There is a mad scramble after the cowardice of Labour’s decision to allow 51% of the electorate to criminalise the other 49% to seek decriminalisation of cannabis as a way to eliminate this racist drug law.
It is outrageous that the first step of the second term of a majority Labour Government was to allow the racist cannabis laws to remain despite almost 49% of the country calling for a legalised market!
Labour claimed they were simply enforcing the will of the referendum, but seeing as the referendum wasn’t binding, Labour are hiding behind majoritarianism to let them off the hook for a lack of leadership.
As many parts of the world shift to a regulated and taxed cannabis market, New Zealand risks becoming seriously out of step so decriminalization is now being hurriedly discussed in Parliament.
Even National feel compelled into this position.
You can’t seriously enforce a law that 49% of your population say should be legalised.
The good news of decriminalization is that it will stop the criminalization of Māori, the bad news is that decriminalization actually creates the worst of all worlds.
You don’t get the taxation for Government revenue to fund the drug rehabilitation programmes while enriching organised crime who face a lesser risk of caught users giving Police actionable evidence.
So the gangs get richer, the Government gets nothing and Māori will still be open to bias from Police writing out fines for being caught with cannabis.
So Police become revenue gatherers for a market the Government should be taxing directly instead of via the cops.
It is infinitely embarrassing that despite a majority, Labour are still paralysed on this issue.
First published on Waatea News.
Referenda are completely inappropriate tools for determining such a complex, nuanced matter as cannabis legalisation. And for that matter, end of life choices.
When will citizens assemblies assume a proper role in New Zealand governance?
Regular cannabis use increases the risk of developing a psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia. So you can’t pretend to care about mental health while at the same time be in favour of legalizing marijuana.
Regular car driving increases the risk of a fatal accident. So you cant pretend to care about car safety while at the same time be in favor of allowing people to drive legally. Because obviously if a percentage of people are dying on the roads, driving should be banned for everyone.
The Govt. position is truly pathetic. Whoever invited the US prohibitionist group SAM (Smart Attitudes to Marijuana) to speak in NZ, and subsequently gain an influential foothold in the debate by partnering with Family First, gets runner up in the pathetic stakes. Family First shared addresses and Tech with SAM and basically spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more on the NO campaign than was legally proscribed. Will anything be done about that?
John Key remember, ignored a referendum on asset sales, after 67% of voters said no to Nationals plans. Key responded with the middle finger.
Labour could be a lot more helpful to society than that! of course if they legislated regardless of the Referendum. Decrim is one thing, but as Bomber says is solves little by itself.
“Are Labour going to repeal racist cannabis laws or not?”
Not until our right wing american overlords say they can.
Read this and be heartened. Or not…!?
“Shrooms decriminalized in Washington D.C. as of today”
https://boingboing.net/2021/03/16/shrooms-decriminalized-in-washington-d-c-as-of-today.html
“Magic Mushrooms and other psychedelic stuffs are decriminalized in Washington D.C. as of today. The Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act of 2020, passed last year with overwhelming support, goes into effect at noon. They are not legal, but are specified as a “lowest law enforcement priority.”
Just the other morning while at a friends house I heard a kerfuffle of cars zooming, angry dogs barking and doors slamming and so I Leaped, like a Gazelle, to the curtains for a nice bout of twitching and behold !
It was a scene out of a Bruce Willis movie! Scary looking people dressed in black. And I mean BLACK. They wore black balaclava’s, black helmets, black rimmed shooting goggles, black panties, black booties, black pistols in black holsters, black tools like black handcuffs, black clubs, black mace and all hanging off black belts. Their huge black Alsatian dog bellowed to be allowed out to go and bite some ass as it bounced the sinister, interstellar, ironically psychedelic looking, cop-speedster station wagon about on its springs.
I saw Black Shadow People hiding behind walls, beside the neighbours houses, behind my friends best power pole and behind each other all the while waving very, very scary looking black automatic rifles about with that highly trained killer confidence of highly trained killers. ( A word on those guns, man. They had suppressors, scopes for both sniping AND for night shooting. I.e. Infrared. They had loooong magazines no doubt loaded up with hollow-points and Oh My God! You pull out so much as a kebab skewer at 500 meters and you’ll have a new head-hole to whistle Dixi through before you can shout God Bless America!
I peered on agog as ‘events unfolded’ and as perp’s were ‘cuffed.
When the testosterone vapours drifted over to the next block ( Sudden and unexplained increase in birthrates for that area coming…) as the Persons In Black disrobed into their Blade Runner cars I noticed they were all but kids, really.
My guess was P? My opinion was that it was a training exercise for elite coppers doing a spot of PR for our new masters. While Adern’s saying tougher gun laws for us, we can see a militarised urban elite on a wee training exercise against a couple of fat, tattooed bogans likely dealing bath salts to an imploding kiwi underclass.
An unstoppable climate event is taking hold while AO/NZ’s a huge, rich, beautiful country that can grow literally any kind of food you can name and there’s only 5 million of us on it. We’re a big, dumb, fat sitting duck.
Psychologically speaking, pot’s a unifying drug. People get together and hang out to smoke pot. And to drink and talk.
We can see that our state owned media’s been lobotomised by conservative Yank speak. Our media personalities are more ‘merican than Moms sweet apple pie ( Consider that yank-fawning idiot hoskings? And jonky? hosking’s bestie and owns property in Hawaii.) Shall we ponder our banks? They’re all rooted in the Fed Reserve which is Rothschild’s.
“The Rothschild family is a wealthy Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire, who established his banking business in the 1760s.Wikipedia”
Our Masters don’t care that their USA is decriminalising drugs in there because they know their number’s up.
But here? Here, is where they’ll weather the storms of their own making and they won’t want the beastly Kiwi unwashed making trouble on their new Mar-A-Logo.
I could be wrong, of course. We could always seek the usual informed clarity from our trusted politicians?
‘Because obviously if a percentage of people are dying on the roads, driving should be banned for everyone.’
Bloody Oath! Make Public transport free and get every other bastard off the road( then people could safely get as smashed as before global warming finishes us all).
Ignoring 1.1 million votes (For Cannabis) so that 1.2 million voters (Against Cannabis) is not smart politics…especially knowing that up to 75% of For Votes — also voted for Labour…the next election in 2024 will be closer than many people believe once those For Voters are remined that Labour said “NO” to their wishes.
The fact that Labour cannot bring itself to allow ONE retail shop for Cannabis, make it located in Wellington Central (which voted YES 72% of the total vote), under tight rules, and conditions…tells you how they feel about their own voters…If Government feels they can take your vote for granted they will…make them earn your vote!
The reason why repeal of Cannabis Prohibition is needed is because it would sort things out when it comes to the Cannabis situation in New Zealand is that it would dramatically bring down the price of Medical Cannabis and also it would make accessibility much easier to those who need it urgently, also it would allow the Green Fairies to openly operate.
Ahhh a referendum that went against your way of voting! Lets see now who was to blame this time that the voters freely voted against it:
1: The PM for not saying which way she would vote
2: USA (always blamed when things dont go your way)
3: lies by the anti weed side (ignoring the lies the pro weed stated about medical use, which was NOT part of the law/referendum)
I voted yes, but accept the result…but you just see it as a ‘racist’ law, no white people involved in the mass cultivation of plants and distribution just the brown ones?
Comments are closed.