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Joined: Feb 23, 2003 Posts: 281 Location: Pt Chev, Auckland
Greens dump full decriminalisation for instant fines Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 1:01 am
The Green Party today released a new private members bill, that is a further back-down from their previous cannabis policy.
NORML welcome the announcement, because any form of cannabis law reform would be an improvement over the current system, and because the proposal does address some of the negative side-effects of instant fines, as experienced in the Australian states.
Instead of complete decriminalisation, the Greens now propose $100 instant fines, (rising to $500 if near a school or other place that young people go) and a fine plus a referral to a drug education counsellor for under 18s.
Are the Greens sell-outs for watering down their policy again, or is this a brilliant pre-election attack on the prohibitionist parties. What do you think?
Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 1372 Location: Nelson area
Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 10:53 am
So if your next door neighbour has kids do you cop the $500 fine or if you yourself have kids?
The greens are a cop out. name one thing they have stood strong on . anything anything? No nothing they should call themselves the pack of cards party, at least they would be honest in their advertising.
The greens are a political party, and like all political parties all they want is to be part of the "game" gimme the suit, gimme the car, gimme the fucken big pay packet!
GREEN IS ONLY A COLOUR! (when you are about to vomit, you turn green)
Hell the young Nats reckon that cannabis should be legalised.
ALCP, ALCP
I'll be fucked if I'm going to have the cops turn up at my house just because they know that they can hand out a $100 ticket. If that happens well hello I'm going to become a fine defulter
Come guys, this is the first election for a while where the major parties have spoken up against cannabis legalisation. They are doing this because cannabis has been comming up in the media, don't let them bamboozle the ignorant public, write letters to the papers, to your representives, get the facts out there
Dont be the person who thinks "Oh well a fine's better than prision" What about our individual freedom?
Steveoh _________________ Regulation will set cannabis free
Instant fines unjust, inequitable and just plain stoopid! Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2005 4:24 am
The Greens 'guilt tax' on cannabis sells debate and reason short.
Despite the UFO/Progressive/Labour confidence agreement, instant fines by way of a private members bill adds another distracting breach to the already interrupted due process law review and 'evidence based' policy development.
Instant fines widens the net while catching the sprat. It fails to address 'criminalization and the black market' (2003 HSC report) 'double standards' are retained (1998 HSC report) as are the 'impediments to health promotion' (Ottawa Charter 1986), worse, that these proposed possession fines fail as a regulatory tool is cited as a "worst possible scenario" in the 660 page Canadian Senate Report Sept. 2002.
Nandor confuses middle ground for no-mans land. Why should someone who lives within 99 meters of a 'place young people use' be fined 5 times more than the neighbor who lives 101 meters. This is arbitrary, making it capricious to suggest it affords anyone protection where even prohibition with full force and effect has failed. Even five plants and 28 grams for an annual plant doesn't stackup. The devil is in the details, I doubt Nandor's Bill will make, let alone deserve, a second reading.
However, this vexing question puts the ethics and policy standards of all political parties to the test, perhaps none more so than 'bottom line' United Future Outdoors.
Drug policy is not constrained to domestic debate. We do know that the majority of European elected representatives want reform (Catania Report 2004). And we know that internationally the nexus of arms, drugs, borders, politics, crime, corruption, laundering and terrorism turns simple green and white agricultural substances into conflict chemicals (Lord Birt report 2003, UNODCP 2004) while prohibition has neither reduced global demand nor its supply.
So New Zealand, what happened to the 'law review'?
We should be asking National's Don Brash - how reformers have 530 Endorsing Economists saying marijuana policy is an unaccounted mess and yet neither he, nor Cullen, Peters, Dunne or Hide can produce even baseline 'prohibition' cost-benefit analysis, let alone produce a peer or academic economist arguing status quo is good public policy. [See www.prohibitioncosts.org]. What we have is "grossly deficient" according the retired original member of the 1972 Blake-Palmer Committee Prof. Emeritus Fred Fastier, Pharmacology, Otago School of Medicine. Fastier wrote the original cannabis prohibition advise notably tagging it with 'maintaining prohibition so long as it is seen to be effective'.
I would gladly forgo tax cuts for a parliamentary term to entrench and enjoy the social capital benefits of the cumulative value of a well considered reform. Voters may also agree but don't expect parties to represent this issue, electors must take it up with your 'electorate' candidates and vote in the peoples choice. Even if unlikely, there is room in the house for 60 independents under MMP! That's a lot of good people round the select committee tables, all unfettered by party foolishness.
sig.
