The NZ Medical Association has denounced the legalisation of cannabis. Photo / File
The NZ Medical Association has denounced the legalisation of cannabis. Photo / File
Cannabis opposition
I was surprised the NZ Medical Association was so vociferous in their denouncing of the legalisation of cannabis. Doctors, including members of the association's board, said the NZMA stance is not necessarily that of its members, and many have asked if they could be canvassed on their opinion.The association chair, Dr Kate Baddock, said she has not received that request, and it is too late anyway.
She said the NZMA position is clear. "Our position on cannabis has been around the harms of cannabis," Dr Baddock said. "It's been there since 2012. It's been reiterated a few times over that time, and this is a board and organisational position - it's got nothing to do with me personally."
Baddock has appeared numerous times on TV and in newspapers, every time expressing the opinion that the harm outweighs any benefits from legalisation.
Just looking at it being a "gateway" drug, managed sales after legalisation will provide consistency and none of the "no cannabis, try this P/synthetic cannabis/ etc" from the black market.
At the science forum discussion on this referendum there was a very informative discussion from five panelists, one of whom was Chester Borrows who spoke from his experiences as a policeman in Patea, a lawyer and an MP. He had changed his view from arresting people for cannabis offences to being in favour of legalisation. One very telling comment was that in attending violent situations, often family harm, he found it was so often alcohol or P involved, never cannabis on its own. Borrows spoke also on the huge harm reduction that would happen when lives weren't ruined by imprisonment for relatively minor cannabis offences, let alone the cost of imprisonment.
JOHN MILNES Whanganui
Heritage hero
Yes! What a thrill to see Ross Mitchell-Anyon being lauded with the title of Heritage Hero at the Whanganui Regional Heritage Awards.
Ross, whose features over the years have grown more and more in harmony with the massive logs he used to haul from the river to fire his pottery, is a tough, determined individual who has always paddled his own canoe, upriver against prevailing "wisdom" whenever he felt it necessary.
Above all, he has been a visionary, with very clear principles. His pottery exemplified this: items designed to be used, every day, not just for display. And so too, with his embracing of this city's older buildings. He would buy them, then find tenants, especially artists, who would make darn good use of them.
The rock song goes: "We built this city ..." Well, Ross preserved this city. So many architecturally important older buildings, and even the massive Heads Rd wool stores. And he did it without anyone funding him, and with the strength of his own arms, and the skills of his hands.
To sit with Ross in his quirky hand-made riverside dwelling, watching him roll yet another cigarette and brew yet another cup of coffee as he gazed out over his beloved waters, has always been such a pleasure.
Through the hardest of times he has been an optimist and retained that same sense of gung-ho with a purpose.
Ross Mitchell-Anyon is a national treasure.
JOHN FRANCIS Melbourne
Your letters.
Right to silence
Until watching the second leaders debate (September 30) I did not realise that Judith Collins might actually be two different people.
In her recent memoir, "Pull No Punches", (pages 229-230), Collins casts herself as a champion of civil rights. When she was Police Minister she argued persuasively against changing our laws from their English origin where an individual's guilt must be proven. She argued we should not follow the Napoleonic tradition and subject the accused to inquisitorial judges. And especially not, as others argued, for singular exceptions like rape or kidnapping. She firmly endorsed the concept "better that a guilty person go free than that an innocent person be convicted".
Then on that September 30 debate stage, another Judith Collins appeared. In the case of suspected child homicide, Collins is all for eliminating the right to silence. That right and the assumption of innocence that it requires, is basic to our NZBORA.
US President Madison said, when he wrote the famous analogous fifth amendment to the US Constitution, silence is the fundamental right of free citizens, the protection of dissent.
We need to ask, like the folks on Seven Days, would the real Judith Collins please stand up?
