 | NORML News: Smokefree bill would prevent coffeeshops |
 GREENS AND LABOUR SUPPORT TOTAL BAN;
PETER DUNNE GETS NORML'S SUPPORT!
NORML News Winter 2003
Tough anti-smoking laws proposed by the health select committee would prevent Dutch-style coffeeshops from ever opening, despite being supported by more than half the submissions to the inquiry into the legal status of cannabis.
The Greens and the Labour government have both decided to support the outright ban on all indoor smoking, which also brings "herbal" smoking such as cannabis within the Smokefree Environments Act.
The bill passed its second reading on the 31st of July, meaning the best chance for keeping the hopes of coffeeshops alive now ironically rest with an amendment sponsored by United Future's Peter Dunne that would create a safe air quality standard.
The idea is to let bars and cafes install sufficient ventilation equipment to keep the air to an acceptable standard, which would satisfy people on both sides of the debate.
This is what the bill originally proposed, before the health committee decided on a complete ban.
While Peter Dunne is best known for his rabid anti-cannabis views, he is also a regular defender of tobacco and alcohol interests. The former pot smoker opposes cannabis law reform, but told TV1 news the smokefree law was the "slippery slope to a totalitarian state... we don't need the heavy hand of compulsion."
Meanwhile a new study published in the British Medical Journal contradicts the very reason for the smoking ban. The two authors analysed data from 35,561 people who had never smoked, but who lived with a spouse who did. They found that passive smoking was not linked to death from coronary heart disease or lung cancer, no matter how much or how often the spouse smoked.
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