Schapelle Corby

Aug 25th, 2009, in News, by

Schapelle CorbyThe Schapelle Corby saga, the stresses of life in a Bali jail have brought on insanity.

Convicted Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Leigh Corby, known affectionately as “Schappers”, serving a 20 year sentence in Bali’s Kerobokan jail for smuggling 4.2kg of marijuana in 2004, has been pronounced insane by a psychiatrist from Australia, Jonathan Phillips.

Jonathan Phillips
Jonathan Phillips

Associate Professor Jonathan Phillips, who is the former president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), visited Schapelle Corby in early August and said the surfer girl from the Gold Coast in sunny Queensland feels

cut off from society, useless, broken, without hope

Therefore the doctor diagnosed her as ‘crazy’ and at risk of committing suicide.

If 32 year old Corby were forced to serve out her sentence in Bali her condition could only worsen, he said, and recommended that she be moved to Australia.

Schapelle Corby
Schapelle Corby

It appears that Dr Phillips’ visit to Corby is part of a renewed effort by the Corby family to have the Australian government take up the case with its Indonesian counterpart. antara


116 Comments on “Schapelle Corby”

  1. Ross says:

    Interesting saga, madrotter, and it certainly serves the imaginary suryo right that he met ‘cess.’ anyone who passes on beautiful women, or even moderately cute ones, simply for the sake of material/career success, deserves whatever misery they ( the passers, not the women) might encounter.
    Always better to consider the lilies.

  2. madrotter says:

    hehehehe, beautifully said ross, thanks

  3. madrotter says:

    plus i felt that he was kind of doing that “in the real world” too

  4. Suryo Perkoso says:

    @Ross, there is nothing at all imaginery about old Suryo. Interestingly, the one Ross I did come across who was also of Scottish descent rather wished he had kept a bit more “imaginery” – a snake in the grass and all that.

    @Madrotter – this is obviously your real name, what with you involving yourself in the relative benefits of using your real name on forums?
    I did atumble through you “ces” post, but what the hell has that got to do with a washed out druggy, caught for trafficking and sentenced to do 20, and subsequently trying the loopy angle to get out? I’ll be damned if I know.

    It’s odd, both your attitude and Corby’s attitude preclude any sympathy – if she had turned around and admitted what she had done, and then requested a presidential pardon, those of us who don’t have much sympathy for her might be better disposed to feeling that she had repented a bit. Seems she like you believes that she has all the right in the world to enter Indonesia and do as she wishes. Let’s hope that one day Mr M.Adrotter, that we don’t read about you being stuck in an Indonesian gaol for a drug related offense.
    As for comments about the “real world” – I have been led to believe that weed produces a detachment from “the real world”.

  5. sighjay says:

    Interestingly today Argentina became the third country in the Americas this year to begin the decriminalisation of drugs (after Brasil and Mexico). There seems to be a fairly wide recognition across much of the world of the fact that heavily punitive drug laws have the opposite effect to their intended clampdown. I think Indonesia is a fairly clear example of that, it’s awash with drugs, as it Thailand and Malaysia. It continually amazes me how any young Indonesians I see who are so obviously wired to the hilt. Far more than I’d encounter in most developed nations. Heavy drug laws fail on so many levels.

    As to the harm ganja does. I don’t think there is any doubt that it has a very bad effect on a very, very tiny minority of those who use it in reasonably heavy quantities but decades, nay, centuries of evidence has shown that for most it has little more than a brief short term memory loss and reduced sperm count effect. And there is evidence that those who have a negative reaction may well have had those issues later on regardless, although the evidence on all this all is both disputed and inconclusive. There is also some evidence that certain racial groups react differently to THC.

    But for all that, I know many, many people who, in their younger years, smoked pot heavily with no obvious harm, including people who run multi-national companies, and live happy balanced lives. I don’t know a single soul who’s had one of these negative reactions. Some, in their 50s, still puff away socially. And in much of the world now, society accepts that and you are unlikely to incur much of a penalty for doing so.

