20 Reasons to Vote YES
Here are 20 great reasons to vote Yes for the Cannabis Legislation and Control Bill in New Zealand’s 2020 referendum.
- Tax revenue
- Freed up police time
- Accessible, affordable medicine
- R20 age limit
- Potency limit
- Quality assurance
- Current laws failing
- Sales only in licensed premises
- Use at home or licensed premises only
- No advertising
- Purchase limit
- No drug driving
- Free choice for adults
- Reduced illicit market
- Less harm than alcohol
- Economic growth and jobs
- Home growing
- Education and healthcare
- Fewer people in prisons
- Fewer people with convictions
Harry Hawkins says:
How will they enforce drug driving?
How do we know that young children aren’t going to start smoking more weed at every 2nd person has it growing in their house? (i know its illegal but that wont stop people, it will now be more accessible to them)
admin says:
Hi Harry.
I have also responded to your email with similar queries.
Driving:
Removing cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act will not impact the way other legislation (like driving legislation) applies. Legal regulation of cannabis means people can enjoy it at home without being arrested, but if you commit some other crime (like driving while intoxicated, or murder or whatever) those are still crimes. Cannabis doesn’t become a Get Out Of Jail card for every other crime.
Intoxicated driving is already here (under prohibition) and it will not increase after legal regulation is introduced. In some municipalities that have legalised cannabis, driving under the influence of cannabis has stayed the same or decreased. Check out what happened in Canada: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2020002/article/00002-eng.htm
So – voting Yes to in the referendum will not make this situation worse, but it may very well make it better. The government has also put up a new Bill specifically to to deal with drugged driving. This is expected to happen before the election.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/422372/land-transport-drug-driving-amendment-bill-proposes-random-roadside-drug-testing
http://legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2020/0317/latest/LMS378859.html
You may also be interested in this article:
https://www.aap.com.au/will-legalising-cannabis-lead-to-more-drug-driving/?fbclid=IwAR0AjDKZWWkCi3ntf-JzK38OHHo–UT1nFh5-WUqhw487zW4oUU-ovZFC1U
With regard to children smoking cannabis – cannabis is already widely available, its already normalised – around 80% of young people try cannabis before they are 21. That suggests its pretty hard to make it more available than it currently is! We are proposing to introduce rules and restrictions to a situation where there are currently none.
You seem to think we will be making things more available – but the fact is that the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill will make cannabis less available for young people (not more). We are taking an open market, and restricting it with new regulations.
Staying with the current law will continue the situation where there are no regulations, no rules, no restrictions.
Our intention is to have regulatory controls, to restrict, to have rules.