pharmaceutical companies would go bankrupt if they legalised it."

As for her recipes, her best one, she says, is chocolate-chip cake, but her culinary repertoire extends to starters, main courses, biscuits, cakes and desserts. Meanwhile, her new-found fame has meant she has not had to actually buy any cannabis for two and a half months."You know," she insists, "that NHS medication has up to 85 side-effects? That is why Grandma eats cannabis."

Cannabis cuisine ... Tabram's recipes

Leek & potato soup with cannabis

4 medium-sized leeks
2oz butter
4 small potatoes
1 pint of water
1 pint of chicken stock
Salt & pepper
1 pint of double cream to which add 1 level tsp of powdered cannabis

1. Wash and trim the leeks and chop into small pieces using both white and green parts.

2. Melt the butter in a pan and add the leeks. Cover the pan and reduce heat so that the leeks cook slowly without browning, for about five minutes. Shake the pan occasionally.

3. At the same time, peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes, then add to the leeks with the water and stock. Add salt and pepper.

4. Bring the soup to the boil, cover the pan and simmer for 25 minutes.

5. Liquidise the soup and return it to the pan.

6. Add cream and heat, but do not allow the soup to boil.

Serves 4

Chicken Maryland with cannabis

2lb of roasting chicken in portions Salt & pepper
Plain flour
1 egg
2-3oz fresh breadcrumbs
2-3oz butter to which add half a level tsp of powdered cannabis
Oil for frying

Garnish:
2-3 bananas
1oz butter
1tin of creamed sweetcorn

1. Place the cannabis butter between the flesh and skin of each portion of chicken, then carefully replace skin.

2. Season the outside of the chicken with salt and pepper, then dust with flour.

3. Beat the egg, and dip in the chicken portions, followed by dusting with the flour.

4. Fry in the just-hot oil, until golden brown.

5. Peel and quarter the bananas and fry in butter.

6. Heat creamed sweetcorn and serve as sauce.

Serves 4

Picture: Marrakesh Chicken

3 tbsp butter 45 ml
1 tbsp oil 15 ml
2 chicken breasts 2
2 onions, sliced 2
1 can (19 oz/540 ml) chickpeas 1
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock 1L
2 tbsp browned cannabis 30 ml
1/2 tsp pepper 2 ml
1/2 tsp turmeric 2 ml
1/4 tsp ground ginger 1 ml
1/8 tsp saffron .5 ml
3 cups peeled turnips, in 1 1/2 inch chunks 750 ml
2 cups chopped turnip greens (or spinach) 500 ml
1/4 cup lemon juice 60 ml
1/4 cup chopped parsley 60 ml

By Medicinal Herb posted 15 April 05

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US: RED LAKE, Minn., March 25 - In their sleepless search for answers, the family of Jeff Weise, the teenager who killed nine people and then himself, says it is left wondering about the drugs he was prescribed for his waves of depression.

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CWA wants pot legalised
PERCEIVED as the height of conservatism, the Country Women's Association has had a reputation for baking and handicrafts until now. The organisation yesterday confirmed it is seeking to have cannabis legalised for health reasons. A recommendation to be put forward to the annual meeting in May calls for the legalisation of the drug for the treatment of terminally ill patients.

One in six youth deaths caused by alcohol: report
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Canadian PM pledges to decriminalise marijuana
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POSSESSION? OR INVASION?
UK: This absolutely preposterous idea/theory of allowing a person/s to be possibly charged with 'possession', if found to have a drug substance within their bloodstream, just goes to prove such hypocrisies which certain hierarchies feel justifies passing legislation, is another blow for democracy!

Asylum seeker denied medical help, court hears

An Iranian asylum seeker was denied access to psychiatric help, despite slashing himself several times inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre, the Federal Court in Adelaide has heard.

The asylum seeker, known only as "M", was among a group of detainees who staged a 10-day protest on a roof at Baxter late last year.

"M" told the court he took part in the rooftop protest out of desperation after spending more than four years inside detention centres.

He says after the protest he was seen by a psychiatrist who prescribed new medication for his severe depression.

The psychiatrist also told him he may need shock treatment in hospital.

The medication failed but "M" says he has not seen the psychiatrist since.

Lawyers for "M" and another detainee want their clients to be taken out of Baxter and put into psychiatric care in Adelaide's Glenside Psychiatric Hospital.

They say the Commonwealth Government has failed to provide asylum seekers with a duty of care.

The case is continuing.

By Just Us 5 April 05

Ed: This story is indicative of the tactical difference of opinion; in that the person is first tortured then their only option out is to be locked up under threat of being electroshocked for the symptoms of their torture. This in itself is an act of extreme cruelty with permanent effects.

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Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings

US: RED LAKE, Minn., March 25 - In their sleepless search for answers, the family of Jeff Weise, the teenager who killed nine people and then himself, says it is left wondering about the drugs he was prescribed for his waves of depression.

On Friday, as Tammy Lussier prepared to bury Mr. Weise, who was her nephew, and her father, who was among those he killed, she found herself looking back over the last year, she said, when Mr. Weise began taking the antidepressant Prozac after a suicide attempt that Ms. Lussier described as a "cry for help."

"They kept upping the dose for him," she said, "and by the end, he was taking three of the 20 milligram pills a day. I can't help but think it was too much, that it must have set him off."

Lee Cook, another relative of Mr. Weise, said his medication had increased a few weeks before the shootings on Monday.

