Branson’s Marijuana over Milk comment reminds us how tiny our unconfident vision is

By
Martyn Bradbury
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9
10

Isn’t this crazy…

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson recommends cannabis over cows for Kiwi farmers

Richard Branson is recommending cannabis over cows if New Zealand could legalise the drug.

The billionaire entrepreneur was in the country over the weekend to speak at a charity event.

In an interview with Newshub, he predicted cannabis would be as acceptable as wine in 10 years’ time.

He said the war on drugs had been an absolute failure and it was now time to look at other options.

“We’ve done a lot of studies on the war on drugs and it’s been an abject failure, and what is absolutely clear to us is that drugs should be decriminalised and people who have drug problems should be helped,” he told Newshub.

Branson urged New Zealand to legalise, grow, tax and regulate cannabis.

“I think that would be wonderful because obviously the amount of dairy cows that New Zealand has is damaging the rivers, if you could put some of that land over into growing cannabis would be just as profitable for them, if not more profitable.”

Federated Farmers responded and said they would look at it if it was legal and profitable, Newshub reported.

…OBVIOUSLY we should be transitioning our farmers away from environmentally destructive Dairy intensification towards cannabis production. We could grow some of the best cannabis in the world and Treasury predict a properly regulated and taxed cannabis market would generate half a billion dollars each year in taxes and prohibition cost savings.

Even the bloody Federated Farmers agree the idea would be worth looking at.

But the crazy part about all of this is that it takes a fucking foreign Billionaire to speak the words before the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind wake from their dozing and nod their heads.

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What’s currently on offer from our actual Political Parties? National will do nothing, NZ First will hold a do nothing referendum,  The Greens will host a talkfest and Labour might do something about medical cannabis.

We are an insecure culture that still requires outside opinions to challenge our tiny vision.

How sad.

9 COMMENTS

  2. Sir Richard Branson held a speech in Auckland on the weekend, yeah, one thousand dollars a head. So it was the rich and famous of NZ Inc mingling with each other and this “visionary entrepreneur”, as they usually like to do. I bet that the waiters and security personnel serving them and protecting them were paid something very close to the minimum wage.

    So my impression is, so what, do we need one rich prick tell us stuff that may deserve some consideration, when very common people have repeatedly raised the same ideas over many years?

    And what really made me furious was, that Newshub considered this the deserving headline news item for their news on Sunday evening, 6pm!?

    Never mind ‘Hit and Run’ questions and missing answers, never mind the Chinese wanting to invest and buy up more of New Zealand, even if this is through the backdoor, replacing the traditional Australian banks as “lenders” and some other overseas interests as “construction companies” and what else they bring.

    While this may be worthy to discuss, I believe we need to diversify, value add and offer more smart solutions, but also get rid of our fossil fuel run transport, our wasteful lifestyle and do so much more, which needs the state to step up as manager, enabler and financier, so we don’t end up replacing one domineering, exploiting foreign master with just another.

    And there will of course still be room for dairy as well, higher quality output, and better managed, to be sustainable on all fronts.

  3. We could also do away with reliance on fossil fuels, hemp for sustainable energy. Do away with oil based plastic hemp plastic stronger better and biodegradable. Newsprint from sustainable sources stop the deforestation. Better cloth rather than slave produced cotton with its reliance on toxic pesticides.
    Then there’s building , medical and all the rest all because some rotten corrupt business men were able to use fake news and lobbiests to have outlawed a plant that impacted on their ability to profit from destroying the planet.
    If there was a justice system we should be able to sue these evil corrupt pieces of shit for the degradation they have bought us to , instead we have a loon sucking on a branded beer bottle telling us think about the kids

  4. …maybe they will start listening if Branson says it

    …in the meantime our rivers and waterways suffer and the elderly and those with chronic pain are denied pain relief which doesnt kill them

  7. To be fair to the Greens, ever since Nandor and Metiria joined they have consistently put forward a policy for legal medical use, and for legal personal use and ‘grow your own’, even if they haven’t always done much to promote it. The “talkfest” Bomber refers to would be about whether or not to legalize commercial sale, which the party membership remains divided on.

    As for Labour, Aunty Helen dogwhistled the cannabis vote with hints of “decriminalization”, by which she meant “instant fines for possession”, and when Nandor finally swallowed a dead rat and put a private members bill for instant fines in the ballot, Labour joined National in voting it down. When it comes to drug law reform, I want to see specific policy from Labour before I take vague comments about them “doing something” the least bit seriously.

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