Why decriminalisation and medicinal cannabis aren’t enough and the secret history of filthy Police lies

ByMartyn Bradbury

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For the love of Christ, someone give this clown a smoke

A sterling effort today by the mainstream media in trying to explore the true economic and social costs of cannabis by asking what happens if we go beyond medicinal and decriminalisation to full legalisation with a taxed and regulated cannabis market…

The economics of legalising New Zealand’s marijuana market video

The economic argument

Economists sniffed out the potential gains long ago. More than 500 top boffins – including the American, Nobel laureate economist, Milton Friedman – signed a letter calling for legalisation in the United States back in 2005.

The combination of cost savings and tax income would generate a fortune, they said.

The crime bill

While the US led the costly war on drugs, prohibition has also come at a price in New Zealand. A new Drug Harm Index (DHI) released this month found police were spending about $90 million a year on cannabis-related “interventions”, with another $109m of costs in the courts and justice system.

Back in 2011, the Law Commission recommended legalising medicinal cannabis, and less punitive measures for recreational use.

Among other anomalies in the current law, possession of a bong (a glass pipe used for smoking) is technically punishable by a year in jail. Based on prison costs of $250 a day, that would total $90,000 of taxpayer dollars, or funding for six breast cancer surgeries.

…half a billion dollars – half of that from taxation and the other half in saved costs from allowing the Police to rampage through our communities.

So why haven’t we been able to progress things past Peter Dunne’s weasel words and the total lack of political leadership on this issue? Because of the filthy lies the NZ Police have spread to justify their powers of the most widely used illegal drugs in NZ…

How an unemployed Westie discredited a key police report on cannabis

The headline figures from a police intelligence report caught Steve Dawson’s attention. Cannabis was causing 2000 hospital admissions a year costing more than $30 million, the report claimed, and was the “cornerstone” of drug harm in this country.

“I’d never met any of the 2000 a year who were clogging up the hospitals – you know, the stoned wandering the streets and A&Es saying ‘help me!’ – so I thought I’d look into it.”

A “practical sort of person” with a degree in sociology from Canterbury University, Dawson would spend the better part of the next five years battling red tape and Government stalling tactics in his efforts to find the truth.

…these lying scumbag Police have purposely misrepresented the harm from cannabis so that they get to keep their access point into the lives of a huge swathe of NZ.

A regulated and taxed cannabis market would do more for economic growth and social cohesion than a thousand new bloody dairy farms. This is a cash crop waiting to benefit civil society while eroding the power of organised crime.

It is high time we stopped these moral hypocrites from ruining the lives of so many and become adults in this debate. Decriminalisation isn’t enough to regulate things and medicinal cannabis without regulation makes NZ dependent on pharmaceutical products.

The liars of authority have had their day, it’s time for the next generation to cast aside the ignorance of the system and demand reform now.

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4 Comments

  1. Pity the MSM cant try to save our destruction of our railways by the minister of tar seal while Joyce goes off and spends another 12 Billion for widening the truck route to Tauranga with our money but wont spend anything on regional rail????

    They don’t look at the economics of pouring money down the back of truck routes that they don’t get equal funding back for those services but with rail they demand a 6% return on any money spent????.

    1. Please try to keep your comments on-topic. Rail issues are important, and I’m sure TDB would happily host guest blogs about them, but thousands of kiwis being arrested and imprisoned unjustly for choosing to use cannabis is also important, and that’s what the topic is here.

      1. There is a point in there some where…… These capital charges the government is into siphons 10-40% of the a departments budget into admin costs. The rational being that you use the funding or lose it.

        CG makes the case for road funding. You could make the same argument about police scanners or patrol cars. Seeing as how anti dope campaigns run mostly in summer. That leaves about 8 months that all those radios and patrol cars and other assets aren’t being used but we still dump tens of millions in for the year. So all that gear ends up being used for other tasks.

        Anything you can think of has been criminalised from human behaviour to the height of a hedge to pointing fingers. Marijuana is just the tip of the injustice. The cities never use to be so enforced by fines. But now cost pressures mean police commanders have to get creative with there budgets by integrating payments into the economy. Councils intergrate payments into the economy through toll booths and privatising services as if rates aren’t enough to pay for there election promises.

        It’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination but I think CG has a point

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