Editorial: A dopey idea

The Northland Age 31 October 2017
Family First Comment: Another superb commentary from Peter Jackson (Editor of The Northland Age)…
“The best reason for not legalising cannabis was offered to this newspaper some years ago by a teacher at Kaitaia College. He said the college was home to any number of bright, determined, ambitious young people who knew what they wanted to do with their lives, and had mapped out exactly how they were going to achieve their ambitions.
They knew that even a minor cannabis conviction would nobble those ambitions, and for that reason alone wouldn’t touch the stuff with a barge pole. No one the writer knows has ever come up with a better reason for not legalising it. And no one will. If it is legalised future generations of bright, ambitious young people will assuredly dabble in it, to their (and our) cost.”
www.SayNopeToDope.nz
There is one benefit to MMP, it is that the whackier campaign ideas tend to perish in the coalition negotiation process.
That hasn’t entirely been the case this time, the worst example being the Green Party’s promise to initiate a referendum on the subject of legalising cannabis (by 2020).
This would seem to be a case of a party formulating policy in the hope that it will garner votes as opposed to genuinely believing it will be beneficial. That view is reinforced by Green leader James Shaw’s assurance last week that he had never smoked cannabis, adding the illuminating comment, “It isn’t good for you, is it?”
“We know that cannabis is a carcinogenic, as is tobacco. Unlike tobacco, however, it is also linked, beyond dispute, with mental illness and poor academic achievement.”
Too right it isn’t. There is enough evidence to support that to stupefy an entire nation, which makes it all the more extraordinary that he would not only propose a referendum in the first place, but would stick to his guns when it came to striking a deal with Labour.
All the more extraordinary because Mr Shaw’s party is one of the leading lights in the drive to make New Zealand tobacco-free by 2025. (Presumably the term smoke-free is now redundant).
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