Drinnan and the ALCP ‘conspiracy’

Being who I am, I tend to get accused of all sorts of crazy stuff from time to time, but John Drinnan’s latest conspiracy is perhaps one of the funniest I’ve ever been smeared with.

I started getting weird breathless demands for an interview from the Drin throughout the week, when I finally got around to contacting him he put to me that my hosting of the Star Trust’s ‘Pathway to Reform’ this year meant that I was somehow involved in a conspiracy to block the ALCP from getting any attention on The Daily Blog BECAUSE (you’ll love this) the ALCP weren’t included in the TDB poll that runs down the right hand side of the blog.

When he put this to me, I laughed and said, “are you seriously contacting me about this”, he sounded a bit wounded and said, “well someone has to ask the questions”.

Someone indeed, it’s a pity they were all really whacky questions.

For the record, as I told Drin, there is no conspiracy against the ALCP on the Daily Blog. I don’t even set the TDB poll, Selwyn Manning does, and Selwyn and I have never had a discussion about which political parties to put into the list, the rationale for those on the poll is that those political parties are the only ones that will be represented inside Parliament.

Drin kept pushing with his conspiracy theory however claiming the fact MANA and the Internet Party are on the Poll proves that I am trying to push out the ALCP. I pointed out again, I didn’t set the poll and that the reason MANA and the Internet Party were on the poll was because they most likely will have representation in Parliament. We don’t include the Alliance Party either, is the Drin also suggesting my past relationship with MANA and the Internet Party is the reason the Alliance Party aren’t on the poll?

That did’t convince the Drin. He pointed to an email I sent the ALCP after hearing all this garbage as more proof of my conspiracy against the ALCP.

To be honest, I have been critical of the ALCP in the past. I think cannabis reform is too important to leave to the old stoners of the ALCP who couldn’t organise a cone in an Amsterdam coffee house. Their attempt at being a political party has been a total failure, their  history is as follows – 1.6% in 1996, 1.1% in 1999, .64% in 2002, .23% in 2005, .41% in 2008, and .52% in 2011.

I am a huge supporter of cannabis reform ever since cannabis activist Stephen McIntyre was bullied to death by the NZ Police and I think the ALCP make the cannabis issue fringe when it shouldn’t be. That criticism standing, there has never been a conspiracy to exclude them from a poll I don’t set.

I had been asked by ALCP members to put them in touch with the Internet Party and MANA when the alliance idea was being discussed in the media, based on the disinformation they’d given Drin I responded that request wouldn’t come from me if I was asked my thoughts on the matter.

The Drin says I have been a supporter of cannabis regulation and have argued points on the current synthetic highs debate, he missed however that I’ve argued for heavy regulation of all drugs, especially alcohol, tobacco and gambling and have called for a super vice tax on these products.

Drinnan is usually a very good journalist, but this claim of a conspiracy against the ALCP isn’t his best work.

I’d be offended if it wasn’t all so eye rollingly absurd.