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Joined: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 26 Location: Hutt Valley
Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 5:19 pm
i told him he was a "braindead fool" and to stop wasting taxpayer money on anti drug mail outs when that same money can be given to the police to crack down on burglars, assaults, home invaders and drunken drivers.
Visited the page, had my say. I like the fact that I can leave my name and address on there.....
Jim: "Another Pro-Cannabis response here Matt and this one's left his contact details. Shall we give him a call, thank him for his sensible, constructive feedback? I'd really value the opportunity to a Cannabis user who doesn't fit our outrageously dated and wildly inaccuarte stereotype... Could it be that these guys at NORML have a point? Maybe we're barking up the wrong tree here?"
I think that we also need to ask Mr. Anderton why MJ is illegal in the first place. Because when you get down to it, our drug laws are made by the USA. There is no real good reason for it to be illegal. USA convinced the UK to join the "war", we followed the UK. You can also counter argue just about any arguments that he will reply with. For example:
"Its a mind altering substance"
So is alcohol.
"It damages your lungs"
So does tobacco. Plus there are many other ways to consume MJ without smoke. Cookie anyone?
"You can overdose and die"
The LD-50 rating is estimated at 1:20,000 to 1:40,000 and that they have never, NEVER, been able to induce death in test subjects.
I sure dont like the fact that the US has such an influence on how we run our country. I'm sure a lot of other people.
Perhaps getting MPs like Mr. Anderton to think about drugs like this. Get him to see why it is illegal, may help make him see that here is no good reason.
jim anderton and mental health Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:07 pm
jim anderton is not a bad guy, he has really shown integrity in sticking to some important leftist principles, which were abandoned by labour.
i wonder if his opposition to decriminalisation might have something to do with his fears around mental health and young people (considering his family history).
for this reason i would think he would be supportive of medical mj, i can't imagine he would want people to suffer chonic pain. how can you not be depressed when in constant pain?
i would also think he would be interested in the trials using mj to treat mental illnesses.
i wonder how many of the 65 suicides in NZ prisons in the last 10 years were young people there on cannabis related offences?
who knows if it will get anywhere, this was my letter.
certainly not, firstly i beleive in the rights of every human being to do what they want with their body. Sure many might abuse the substance, but this is the case with anything and more so with legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco, drugs that HAVE undisputably killed more than those of cannabis.. ( in the case of cannabis, 0 deaths )
Cannabis has been a popular relaxant since the dawn of time. If man has survived this long without destroying himself with it. Why now should it be considered a hazard?
It is not lethal in any consumable dose.
It is useable in many ways, from medicinal use to cloting or fuel sources.
and i seriously think if it was legalised and could be commercially produced for public purchase. The amount of revinue from government taxation would be enough to build a new school and hospital in every town in the country..
now, weigh the odds. would it be better to pour millions of dollars down the drain on trying to catch dealers. Only to see new ones spring up ten fold.
Or legalise it, Educate people about it, and create a friendlier more unified and wealthy nation?.
this is what I told the backward 'progressives, bit wordy but it's just what came out:
No Way should cannabis remain illegal.
Prohibition simply creates a black market economy. Demand will not go away for such an enjoyable and low harm substance. There is no good reason why responsible adults cannot sensibly use marijuana.
Prohibition (of any drug, especially drugs that are natural and freely available) does not stop abuse, it makes the abuse worse, because those that need help are already outside the mechanisms of the mainstream system that could help them.
Making marijuana users criminals does not address the issue, it simply alienates normal everyday NZers that like to sometimes have a smoke.
I have been smoking marijuana reasonably regularly (eg 5 times a week) for over ten years.
At the age of 30 I have returned to univeristy to undertake postgraduate study to facilitate a change in career. I am achieving an A- average.
My marijuana use is self moderated so that it does not negatively impact upon my life, family or studies. Yet the laws that your party supports make me a criminal, and I have to therefore hide my use out of the public eye.
In fact I have to grow my own so that I do not have to mix with criminals that sell marijuana.
Therefore I am at even greater risk of harsh penalty if caught. Prosecution would ruin my career aspirations, however I will not stop smoking marijuana because I believe it is a fundamental human right.
Thousands of successful and productive NZ citizens are in my position, yet are forced into a life of duplicity.
Prohibition makes me a criminal for consuming a god given gift that has been used by mankind for eons.
Let me repeat, prohibition does not solve the perceived and actual problems around marijuana. It represents a 'stuffing your head under carpet' mentality that attempts to drive the activity of normal people into the realm of abnormal and criminal.
The only solution for reducing the abuse of any drug, be it alcohol, caffeine, speed, marijuana or any substance is open dialogue, honest education, and a regulated and taxed supply market. (Taxation allows an income stream to fund the education process. Regulation controls availablity and could be used to effect strategies to reduce health risks.)
Illegality simply makes illicit drugs more appealing to the young and naive.
Decriminalising marijuana requires a broad holistic world view that supports the freedom of individuals to do as they wish as long as they do not harm others.
