13 December 2008

Illiterate dope grower running ACT dental health

| johnboy
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The trouble with the ACT Government is that no believable work of fiction could equal what goes on in there.

Today the Canberra Times brings word that Mark Vincent Blattman has been sentenced to “212” years in prison (I suspect they mean 2 1/2) for growing 75 marijuana plants in Sutton.

    The court heard Blattman had turned his life around after two previous convictions one each in the ACT and NSW over a cross-border dope-growing operation involving more than 1800 plants that was busted in 1990.

    Since escaping with a suspended sentence and good behaviour bonds, Blattman barely literate at the time acquired a high school pass and then went on to tertiary education and a career with ACT Health counselling drug addicts and alcoholics.

Mark is currently the acting director of the dental health program and has in the past been the manager of alcohol and counselling services.

Did it save time looking for clients we wonder?

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Someone should be asking the ACT Government, ACT Health and their Alcohol and Drug Program a few very pointed questions about Mr Blattman and his activities. Who employed this guy for a start, did they do a police check, did they condider his drug convictions to be qualifications, how did he use his ‘knowledge’of other clients and how did he use his position to his own advantage in his drug dealings? Those are just a few to start with, but you could also wonder why his wife who was also convicted and managed to stay out of goal is still working there? How many other ‘staff’ knew about his activities or were implicated and how many staff and clients of the Alcohol and Drug Program did he supply to? No doubt the AFP are having a close look at all the so called ‘staff’.

I didn’t know that canabis was beneficial for dental health? How in the hell did they come to make him Director of Dental Health? I have no doubt that if Tony Mockbel applied for a job there he’d have no problem at all – in fact his qualifications are excellent. Are they all completely out of their tree?

No Sepi … they are NOT the perfect staff; and many charities and NGOs will not employ them, because the legit ones know the truth from experience.

G-Fresh, puh-lease! The saying is “The WEED is an ‘erb, MON.”

I have a great way to get hippies and slackers off the dope. Make them visit the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica. It’s scary. Seriously scary.

Cannibus is an ‘erb man.

yes – well he’s no longer at act health now

will be busy for the next couple of yrs

Who can you trust. No one.

“attitude certainly doesn’t help.”

Help who I-filled? Help you maybe. What help are you talking about?

btw there’s a “Tony Blattman” at ACT health according to google … any relation?

Katie Gallagher’s “I can’t make a decision until I’ve consulted with the drug using community and found out what they want” attitude certainly doesn’t help.

Yes.

Former addicts are seen as perfect staff for rehab centres, as they can understand the clients, and provide an example of success.

But there is a lot of sliding back into drugs by these staff too.

Still, who in their right mind would want to work with druggies in withdrawal.

The foxes have been looking after the henhouse for years in ACT drug ‘treatment and counselling’ circles. I had a friend I was trying to help clean up his act over several years, and had the opportunity to make quite a longitudonal informal study of my own. Other than the clinic at the hospital, there was a revolving door where a senior staffer at a withdrawal centre would turn up selling heroin on another day. ‘Former’ addicts were (probably still are) employed as counsellors at Directions ACT – and there were simply no standards of client confidentiality in a counselling situation, they were treated as gossip sessions. It may be laudable to attempt to rehabilitate people and give them jobs, but it leads to a situation where you simply cannot trust a person in a position of middle management or authority in the ACT rehabilitation sector not to relapse or behave unprofessionally. As you suggest, they can simply plug back into the same circle in another role.

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