    Anti Marijuana campaigners in the US have been trying to prove it’s danger for decades with little luck, although some of their efforts have bordered on the ludicrous (and if it wasn’t for the poor animals, hilarious), with rats and monkeys being fed vast amounts of THC, the equivalent of smoking continuously for many decades, in a single hit, to prove harm or psychotic reaction.

    Do I think Corby is guilty. Well, yes, I don’t think there is much doubt. Do I think she deserves the the imposed penalty? No, but it’s Indonesia and the law is what it is here, and often irrationally applied and her family and supporters are probably more much to blame for her 20 years than anyone else. If only they’d STFU she’d likely be sitting in back the Gold Coast in a year or two, puffing away.

    I had thoroughly Indonesian moment in all this when I saw an anti-Narkoba sign a few weeks back..sponsored by a cigarette company

  6. madrotter says:

    well my dear suryo like i said i do not wish to fight with you, i don’t see what’s the use lah… but it’s just not very ehrr, gentleman-like or classy to be gloating over the misery of a lady whatever her background, that corby-tour link was really very low to say the least, come on now! it’s like making fun of treeman (we had one person begging here in bandung who had the same sickness but way more worse), and sorry it just doesn’t make you look like the fantastic suryo that you no doubt normally are.
    madrotter, yeah, well my real name is Henk den Toom, i do the odd dj-job and i do a lot of music production and in the beginning folks here used to call me dj rotterdam, a pretty silly name in my book, kinda like dj tanggerang or dj ciamis, a bit kampungan, so in honor of my city of birth (rotterdam) i turned it into madrotter, like it or not, it’s been working fine for me, if you’re really being consumed by an intense hate for me now or if you’re just wondering you might google the name madrotter then you can either enjoy or hate my work…
    me sitting in a jail here for a drug offence isn’t very likely because as long as the laws here are what they are i have no choice to abide by them so there just isn’t any weed in my life now. as for other sorts of drugs, they’re not for me, those wild younger party hard days are far, very far behind me and since i suffer from tropical sprue alcohol is out…

    shit happens….

    and thanks for your information sighjay, good news!!! funny thing is that now in holland, with the christian-democrats in power a lot of good is being made undone, they’re closing down as many coffeeshops as they can, they closed down lots of the amsterdam red-light district and want to close down more. weird. i’m going there next week, it’s been a while, no idea what to expect. if elections were held there now the party that would come in second and maybe even first is the pvv from mister wilders, you remember him from his silly anti-islam movie fitna, he wants the al-quran banned, he wants muslims that are repeated offenders to be knee-capped and he wants to throw all muslims out of holland, again, weird…

  7. ET says:

    BM said

    Remove the illegal status of these drugs and you remove most of the damage they cause.

    This is the oistrich approach to the problem. Put your head in the sand and all will be fine. Let us abolish all borders and there will be no more trespassing. Or still better, let’s decriminalize everything and crime itself will cease to exist.

  8. sighjay says:

    Et said

    Put your head in the sand and all will be fine.

    But we know the other way hasn’t worked at all. The world is slowly moving towards a more rational approach to drugs, like it or not and I agree with others here, that within a few decades we will look back on the the way we dealt with drugs with some bemusement.

    In 2002 the US spend more money on the war on drugs than the whole heroin crop returned worldwide to the farmers. It would have made far more sense to simply buy the heroin and destroy it.

    Hard drug use worldwide increased year in, year out when the war on drugs was at it’s peak. The criminalisation and the harsh penalties have failed and simply made a bad problem worse.

    IMO failing to recognise that is the failure to face reality. Many nations have come to terms with that.

  9. Ross says:

    Suryo, I assure you I believe you are real, but I generously assumed that the misguided character in madrotter’s tale was madrotter’s creation!
    I can’t believe that any normal guy in Jakarta would chase ‘cess’ rather cewek2, right?

