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It seems to me the very best reason to vote no is as a protest against the Grey Lynn liberal establishment that is pushing so hard for everyone to #VoteYesOnCannabis.
They dress it up as a health issue and wank on about it all being “evidence based” and so forth.
They dress it up as a health issue and wank on about it all being “evidence based” and so forth.
It always seem to me the motivation is really all about having a nice joint over a nice bottle of $90 Martinborough Pinot Noir in a $4 million Ponsonby villa on Sunday afternoon, and all the health messaging and concern for South Auckland comes after.
But then, I’m not exactly sure what is wrong with having a joint over a bottle of wine on a Sunday afternoon. While I am a bit Ayatollah Khomeini these days over alcohol and cannabis (and all forms of dancing) it seems like a reasonably pleasant and inoffensive thing to do.
So then we turn to the likely effects on health, including addiction. Well, we can never know in advance. We can look at offshore experience but every country is a bit different. We don’t know what happens when cannabis is legalised in New Zealand.
The conservative response is to say “well, it’s illegal in most places and there must be good reasons for that, even if I don’t understand them, so leave well enough alone”.
But that is countered by the international experience that suggests, whatever the local effects, they aren’t going to be catastrophic. At least I don’t know they have been catastrophic anywhere. I’m guessing if they had been, someone would have let us know.
So it comes down to a value judgment and bit of a guess.
I have a policy of not letting the Grey Lynn liberal establishment determine my vote on any issue, so it would be a bit counterproductive to vote no just because of them. So let’s look at it from a position of personal authenticity and integrity.
The @nzpolice don’t really enforce the law as it is. The pro-drug campaigners talk about people people locked up for smoking a joint but that is complete nonsense. It never happens, unless cannabis is being used for a clever criminal the way tax evasion was for Al Capone.
In reality, the police, if they do anything at all, try to get people into a drug programme like the one I still go to most weeks.
So I don’t buy the pro-drug argument that the illegal status, in reality, makes it difficult to access addiction services. Alcoholics find it as difficult. The lack of funding and staff for addiction services is the bigger problem & needs to fixed whatever happens in the vote.
And the trend towards the police not prosecuting users but instead seeing it as a health issue will only accelerate, even if the vote is no.
They don’t even always prosecute people for meth, as the big bust in Gisborne a few years ago shows. And nor should they.
So then the question becomes what does voting no mean? To me, if you believe in the rule of law, it has to mean that you think S7 of the Misuse of Drugs Act should be the law.
And that commits you to believing you think the Grey Lynn wankers with their Ata Rangi and the South Auckland teenagers should be charged and potentially face a year in prison.
But I don’t think that. And nor do the @nzpolice, or anyone in parliament or the judiciary.
So voting no is explicitly voting for a piece of law that no one thinks should be enforced. I don’t think people who believe in the rule of law should consciously do that. It weakens public respect & compliance with the law. And it grants effective law making power to the police.
So I think the proper conservative position is to say “well, it is a bit of a risk, but it seems to be where the world is going, it won’t change things radically either way, it might lead to increased use at the margins, and a few more people getting help also at the margins ...
... but it will at least bring the law into line more with current practice and in line with the future practice we all agree is desirable or at least likely”.
So as much as seeing the Grey Lynn establishment weeping into their Ata Rangi is a powerful motive to vote no, I have decided to #VoteYesOnCannabis and I think all genuine conservatives who believe in the rule of law should too. THE END (unless I think of something else)
PS. There’s also the gang thing and the tax issue, but those have been pretty well argued by everyone else.
