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Cannabis deal in pipeline
Pot party looks towards Greens
By RUTH LAUGESEN, Sunday Star Times 15/11/98
PRO-CANNABIS campaigners have moved into the troubled Green Party and are considering this weekend
whether to join forces with the Greens to fight the next election.
Green Party co-leader Rod Donald hoped the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (ALCP) would stand aside
at the election and work to get the Greens elected instead.
"A good proportion of the constituency we are trying to reach has smoked marijuana at some time. They're
part of our market segment.
"And some of those people, including those of us who don't smoke it any more believe the focus should be on
health effects rather than on criminality," he said.
ALCP leader Michael Appleby said the party was meeting in Napier this weekend to discuss its election
strategy. This would include whether or not to amalgamate with the Greens or form some other alliance.
Other possibilities were backing Labour, the Alliance or even National depending on their drug policies,
he said.
However, the relationship with the Greens is already flourishing, with a senior ALCP activist Nandor
Tanczos now head of its youth section. As Wild Greens leader, he and others have been recruiting
new members for the party at festivals such as Sweetwaters and The Gathering.
Whether a deal is clinched between the two parties is partly riding on the Greens' drug policy,
which is one of the leading policy debates now under way within the Greens. Existing policy is to
decriminalise marijuana. In question is whether the Greens should go further and advocate legalisation.
The Greens are struggling to establish themselves as a parliamentary party after announcing their intention
to leave the Alliance at the next election. Mr Donald and fellow Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons have
failed to establish much of a profile for their party, with opinion polls putting their support at less than 1%.
At the last election the ALCP was the seventh most popular choice for voters, garnering 1.6% of the total
vote. At the October local body elections the party scored a first with the election of Mr. Appleby to a
Wellington suburban licensing trust. Also elected as Mayor of Invercargill was Tim Shadbolt, until
recently the party's deputy leader. Mr Donald said he had given up smoking marijuana because "it
didn't do anything for me and I didn't want to get lung cancer".
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