Monday 10 September 2012

New Zealand is an alcoholic country awash in denial

I am perplexed as to the character of those currently sitting in Parliament. Especially those leaning right and wearing expensive suits. No amount of dry-cleaning will be able to rid them of the smell of hypocrisy. I am referring to those in power who want us to believe- cannabis bad, alcohol good. It's so Orwellian like two legs good , four legs better.

Every study from around the world tells us that like tobacco, alcohol is an addictive drug and it's harm outweighs its pleasures for many people. I do not want to ban alcohol I want some fairness. Last night the Campbell show featured a story about an ordinary woman and her fall from grace due to her dependence on alcohol. Those people are everywhere. They are normal part of society and a product of what happens when we normalise an essentially unsafe commodity. They feel ashamed but carry on drinking. Its too easy to get alcohol 24/7 and its cheap.

The opposite is also occurring, where the people, who use cannabis , (often instead of alcohol) are being demonised. This week the presenter of  the Q+A programme said in relation to something about the drug testing of beneficiaries , "Lazy , over paid, dope smoking crims". How outrageous and offensive!

How very disingenious of our politicians to want to bring all sort of punishment down on a few people who smoke cannabis. Was this a response to the Court Protest in Palmerston North, where Billy McKee pleaded with a judge for permission to use cannabis. Billy McKee is 57 and an amputee as the result of a drunk driver. It would be ironic if it wasn't so sad. His supporters protested outside the court. I made a sign that said , Doctors not Judges. I want a doctor to have the power to say , this man can benefit from this treatment.

Judges do not like to be challenged. In court they are always listened too and of course always right. Maybe they are right and it is the Law that is wrong in this case.

Lazy , over paid chardonnay drinking crims may also apply to the politicians. How is it that over 52% of New Zealanders' have tried cannabis and in one longitudinal study the figure was 72% of the cohort had tried cannabis. What they are saying and it makes me feel sick to my stomach is, it's ok to punish people for a harmless act. In fact they are so far removed the reality of truthfulness, in suggesting this because imagine that before any beneficiary is drug tested we were able to apply the same principle to our MP's. And why stop at drug testing them , shouldn't they all be breathalysed each morning before they come to work?

I am sick of lies and double standards. We all know that people smoke cannabis with very little harm all over the world. We also know that these people in power have family and friends that smoke cannabis as cannabis is used across the whole of society. It just suits the media to only show the poorest of the people who have nothing to lose to make a point. You would be forgetting the American Billionaire who came to new Zealand on his super yacht was caught with hash and cannabis in 1999 and Richard Branson is in favour of legalising cannabis. Hardly loser types.