  10. Suryo Perkoso says:

    @Madrotter – gloating over a “lady” – nah, that’s the problem, Corby is no lady. And it’s not gloating, I just have no interest or concern in people like her. Yet again you make me want to mock her, how on earth can you compare someone who chose to throw away her life, and attempt the ruin of other lives by trafficking with someone who has an illness – never mock the afflicted and all that. Corby isn’t afflicted with anything apart from greed and possibly addiction.

    I also just love the defenders of cannabis whose arguments are just as hollow as those who defend tobacco products – it’s just so transparent. A quick search reveals that anyone in their right mind would consider that there can be no justification of the use of of cannabis, or for that matter tobacco and to a lesser extent alcohol.

    Like you or hate you? What is this? I have no feelings one way or the other, I just don’t agree with your statements and beliefs, that’s all.

  11. Baeksu says:

    Why is this still even an issue? You do the crime, you do the time — simple as that.

    Of course she’s nuts — nuts to have flouted the draconian laws of Indonesia in the first place!

  12. sighjay says:

    Corby isn’t afflicted with anything apart from greed and possibly addiction.

    There is no evidence that cannabis is really heavily addictive in any physical way, in fact the opposite is true, despite a ramp of largely right wing sites in the US claiming such, albeit with no real research to back their claims.

    Mostly you simply need more to get a hit and simply get grumpy if you can’t get the stuff:

    Research has shown the overall addiction potential for cannabis to be much less than for tobacco, alcohol, cocaine or heroin. There is some evidence that dependence on cannabis can exist in some heavy users. One study with 500 heavy users of cannabis showed that when trying to cease consumption, some experience one or more symptoms such as insomnia, restlessness, loss of appetite, depression, irritability, and anger. Prolonged marijuana use produces both pharmacokinetic changes (how the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted) and pharmacodynamic changes (how the drug interacts with target cells) to the body. These changes require the user to consume higher doses of the drug to achieve a common desirable effect (known as a higher tolerance), and reinforce the body’s metabolic systems for synthesizing and eliminating the drug more efficiently.

    It’s hard to argue with the greedy tag though (and stupid, beyond words). Even in the increasing number of nations where pot is being decriminalised 4 1/2 kilos would likely get you some jail time still, albeit substantially less than 20 years.

  13. madrotter says:

    not to mention it’s positive effects on people who suffer from asthma, glaucoma, diabetes, cancer, aids… recent research showed that people who regularly consume it’s oil have a 50% less chance of developing cancer, oil made from cannabis is actually more healthy than oils from soya andhow many products can you make from it? from soaps to candy even burgers!

    but anyways suryo, i agree with you one one thing, we don’t really agree and thats fine!

    like i said how many times now? it’s an endless discussion going nowhere so in the interest of keeping things light and happy i’ll give you one more suryo perkoso story ok!

    after many years it happened, suryo perkoso won a nice amount of money playing the lottery. he finally could make his dream come true. a sex-change!!! after some time he finally became a she. a she with beautiful breasts and a different set of genitals…
    suryo perkoso still had some money left so she could make her other dream come true, a safari/jungle trek in afrika…
    the safari was incredible, suryo perkoso saw elephants, lions, zebra’s, you name it and suryo perkoso saw it. then it was time for the jungle trek and together with a group of other tourists and guides suryo perkoso found herself in the dense jungles of afrika. at a certain point suryo felt the call of nature and she went away from the group to relieve herself in the bushes. when suryo perkoso came back the travelgroup was nowhere to be seen so suryo started walking. and walking. and walking. no sign of the group and surely, suryo thought, she was lost.
    then suryo came to a clearing and in that clearing stood a tall longhaired very handsome broad-shouldered man.
    “who are you?” asked suryo. “my name is tarzan” answered the man, “i live here and have been living here my whole life”. “so”, suryo asked, “how do you eat?” “well, every now and then i kill an animal and eat it and there are many kinds of fruit here”.
    “so”, suryo asked, “what do you do for sex?”. “well” tarzan said, “i find a tree with a nice hole in it and i f*ck it, works fine”. “would you like to have sex with me?” asked suryo. “hell yeah!!” said tarzan, so suryo got undressed, lay down and spread her legs where upon tarzan kicked her with all his might right in her crotch. “why did you do that???” screamed suryo..
    “why, i always check for squirls first” replied tarzan….

    there are plans to turn this story into a movie….

