National leader Bill English has again ruled out cannabis law reform, even in the face of a spate of deaths from synthetic drugs.
However Jacinda Ardern, the new leader of the Labour Party, wrote in May 2016 that allowing medical cannabis “is a matter of personal freedom and compassion… Eventually, it’s impossible to avoid the wider question of whether cannabis prohibition has been effective, whatever your personal view.”
It’s Jacinda over Bill.
The Government’s piecemeal changes do not change much for patients, who are still needlessly suffering.
We are calling for patients and their caregivers to be allowed to grow and use cannabis for health purposes, and to have safe legal and affordable access to cannabis medicines – not just the synthetic alternatives pushed on us.
This Saturday 5th August NORML and Auckland Patients Group will hold a rally on Queen Street in Auckland to support safe legal access to medical cannabis – and against synthetics.
Yes,Labour should be bold and decriminalise cannabis,I feel it is the most sensible and responsible action to take.
The country is a wash with P ,disabling and destroying lives and relationship, to decriminalise could well have a huge positive effect for minimum cost.If Canada can see the merits in decriminalization then I’m sure New Zealand will benefit as well.
Be Bold and Do It.
Yeah right do you think that pigs might fly if Labour jag a win as well?
Since I cannot believe you actually believe this tosh I have to put it down to the same sort of bulldust thinking that had the Telegraph running a story this morning that the EU makes you fat. (convoluted journalese to do with the limits on sugar beet production being lifted).
Ardern is never going to allow the Labour Party to vote for such a thing, she is a by the numbers political hack and conventional by the numbers politics has it that dope legalisation is an inelastic political position.
That is if a pseudo lefty political party runs on a legalise it platform they will pick up very few new votes as those who want legalisation are most likely voting labour anyhow, on the other hand labour will lose a substantial percentage of old voters because difficult as it is to believe in 2017 there is still a substantial cohort of the public spread across the political spectrum who are totally down with the reefer madness nonsense, as well as lobby groups from law enforcement and the drug rehabilitation industry who see any attempt to liberalise any drugs as an attack on their jobs.
Dope won’t be legalised in Aotearoa until one of two things happens. Either everyone else (by everyone chiefly england & Oz) have already legalised it or the Natz get a new leader who wants to win over young people and thinks legalising dope will do the trick (no one said the Natz were the sharpest knives in the drawer).
The Natz can do it because social conservatives are the Natz meaning there is nowhere else for the reefer madness derps to go.
> That is if a pseudo lefty political party runs on a legalise it platform they will pick up very few new votes as those who want legalisation are most likely voting labour anyhow
This doesn’t make sense. The bulk of the extra voters that have flocked to the Greens recently were non-voters in 2014.
If Labour promised to legalise cannabis most of the extra voters they would get would be from people who didn’t vote in 2014 and were otherwise too disenfranchised.
See turnout rate stats here: http://vjmpublishing.nz/?p=1645
They wouldn’t get any extra voters that is the point – well very few, but they would lose a lot of their existing voters.
Cannabis law reform just isn’t a policy that even the most dedicated pot smokers who vote would rate above a myriad of other issues.
As for the greens, well I suggest you get out a bit more because prior to the Turei fit up, one of the main reasons that older voters who profess to care for the environment give as a reason to not vote green is that ‘they (the greens) want to legalise pot’.
Pot legalisation is in a similar black hole to decent welfare reform in that it is an emotive topic for conservatives whilst most humanists who think about enough to have an opinion don’t rate it as numero uno priority & won’t alter their vote as a result of a party’s platform on it.
Meanwhile a substantial chunk of those who are most affected by it don’t vote at all.
Well Labour would have nothing to lose by going down a similar track as Canada,It is probably correct to assume that Labour is not likely to do anything revolutionary or radical with any of thier existing policies, but sooner or later cannabis will be decriminalised and it would be a wasted opportunity for Labour not to act.
I personally don’t care who decriminalises cannabis and for me and possibly many others it is a sideline issue in the up coming elections, therefore unlikely to upset to many voters.
My support for decriminalisation is not to cultivate voters for the sake of gaining the governmental benches, but for the benefit of society as a whole.
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