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.”
Peter Dunne has announced doctors will be able to prescribe CBD – but no products are yet available, and when they are, like Sativex they will be expensive and unaffordable for most people who could benefit from it.
The latest figures obtained by NORML show they are not charging fewer people for cannabis, but more. Ignoring the wishes of the community, they are spending more time and more money on it, and filling our courts and jails with even more canna-folk. In the 8 months to August 2016, police laid 3387 charges for possession of cannabis (around fourteen people every day). This compares to 3891 in all of 2015.
Not content with checking the pee of beneficiaries, the leader of the Big Business Party has now complained about local workers, blaming their refusal to submit to pee tests for the National Party policy of encouraging record immigration, which others say is making housing unaffordable, depressing wages and driving locals out of work.
The changes announced by the Government today will do little to improve safe legal access for patients using cannabis medicinally, says cannabis advocacy group NORML.
“CONSERVATIVE LEFTISTS” espousing “conservative leftism” have become a thing. The term is applied (neither generously nor kindly) to those ageing members of the broader New Zealand Left whose understanding of progressive ideals was forged in the 1960s and 70s. Generally speaking, conservative leftists are depicted as political has-beens whose only continuing contribution to the progressive cause involves standing in its way.
Much of the progress we have made over the last year can be traced back to what Rose Renton started. Rose’s son Alex Renton was the first New Zealander to use medicinal cannabis in a hospital setting. After Alex tragically passed away, Rose continued to campaign for safe legal access for all patients.
New Zealand’s Liquor Licensing Trusts are a hangover from the days of prohibition and the temperance movement but provide a possible template for cannabis law reform.
A new poll conducted for cannabis campaigners shows New Zealanders want the law changed now. What may be surprising to some is that most people want herbal cannabis sold at health food stores for therapeutic purposes.
From today NSW doctors can prescribe medicinal cannabis – and Kiwi patients can go over and return with one month’s “lawfully obtained” supply. So how would NZ patients lawfully obtain any?