  14. David says:

    Are there any plans to repair that broken shift key on your keyboard?

  15. madrotter says:

    hehehe that shift key has been a thorn in my side for a while now patung! i’m just making fun don’t mean any harm!

    wanna hear a patung story?

  16. David says:

    If it involves the use of the shift key, then yes please go ahead.

  17. madrotter says:

    ok i’ll try!!!

    patung wants to go hunting and patung’s wife is friendly enough to pack his things. so patung is in the forest and he sees this incredible deer with adlers bigger than anything he’s ever seen. he grabs his gun and grabs his bullets but then finds out his bullets are not there, there are only tampons. angrily patung comes home, “what did you do??? i see this deer with the biggest adlers ive ever seen, i wanna shoot it but all i had was tampons!!!”
    “that explains! patungs wife says, i was waiting for the bus this morning, i coughed and shot a dog!”

    its funnier when you hear it in dutch actually….

  18. Brother Mouzone says:

    @Suryo

    A quick search reveals that anyone in their right mind would consider that there can be no justification of the use of of cannabis, or for that matter tobacco and to a lesser extent alcohol.

    No justification? What do you mean exactly?

    Do you mean that they are harmful? Lots of things we do are harmful to us but we are allowed to do them nonetheless. That’s part of being in a free society.

    Doesn’t matter if it’s having casual sex, smoking cannabis, eating too much McDonalds, or watching too much TV; while it might not be my thing and it might even be harmful, I would always defend individual freedoms above a nanny-state that treats us like idiot children.

  19. sighjay says:

    at there can be no justification of the use of of cannabis

    And it’s not close to a justification for anything but it’s perhaps worth noting that the world would be a much poorer place if it wasn’t for the art, and very particularly, the music created under the influence of ganja.

    Bob Marley (who’s been the biggest influence on third world music, including Indonesia, of any musician over the past three decades), Lennon, Dylan and so many more simply would not have created what they created, in the way they created it, without the influence of THC.

    As I say, not a justification, but quite different from the more caustic drugs like heroin, which often destroyed those musicians who dabbled too heavily. I can’t think of a single case where pot did the same.

  20. Jeff says:

    Anyone that thinks this woman is guilty I an absolute Moron!! There is no evidence. The court there was the most pathetic third world bullshit I have ever read about. Do these people know that the wheel was invented a while back. They must like being the world butt hole because when you convict people with nothing other than a very harsh law then why have judges and lawyers and a court at all. So if you could dump 4k of grass to some surfers in Aussie for 5 times what you could sell it for in Bali AND BECAME a smuggler and risked your life, wouldn’t you jump at that great business deal. Gee Maybe I will get some coke here in America and take it to columbia sell it to them for 80 % less then i bought it for and then see If i could get them to sell it back to me for twice as much. This woman is not an idiot. There was a lot of illegal shit going on in that airport in Aussie and none of it was her and her boogie board bag because it was in the hands of the airlines. If Indonesia wants to get in the world game and be respected by the world then they have to have a legal system that does not convict 500 out of 500 cases because they are wrong. That shows a flawed system. I support Shapelle and always will.

  21. dragonwall says:

    There is a certain similarity in the case where a son of an American expat in Singapore who felt that the democracy he experienced in the US had made him to disrepect the law of another country.

    Road signs, license plates and directives were taken home to be his prize collections knowing that his father had some influence in the US Embassy.

