 | NORML News: EDiTORiAL |
 This is always a crazy time of year, with plenty of herb about and police flying all over the place in helicopters doing all they can to bump up the arrest statistics and portray themselves as "winning" and the cannabis community as filthy evil scumbags writes Chris Fowlie in NORML News Winter 2004.
The sad reality is that behind the headlines are real people having their lives turned upside down over a herb that for many has a beneficial effect on their lives. It is therefore heartening to see medicinal cannabis back on the political agenda.
When it comes to drugs police do more harm than good, as our health warning on the opposite page shows. The research is clear - prohibition does not work. Legalisation does not increase cannabis use rates, yet it will bring in money rather than cost a fortune to enforce.
These sort of issues would be best investigated by the Justice and Electoral Committee, of which Nandor is the only member who wants to look at the law - the government members want to avoid the issue, while the red necks try and out tough each other. They need to realise that the "war on drugs" is really a war on drug users - a war on our own people.
Unfortunately, Maori get it worst. Research confirms they are four times as likely to be arrested for cannabis as their non-Maori peers. It is for this reason that the ALCP's decision to run in Te Tai Hauauru and use the campaign to highlight the inherent racism of the drug war, is sound.
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