Stop Censoring Topics

Hi Shauno,

Thank you for raising this topic, even if you have done so by questioning us, instead of asking about the status quo.

I'm going to assume that you actually read the posts on this topic???

So, after making that assumption, you should know exactly why this topic has been banned. Yet still you feel that you have the right to come here and 'tut tut' us for censoring topics. That is a bit rich. You are only a new member and virtually straight away you are taking us to task. Do you not have any empathy for those of us who are quite ill?

And no, I am not attacking you in anyway and this reply to you is being done in all charity and with due respect to you, because I do value your opinion and your input, plus your membership, but I find it interesting that after you have read the post detailing the ban, you didn't come here with a tone of inquiry, but instead a rather clinical request of us to allow you to discuss this topic.

Now I know this is a suggestion section, but your post would have been better received 'IF' you had of expressed your desire to inquire as to the status of this total ban in a conciliatory manner. Instead, however, you have told us that you wanted to come here to discuss it and am now not happy that you can't. If you've been looking around the internet to find forums to do this, you either haven't looked very hard or most forums ban this topic, for very good reasons.

I'll reiterate the reasons why it has been banned.

We moderators and other members, have had to suffer the abuse of immature drug pushers and proponents of medical marijuana, who have posted here in the past. They get all their ilk to come here and cross post tens of posts in all the categories with abusive messages singling out the moderators. They were and still are, very aggressive and angry, most I'm assuming are addicted drug addicts. Why else would they behave in such a verbally violent manner?
It took us months to finally get some control over this, as these criminals and thugs kept signing up with dummy accounts.

And the stress of these attacks made all us moderators quite ill. Not only that, the whole forum went dead for nearly 6 months, with just a few regular members posting. In fact, it has remained a sparsely posted forum ever since the day these thugs burned our forum.

We moderators are all sick. We all suffer chronic conditions and chronic pain. We are volunteers. We do not get paid anything to do this job, yet we are available all year round if need be and yet we are expected, 'by some,' to just put up with being abused. If you read the posts detailing these things, you would know all this.

Believe this or not, we are constantly bombarded with criminals signing up to this forum trying to sell drugs of any and all kinds. We have banned tens of these accounts just in the first 2 months of this year. It never stops!
In fact, I banned one this morning who had links to porn sites and I think drug sites placed into the post they made.

UPDATE!

For your sake and the sake of all other members, the subject of Medical Cannabis will be reintroduced into this forum at some point this year. And no, I cannot give you a time or date. Chronic Pain Australia is currently working on programs and studies with entities who work with this drug, so that we can attain more information to better understand this product and it's efficacy for people who suffer pain or its lack thereof.

However, first and foremost, Chronic Pain Australia is in the process of formulating its own position on this 'hot button topic' and will soon put out a media release that will be posted on the Home Page of our website, plus it will be posted here on the forum and on our Face Book account. Once this occurs, then AND ONLY THEN, will the forum be opened up for people to discuss this topic.

But know this. Every single member who comes to the forum to sell, promote or badger other members on any other topic outside the use of the 'approved' medication, will be immediately banned and have their profile deleted. The same will apply to all who attack the moderators. There will be no quarter given, because we are not here for the benefit of druggies, their criminal suppliers or any org that wants to use our large member base to sell their brand of medical cannabis.

If the topic gets out of hand and the moderators or I as the Administrator of this forum, start getting complaints from other members who become distressed over the aggressive nature of 'medical cannabis proponents,' then I will shut down the topic immediately and reinstate the total ban, until such time as the Board of Chronic Pain Australia revisits the topic at a Board meeting to decide whether or not to allow this subject back on the forum.

The forum of Chronic Pain Australia exists ONLY as a safe, quiet and calm place for those who suffer chronic pain and its stigma, to come here to link up with others who suffer the same or with those who care for someone who suffers or they have friends and/or family who suffer.

This forum IS NOT a political forum or a market place to sell drugs. Members will not be allowed to discuss politics of any kind whatsoever, which means this forum will never be an activist or even an advocacy forum.

Chronic Pain Australia is an advocacy organisation, but we refuse to use our own forum for any such advocacy, because we respect our members rights that they can come here and peacefully engage with other members without being badgered for their opinions or support for some campaign we might be engaged in.

However, we will always reserve the right to use the forum as we see fit!

Shauno, I do hope that this post answers your questions on this topic and that you have not taken offense to anything I have said. Like you, being a man who is forthright, means I speak my mind as you have done. And I respect your right to do so, as I trust you will respect my right to do so.

Please continue on being a member of this organisation if you feel we have anything to offer you or maybe you have some experiences to offer others that have helped you get through each day of life living with such a terrible condition as is chronic pain.

You are most welcome to stay here and be part of our family and once again thank you for raising the topic!

regards,


Peter Gregory
Administrator and Board Member!

Hi Shauno,

No, you are incorrect in assuming that you offended me. It takes a whole lot more than what you said to offend me.

One thing you need to know and learn, is that we are a fully open and public forum, which means every single post is picked up by Google. So, because you broached the subject, I had to speak to the internet as well as you. Hence the reason why I went to the level of telling you that this post was with "all due respect and charity." You should have been able to see from that, that I was not mad at you or annoyed in anyway at all.

We are not that annoyed with the constant attacks that we have to delete and ban. It is the personal attacks on us. As you know yourself, when you suffer chronic pain, you are already burning up the majority of your coping skills each day, just getting by. But when the insults come in, the little coping skills you have left, leave little to aid you, so then the stress levels start to rise. We don't deserve to be treated like that, when we are only volunteering and providing a safe place for others to come to.

Like you, I have been on this train all my life. To be precise, it has been 59 years this year. A very long time and it all started when I was just 3. So, all I got was just 3 years without serious pain and I have zero memory of it.

We are definitely in the same boat on this subject my friend, so no need to feel like you have trodden on anyone's toes. I'm glad you brought the subject up, because it gave me a chance to UPDATE the membership and anyone else who reads our forum.

Yes you are correct, CPA needs to be up with the latest, which we are. In fact we are way ahead of where anyone thinks we are. We just haven't advertised it yet.

But you must understand that the forum is not the place for such things. The forum is just a halfway house for people who suffer to come to. We are under no obligation to allow the discussion of any latest relevant topics, because politics, even in the health system are not to be discussed on our forum. The forum is not there for that purpose!

Are you able to see where I am coming from?


Peter

That's why we have the forum here on our main website, and why we run National Pain Week each year. Plus, on our FaceBook page we do put up research, surveys and new information.

So you need to be linked in to all our social media accounts and our websites and keep an eye out for new stuff.

We are currently working on a new forum or a redesign of this forum. This is happening in the back ground and will be published as soon as we are finished with it. So, keep an eye out for new things to come.

CPA is a very forward thinking organisation and it exists only for the support and advocacy of all who suffer chronic pain. We don't have a permanent income stream. We operate on donations and funding grants from orgs that are happy to help a not for profit org like us.

Anyway, glad to have you on board. We will be opening up the forum for medical marijuana in the near future, but how long it stays on the forum, will depend on the behaviour of the participants.

Just one point. We may have seen a drop of registered members signing in and looking on the forum, but if you look at the statistics at the bottom of the forum home page anytime you refresh it, you'll see there are always several hundred guests who are viewing the forum.

Our forum is one of the most accessible and important archives on the internet in the world, for people who suffer chronic pain. And we want to keep it that way.

Peter