{"id":11797,"date":"2024-11-01T06:40:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T17:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=11797"},"modified":"2024-11-01T06:40:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T17:40:25","slug":"labour-wants-gumboot-friday-funding-paused-following-mike-kings-alcohol-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=11797","title":{"rendered":"Labour wants Gumboot Friday funding paused following Mike King&#8217;s alcohol comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Drug Foundation has rejected campaigner Mike King&#8217;s comment that alcohol is not a problem for people with mental health issues saying alcohol is &#8220;really unhelpful during times of mental distress&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on\u00a0<i>Newstalk ZB\u00a0<\/i>on Wednesday, King questioned the link between alcohol and suicide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Alcohol is not a problem for people with mental health issues. It&#8217;s actually the solution to our problem, until you come up with a better solution,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would suggest to you that alcohol has prevented more young people from taking their own lives than it actually takes their own lives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>King immediately defended his reasoning, saying he had used drugs and alcohol to &#8220;stop that little voice inside my head&#8221; and that it was a &#8220;release&#8221; and a &#8220;lifejacket&#8221; until he got counselling.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Drug Foundation has rejected campaigner Mike King&#8217;s comment that alcohol is not a problem for people with mental health issues saying alcohol is &#8220;really unhelpful during times of mental distress&#8221;. Speaking on\u00a0Newstalk ZB\u00a0on Wednesday, King questioned the link between alcohol and suicide. &#8220;Alcohol is not a problem for people with mental health issues. It&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11799,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11797\/revisions\/11799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}