Blair Anderson, Director, Educators for Sensible Drug Policy [www.efsdp.org] _________________ Blair Anderson, Christchurch, NZ 8006. phone ++64 3 389-4065 027 2657219
Mild Green Initiatives, for your liberty, pleasure, health and safety. http://mildgreens.com
Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 1372 Location: Nelson area
Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:18 pm
Nandor was on our local community radio station this morning to talk about his "BILL" I contacted the anouncer and got him to ask Nandor about cops continually ariving at your doorstep coz they know that you have pot. He said that if his bill got through then the cops would loose their abillity to do non warranted searches (as if)
I think that if you are going to get a $100 fine for growing five or less plants, then if the cops give up their anual cannabis eradication opperation that they do every year, well then I'll support it (very selfish of me)
All I want to do is grow a couple of plants (enough to see me through the year) and lay back and just grove.
Puff-la
Steveoh _________________ Regulation will set cannabis free
Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 1372 Location: Nelson area
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 9:50 am
How can you NOT get something worse?
I didn't see Labour signing up with green last election, they signed up with a total dick who thinks cannabis is worse than aids, gays aliens from outerspace, rada rada rada......
Wake up! green wont have it (Nandor's bill) as a bottem line when (unlikely) or IF, Labour needs to streghten is support to govern. _________________ Regulation will set cannabis free
Yes, fines sound like a step in the right direction, however what will happen to
our smoke?
Will be be allowed to keep it due to the fine that will be imposed?
Frankly, I don't see it going through - too many prudes in parties and no
parties prepared to take a positive stand on the issue due to a fear of losing a few voters. But thats not the case, in the local rag I see 6 people asked
about the fines idea and 5 out of 6 thought it was a good idea. So will
the government listen - we can only hope!
1- removal of MDA emergency search powers : superb. the MDA search powers are clearly unjust and often abused. repealing this law will be a major victory.
2. govt coalition agreements: the bill will be a conscience vote which is supposedly not dictated on party lines. but do MP's have a conscience?
3. dissing the greens: i reckon that with politics you have to be cynical and support the best of a bad bunch. there's many reasons i hate the greens and many reasons i love them. but they're the best option we've got.
4. pragmatism: nandor is trying to get some law changes through. he's trying to be realistic and make some real gains at the same time. if he proposed legalisation in this bill, it would never get out of the starting blocks.
at the end of the day, this bill signals an opportunity for real change and i will support it. thanks nandor.
Last edited by Duncan on Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total
Joined: Oct 12, 2003 Posts: 390 Location: Otepoti, Te Wai Pounamu
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:30 pm
I agree Duncan. While the bill is far from ideal, everyone out there claiming its a cop out and that it doesnt go far enough is dreaming, realistically...realistically, a bill that went ANY further than that one would never hold any support in todays political climate...its sad, but true.
Nandor is right in that criminal convictions / records are fucking people up a lot. Its one of the biggest harms surrounding cannabis. Sure the bill doesn't address other avoidable harms such as quality control of product, regulated sale, sale to minors, etc. at least it is something.
I don't think Nandor has sold out. I think that he has done a pretty good service for the cannabis movement. He went right in there with the big wigs and he put our message to them. He said himself that he doesn't think that this bill goes far enough, but if anyone knows how far he can realistically push it it would be Nandor himself.
So yes I will be voting green, I was going to vote for them before the subject of this bill was brought up anyway. Sure they're not ideal, but they're better than any other party. I would vote ALCP but I'd rather not throw away my vote...
Joined: Feb 19, 2004 Posts: 1372 Location: Nelson area
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:18 pm
Hey the_pyrmid now you get two votes wih MMP unlike first past the post.
One vote for the greens, one for your ALCP candadate. This way you can still send a message to the government that you want to see change in the cannabis laws. Just voting for greens tells the government nothing except that you support one or all of the green's policies. Helen Clark, said after Nandor released his new cannabis (fine)law, that the only way it would get through parlament would be through a conscience vote. Using one of your votes to tell the government that cannabis law change is important to you, so when this conscience vote finally gets drawn in the "Ministers private bill draw" then the government might be more inclined to support it if they thought it contained votes for them.
A vote for ALCP isn't a wasted vote as long as you dont thimk that ALCP wants to get into power and start running the country, like the greens.
At the end of the day the government look at the voting trends so as to design a strategy for the next election and also where the population in general stands on issues. The greens are more interested in your "party" vote, so dude pass on that other vote where it'll count.
Don't waste one of your votes and use it for cannabis reform
Steveoh _________________ Regulation will set cannabis free
voting is just one little part of it. Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:32 pm
good logic steveoh. i agree, unless there is a close competition between labour and national for the electorate seat. otherwise, a party vote green/ electorate vote alcp message is a good tactic.
Joined: Aug 31, 2004 Posts: 17 Location: Golden Bay
nandors bill Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:03 pm
i read with dismay this sellout of a bill that our "Green Knight" has proposed.
it is my opinion that the greens have lost their way in their attempt to win the middle of the road voters.There is no evidence in any research that i have read that supports this kind of law.It infact just muddies already dirty water and will end up as yet another revenue gathering exercise for the govt.
Thera is but one acceptable option"legalization with regulation"
Vote A.L.C.P.------and if you like i wish to truely send a message to parliment then do it with both votes that we are given under MMP
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