Please embrace this line of thinking that (makes up the foundation of much of our tradition of law) and seek to decriminalise marijuana.
Adults have the ability to control their own lives in a responsible manner, and using marijuana responsibly requires the same set of skills and judgements as many other activites we undertake every single day.
I choose not to abuse alcohol and let it ruin my life, why do you not grant me the ability to LEGALLY make the same decisions about marijuana.? To underscore how rediculous the current laws of prohibition are, I DO make these judgements now, and do so ILLEGALLY like thousands of other NZ adults.
Why do you underestimate my ability to make this judgement and choose to label me with the stigma of criminal? There is no good reason.
Hear my plea, legalise marijuana for the good of all.
Re: jim anderton and mental health Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 6:40 pm
sarine wrote:
jim anderton is not a bad guy, he has really shown integrity in sticking to some important leftist principles, which were abandoned by labour.
i wonder if his opposition to decriminalisation might have something to do with his fears around mental health and young people (considering his family history).
for this reason i would think he would be supportive of medical mj, i can't imagine he would want people to suffer chonic pain. how can you not be depressed when in constant pain?
i would also think he would be interested in the trials using mj to treat mental illnesses.
i wonder how many of the 65 suicides in NZ prisons in the last 10 years were young people there on cannabis related offences?
I can see you are not one of those chronic pain cannabis users you think he would be so concerned about .
If you had been you would not be so supportive.
I agree his problem is personal , so is mine , I don;t stick my personal demons on others like he does , it will not fix what has already happened and I suffer because of ,
And I am supposed to think kindly of the two face prick.. thanks but no thanks
tony
Living in hope on medical dope.
Thank goodness he will be a non event soon , maybe he can go find god and cleanse his sole regards his past regrets and leave me to get on with my life without fear of persecution .
The health system he is associate minister of has caused me incredible traumatic periods over the last few years .. so much so if it was not for medipot I would be dead .
So when you read this Jim , as I know you will ,
I do sympathise with your personal tragity as I did back then, now how about you sympathise with mine now, the only thing standing between the licenece from MEDSAFE is you , ask Annette , the GW product is approved as you required by those you suggested , but stiill nothing happens.
You have ssen the stuff from Fergusson and Smith as well the documents relating to part 1a human rights act and the Director of procceddings HRC report , so if humanitarian grounds are beyond you now how about human rights??? you are a strong supporter and used to fight for rights of the underdog ....remember ?????.
A very dissapointed EX Labour , Anderton election worker as well as ex alliance supporter ..
Joined: Feb 23, 2003 Posts: 281 Location: Pt Chev, Auckland
Alliance now support decrim Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 8:52 pm
nice letter SeaI
of course the Greens famously left the Aliiance because big Jim was an authoritarian egotistical wanker, before Matt and Leila fell out with him.
The only good thing about the sorry political infighting mess is that post Jim, the Alliance are allowed to have a proper cannabis policy. The Alliance now support decriminalisation with an age limit of 18 (and more effective policing of that age limit BTW), whereas before he left, the fighting between Jim's old fogey camp and the sensible young anti-war camp meant that the Alliance only had a policy of "we'll look into it and encourage a national debate".
Anyway, congratulations to the Alliance for such a policy, so we all now have one more party that we can waste our party vote on, and one more choice of electorate candidate to cast a symbolic vote for.
Joined: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 64 Location: North Shore
Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 1:06 pm
It is annoying that people with selfish a narrow minded views on certain topics are allows to be in power. Its also more annoying how somebody who only won an electorate seat in the MMP election can have power in a coalition government where as a party who dosen't quite make the 5%threshold or even the opposition party dont get any say. But the election system is getting off topic.
My sister is an ex recreational MJ user who had a bad experiance (probably mixed with too much speed as a result of the "frineds" she was hanging out with at the time, although she furiously denys ever having tried speed (which is bullshit because I've seen her put about 50 lines up her nose before)). Before that incident she was really laid back about the whole thing, but now I have to hide it from her because she became one of those people who had a bad experiance so therefor she makes a point of trying to stop other people by having a bad experiance by frowning on thier chosen activity. Its this kind of person that no matter how much evidence is out there or how much you tell them that just because they did (bad experiance) dosn't mean everybody else will. To me, this is exctly how Jim Anderton comes accross as. He will never change his stance because he sees it as his personal duty to protect evrybody else from having a bad experiance.
Jim Anderton can win his electoral seat as much as he likes, and sure enuf he can have as much of say in politics as he wants. However I do think it is absolute BS that he wins only 1 seat and can have a say in what ever the govt does, where as national can win 47% of the vote and probably will only get to yell at labour from accross the floor of parliment. To me that says that there is seriously something wrong with our election system.
Joined: Oct 30, 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Dunedin, The world
My two cents Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:28 am
I am a new user of this site, and still getting to know how its going, but here is what I sent to jim.
