Steven Wilkinson's blog

After watching TV3's show The Vote on Wednesday, which debated if we should decriminalise soft drugs. I decided to critique what went down on the show.

In the introduction Dr Jeremy McMinn said that alcohol kills 1000 New Zealanders equating to three Jumbo jets of people every year. "I couldn't even find a mini bus full of people who died from cannabis" he said. I'd ask him to try and find a bicycle of people who have died directly from cannabis use.

It's getting close to that time of year again. Where we get to see the police publicly keeping cannabis from harming the public. Every year they give these operations exciting and cryptic code names. I believe this operation should really be called. 'Operation Photo-op'. Because that's all it is, a photo-op.

How can we justify an operation that costs over three thousand dollars an hour. An operation that travels from the bottom of this country, to the top. And for what? The recovery of less than 20 percent of cannabis grown in New Zealand.

When George bush uses the term "free countries" I strongly doubt that New Zealand is one of them! We live in a country where we are bullied and conned into adopting American-influenced policies. Things like GATT, where we are signing away this country's sovereignty, allowing goods and services to be opened to international tenders, meaning American companies can run our welfare, water, schools, hospitals, then take the profits off shore.