    He was sentence to jail and canning.

    A Presidential approach did not deter the Singapore Government from exercising the the judgement pass on him. He was canned and fortunately the Singapore Government send him back without him having to serve his jail sentence.

    Now the Australian Government is trying to do this to Indonesian Government. I think they are having a different approach and to me it seems very unlikely that the Indonesian Government would budge noting that ther has been a rift between the two Governments.

    How unfortunate.

  22. Odinius says:

    He was sentence to jail and canning.

    Bit harsh that, don’t you think? At least they could have put him in a jar…

  23. Andy says:

    Singapore law is particularly harsh but the law applies to all concerned. Whether local or foreigner the same punishment will be dished out if the defendant is found guilty. Their law is known to be at least transparent and if a local, for example, was to murder an innocent foreigner they would be soon wearing a rope around their neck.
    Not so in Indonesia. The Indonesians have given lame sentences to terrorists, let some (like Bashir) walk free after pitifully short times in jail, given preferential treatment in exchange for money and also six month remissions at Ramadan time. Lately a known people smuggler wanted throughout the world was caught and faces….wait for it……four years in prison.

    Now compare that to 20 years for a bit of grass and it all seems out of whack doesn’t it. Could it be that simply the Indonesians just enjoy locking up bules and throwing away the key?

  24. Odinius says:

    Andy,

    But drug smugglers from third-world countries who get caught in Indonesia are routinely shot, not jailed. So in comparison to that, Corby got preferential treatment.

    I’d say the key problem with Indonesian justice is that there’s no logic to sentencing guidelines. There’s no good reason why a human smuggler gets 4 years and a marijuana smuggler gets 20. But I think it’s a case of misplaced priorities, not ethnic preferences.

  25. dragonwall says:

    I don’t think they like throwing away the key because because the person is a bule, bule in particular Australian. Bitter enemies.

    But one thing I like to guess is that.

    Indonesia wants to show who is boss meaning I do what to whoever they are as I like.

    And who can be the boss meaning that if you are someone that could possibly cause the country to turn into turmoil risking their own lives, then he is the boss.

    Namely Wiranto (the Chinese Hater), Prabowo (the one without the one under), TS (the gay), Yusril Ihza Mahendra (Someone called him something), Abu Richard Bakery (the Mudipulator), JK (the little Japanese) and Habibie (the German henchman(

    It may not be the case of misplaced priorities but misplaced pockets more likely.

  26. diego says:

    Who is TS btw?

  27. shorty says:

    Sighjay argentina has backed off on prosecuting smal amounts/personal usage. my understanding is that this has nothing to do with a more liberal attitude to drugs.

    It’s to try and stamp out the corruption where the cops ‘charge’ users to avoid prosecution. (sounds familiar?)

  28. dragonwall says:

    Who else except the infamous Tommy.

  29. Rad says:

    20 years for weed…

    well, as an Indonesian I’d say that it’s excessive UNTIL the amount 4.5 kg came to my attention.

    seriously, was she insane?

    my friends here in germany do weeds too.
    but they never have more than a gram at any time.

    and they WILL be fined, and put into rehab for that if the cops found out.

    now, since 4.5 kg equals 4500 grams…
    boy, that’s a LOT of $$$ and a LONG time in rehab you’re pretty much imprisoned…

    BTW is this the empty-head who said that weeds are cow-feeds back in Australia?

  30. Brother Mouzone says:

    Sighjay argentina has backed off on prosecuting smal amounts/personal usage. my understanding is that this has nothing to do with a more liberal attitude to drugs.

    Reducing punishments for drugs = a “more liberal attitude to drugs”, whatever the motivation behind it.

    Countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, and Mexico are all liberalizing their drug laws. Too soon to say yet if this is a worldwide trend towards decriminalization but I imagine that if these experiments prove successful (and I can’t see why they would not) other nations will be jumping on board.

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