 | NORML News: Dread in the House - Autumn 2003 |
 
The Dread in the House asks:
What is really important?
Pot and Politics with Green MP Nandor Tanczos
NORML News Autumn 2003
There has been just one important thing in my life in the last month - the birth of my baby daughter.
Still, coming back to work has not been all bad.
The cannabis inquiry is moving slowly along, with the first draft of the report before us in March. Unfortunately all but 3 members are new to the committee and did not hear the submissions.
It will be a slow process working through various drafts, trying to get agreement on the wording. It will be clause by clause, line by line - parliamentary urban warfare.
My Clean Slate bill (to wipe minor convictions if you have not reoffended) is also going through a select committee along with the government version. I am trying to get the government to agree to some aspects of mine. The government bill only applies to non-custodial sentences, where mine includes sentences of 6 months or less in prison. Even if I don’t succeed the bill will be a victory.
Craig McNair scored an own goal when he dobbed me in to the cops. As well as persecuting me because of my faith, he demonstrated what a waste of police time prohibition is. He has now returned to obscurity.
On the negative side, the government is making methamphetamine ‘class A’. The Greens will be the only party to oppose this. Not because we like P - I have consistently opposed its use. But making it class A will not stop people making it, selling it, buying it or using it. Spending more money on drug education, and on treatment, might.
They say it will make P a higher police priority. The police could reprioritise tomorrow if they wanted, or the government could alter their purchase agreement to make them.
Neither will the maximum life sentence for manufacturing and supplying class A be a deterrent. The actual sentences given for manufacturing class A and class B drugs over the past ten years have been about the same. Some years there may be an difference of a couple of months, some years there is none at all.
Its all about making Jim Anderton, New Zealand’s wannabe drug Tsar, look important.
|
|
|
|
| |
| Login |
|
You can register for some special extra features. | |
| Article Rating |
Average Score: 1
Votes: 1
| |
|