Cannabis should never have been illegal, its the simple mature truth. If you keep looking for reasons to prohibit it, we will never get anywhere. If you really want to be progressive, you need to develop a better and more valid and furthermore TRUE conclusion on the effects of cannabis on society, which if you get the facts and approach them with an unbiased and intelligent stance, youll find that not only doesnt prohibition work, but it is also very harmful to our young people, who dont want to sacrifice the opportunities of their future because they inhaled an untoxic and pleasant psychoactive plant that can easily become part of a hollistic and balanced lifestyle like alcohol. If you eat too much you get fat, if you drink too much you can fuck your body, if you smoke too much pot, it can have derogatory effects. The difference is that there is true propaganda floating around about how to eat and drink responsibly, many of which are funded or set up by government agencies. Telling young people not to smoke pot (and this extends to other drugs too) and giving them next to no truth about it it a pretty dumb way to approach the subject. We have in new zealand a huge pot smoking population, and prohibition hasnt done anything to stop it, so the only answer is to radically rethink the current laws which are dinosaurs, and try and protect our people from the justice system which is defunct and very unenlightened. I am 21 and have smoked pot for 5 years, I travel, work, save and live a well balanced and very satisfying life and I would hate to lose it all because an unthoughtout and outdated law had me prosecuted for enjoying my leisure time and causing noone any discomfort or suffering. Tell me jim, is there a crime without a victim. I dont have an opinion about cannabis I have a conclusion which is open-minded, balanced and correct. Maybe the government should have a simliar standpoint? or is there no place for truth in what you tell us is a democracy? _________________ If the world was a better place, there would be less bad people, but its not.
Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 35 Location: Bridge City Reprezent
Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 7:34 pm
Quote:
The LD-50 rating is estimated at 1:20,000 to 1:40,000 and that they have never, NEVER, been able to induce death in test subjects.
Petition to Parliament, 1984, signed by approximately 40,000 people sought the abolition of the LD50 being carried out in New Zealand and the dropping of the Government's regulations that the LD50 is carried out in countries from where certain products are exported.
the LD50 test isn't an indicator of anything except the deciet of drug companies. You can pretty much use animal experiments to prove anything, true or false.
Joined: Dec 12, 2005 Posts: 430 Location: Auckland NZ/Uk
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:20 pm
i wrote a letter similiar to those above outlining why its illegal, prohibition etc and really hope it gets through every day reading this site gives me more insight to the lies and deceit. when will they wake up and KNOW that people are always going to take drugs and they are interwined with society to an extent that we have been shaped by them religion, clothing , culture etc. the last 10,000 years of pot smoking will continue i doubt they want to wage on a 10,000 and more year war on drugs. why waste the time and just legalize it now it will be legalized sooner or later. but the truth is i will and know alot of pot smokers will never stop because u say so. pot just lets me see through the lies our goverment tells so clearly it absurd that they are even trying to completly block out pot from society. lets face it i cant see it ever going to happen.
I always knew Mr Anderton was a doofus, but he made that even clearer after I emailed him regarding his comments a while ago in the NZ Herald. It was an article about P, and he was talking about our drug problems, then made claims that marijuana has been proven to cause depression.
So I emailed him saying "No, you have to look at underlying factors etc."
Here's his reply on why he believes this to be true: (transcripted a piece from his reply)
"In relation to suicide, there is evidence linking cannabis dependence with suicidal behaviours. This association remains even when factors such as mental disorders are controlled for. For example, a 1999 study, undertaken by the Christchurch School of Medicine, showed that 16% of those who had made a serious suicide attempt had a medically diagnosed cannabis disorder at the time of the attempt."
Well, shit, 16%? Why didn't someone alert the press sooner? Not only is that remarkably low (not even 1/4 of the study participants), but the results of that study actually disprove what he is trying to claim. I bet if you asked the Christchurch School of Medicine or read through the study, you'd find they didn't come to the conclusion that marijuana, without a doubt, causes depression in users.
This took him 2 months to come back with that lame ass letter.
Joined: Sep 18, 2005 Posts: 3885 Location: Sitting at computer.
Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 10:54 pm
steveoh wrote:
what the F does 'Medically diagnosed cannabis disorder at the time of the attempt' mean?
How many attempted suicides who used cannabis, while not being medically diagnosed as having cannabis disorder
DOC: Do you smoke cannabis?
Person: Um, Yes!
DOC: Mmmmm I'd say this is a case of Cannabis disorder! Well, don't do anything sill now?
Person: Um, OK.
So 84% committed suicide without cannabis in their system's, so from what I can gather from this information is that more people are likely to commit suicide if they aren't using cannabis. _________________ A pain free day the marijuana way.
So 84% committed suicide without cannabis in their system's, so from what I can gather from this information is that more people are likely to commit suicide if they aren't using cannabis.
Hmmm also if we want to transpose data and end extract conclusions .
Then we may find a much higher percentage of young females who committe suicide have been molested by Fathers than have abused cannabis.
Wonder what conclusions Anderton would jump to with these stats .
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