"I do wonder," Mr. Cook said, "whether on top of everything else he had going on in his life, on top of all the other problems, whether the drugs could have been the final straw."

The effects of antidepressants on young people remain a topic of fierce debate among scientists and doctors.

Last year, a federal panel of drug experts said antidepressants could cause children and teenagers to become suicidal. The Food and Drug Administration has since required the makers of antidepressants to warn of that danger on their labels for the medications.

The suicide risk is particularly acute when therapy starts or a dosage changes, the drug agency has warned.

Although some studies link the drugs to an increased suicide risk, the research does not suggest such a connection to violence like Mr. Weise's rampage through Red Lake High School.

Without knowing Mr. Weise's medical history or precise diagnosis, it is virtually impossible to speculate on what factors may have affected him - the drugs, his underlying depression, a gloomy childhood wrapped in tragedy or something else entirely.

"What I can say is that his physician, I'm sure, made the appropriate recommendations based on whatever the dosages were," said Morry Smulevitz, a spokesman for Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac.

The dosage range, Mr. Smulevitz said, runs from 20 milligrams to 80 milligrams a day, so Mr. Weise's 60 milligram dose fell in that bracket. Mr. Weise, though just 16, was taller than 6 feet and weighed 250 pounds.

Ms. Lussier, who lived with Mr. Weise in her mother's house on the Red Lake Indian reservation in far northern Minnesota, said she could not understand what else, aside from drugs, had changed to explain his sudden violence.

Since his suicide attempt and 72-hour hospitalization a year ago, Mr. Weise had seemed to be improving, she said, and he was receiving mental health counseling and a doctor's care at the medical center on the reservation.

Others in Red Lake said, however, that they had seen few signs of improvement in the dour, solitary boy.

The driver of a school bus, Lorene Gurneau, said she often saw Mr. Weise standing outside the middle school, wearing his long black clothes and strange hairdos, staring off into nothing, in a daze, even as children raced by or teachers passed him.

Still, in at least one Internet posting last fall, Mr. Weise sounded determined to improve his life after his suicide attempt, and he noted that he was taking antidepressants.

"I had went through a lot of things in my life that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take," the posting said. "I split the flesh on my wrist with a box opener, painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt. After sitting there for what seemed like hours (which apparently was only minutes), I had the revelation that this was not the path."

"It was my decision," he went on, "to seek medical treatment, as on the other hand I could've chose to sit there until enough blood drained from my downward lacerations on my wrists to die."

On Monday, in the hours before the shooting, Mr. Weise had seemed cheerful and normal, Ms. Lussier said. His teacher, who was spending an hour a day at his house as part of a "homebound" study program that the school system had created because of his troubles, arrived to give him his homework assignments, as usual. At 12:30 p.m., less than three hours before the shootings, another aunt, Shauna, stopped in.

"He was watching a movie on TV," Ms. Lussier said. "There was nothing out of the ordinary. People keep saying he was depressed, but if you saw him, he was getting better. All we can think of is, what about the drugs?"

Though research has not linked antidepressants to acts of violence on others, several incidents have gained wide publicity.

In 1989, Joseph Wesbecker walked into a printing plant in Louisville, Ky., with a bag of guns and killed eight co-workers and himself. He was taking Prozac, which had recently been approved.

In 1999, a student involved in the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado had reportedly taken Luvox, an antidepressant similar to Prozac.

In 2001, Christopher Pittman killed his grandparents while taking Zoloft, another antidepressant similar to Prozac. His lawyers faulted the drug, but a jury in Charleston, S.C., convicted him of murder in February.

Still, Katherine S. Newman, a professor at Princeton University who has studied school killings, said just a small percentage appeared to have possibly involved psychiatric drugs. Of 27 such killings from 1974 to 2001, fewer than one-fifth of the suspects had been diagnosed with a mental health disorder before the shootings,

Professor Newman said. Dr. Frank Ochberg, a former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said he once dismissed any links between antidepressants and suicides or homicidal acts. The recent research, however, has changed his mind, Dr. Ochberg said.

"If your intention is shooting the place up and dying as you do it, you can put the fantasy together," he said. "Suicidal and homicidal intentions together could theoretically follow the same path."

Monica Davey reported from Red Lake for this article, and Gardiner
Harris from Washington. Jodi Wilgoren contributed reporting from New York.

By MONICA DAVEY posted 29 March 05

Illustration:

Mother's Little Helpers
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N.R.A. Aide Urges Armed Teachers

PHOENIX, March 25 (AP) - All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota shooting, including making guns available to teachers, Sandra S. Froman, first vice president of the National Rifle Association, said.

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Doctor warns cities making us sick

A Sydney public health specialist says the number of people with obesity and depression will continue to rise unless the design of Australian cities changes.

About 1,000 people move into Sydney every week and Tony Capon from the Western Sydney Area Health Service predicts the health of people living there and in other Australian cities will deteriorate because the infrastructure does not encourage physical activity.

"The most important cause of our sedentary lifestyles is the lack of transport options beyond the motor vehicle," Dr Capon said.

He says the poor air quality in car-reliant cities also means people with asthma will get worse and urgent action is needed.

"Over the last few decades in Australia we've seen inexorable increases in life expectancy," Dr Capon said.

"With these new epidemics that we're confronting, it's likely that we have seen the peak in life expectancy in Australia."

Dr Capon's recommendations include building more sports facilities and expanding the public transport system.

By Diesel And Petrol 19 August 04

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