Richard gets Dunne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pne8AZvjYqo

Good evening. Thank you all for coming.

My name is Richard Goode, I’m here tonight representing the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. I’m the Legalise Cannabis Party’s candidate for the Mana electorate just north of here.

We have one policy. To legalise cannabis

Before another decade is up, New Zealand will almost certainly follow the lead of Colorado and other U.S. states and legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes.

But, when the time comes, we need to legalise cannabis sensibly and safely. That’s why we need Legalise Cannabis Party representation in Parliament.

What does sensible, safe cannabis law reform look like? It looks like Colorado, the U.S. state where, since 1 January this year, cannabis is now regulated like alcohol and tobacco.

What’s been the result since Colorado legalised cannabis? Positive outcomes. The crime rate? Down. The homicide rate? Down. The suicide rate? Down. Motor vehicle accidents? The road toll is down.

The immigration rate? Up! Many of you will have seen recent documentaries about a strain of cannabis called Charlotte’s Web and its use in treating epilepsy. Whole families have picked up and moved to Colorado, since Charlotte’s Web cannabis is the only thing that stops life-threatening epileptic seizures in their children.

Now let me tell you what sensible, safe cannabis law reform DOESN’T look like.

It doesn’t look like the recent legal highs debacle which was presided over by the National government’s Associate Minister of Health, Peter Dunne.

Instead of legalising safe, natural cannabis, Peter Dunne gave the Ministry of Health’s seal of approval to dozens of so-called “synthetic cannabis” products that actually contained 11 different untested, unsafe research chemicals with almost no history of human use about whose likely long-term health effects we knew absolutely nothing.

And this was after he’d made the following promise.

We are going to reverse the onus of proof so the manufacturers of these products have to prove they are safe before they can bring them on to the market.

Here’s a harrowing tale of addiction from a friend who switched from smoking natural cannabis to smoking one of Dunne’s chemical concoctions, thinking it must be safe because it had been approved as “low risk”.

im 34 been smoking buds since i was 15 never had an issue had sweet jobs good life got my dream job as a dairy farm manager everything going sweet till i heard my boss was going to do drug testing so i thort id give this synthetic shit ago didnt expect much since i[t] was sold in dairys and yea it was down hill from there. one packet and i was hooked like with weed i could go a couple or more days without it with this shit i had to have it and i couldnt stop myself honest sometimes i would cry asking myself what the fuck i was doing tho the whole time chuffing away on the pipe like a cracker.

There were hundreds of such cases of severe addiction, psychosis, and seizures. Yes, seizures.

Right now, thanks in large part to the Associate Minister of Health, seriously ill New Zealanders, including children with life-threatening seizures, are being denied legal access to the medicine they need.

Peter Dunne’s bright idea was to give the MOH’s seal of approval to chemicals that caused addiction, psychosis, and seizures in our young people instead.

Now, the guidelines I was given for tonight were to introduce myself, my party and my party’s policy’s, but also to discuss local issues.

In fact, I’ve just been talking about the biggest local issue facing the Ohariu electorate.

Peter Dunne entered Parliament as a Labour Party MP when David Lange’s Labour Party won a landslide victory in 1984. We got rid of Muldoon, but we got Dunne! He’s been propping up both Labour and National government’s and impeding safe, sensible drug law reform ever since.

He did a deal with Helen Clark in 2002. One of the terms of the support agreement that Peter Dunne insisted on was

The government will not introduce legislation to change the legal status of cannabis and will implement a comprehensive drug strategy aimed at protecting young people and educating them on the dangers of drug use.

The voters of Ohariu will be the judge of how good a job the man behind the legal highs debacle did at protecting young people and educating them on the dangers of drug use.

Please, this September 20, give your party vote to the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and your Mana electorate vote to me.

And, Ohariu voters, please consider very carefully to whom you give your electorate vote.

Thank you.

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Ministry of Cannabis

Regulatory Regime for Cannabis Announced

The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party announced its regulatory policy today, calling for a new Ministry of Cannabis.

The new regulatory authority would be established at a cost of $10 million according to ALCP’s shadow budget.

ALCP regulatory spokesman Dr Richard Goode said the Cannabis Ministry would issue licences for the commercial cannabis trade and help with training programmes for those interested in the industry.

“Licensing the commercial production and sale of cannabis will allow conditions to be put in place such as an R18 age-limit and a tax regime,” he said.

“Home-grown cannabis and social dealing among friends will not require a licence and will be tax-free. The medical marijuana industry will be offered tax-breaks so they only pay 50% of regular taxes. The hemp industry will pay regular taxes, while the commercial-recreational industry will pay excise duty on top of regular taxes.”

The definition of adult will be set at 18-years-old or above, while the limits for personal use will be set as high as possible in negotiation with the Government. Excise duty will be no higher than 15%, similar to the Colorado model.

This allows easy access to personal or medical cannabis while ensuring that commercial players contribute the most to public revenue.

Dr Goode said the new authority would also offer training programmes to help get the industry off the ground.

“Doctors will be offered training about the medical benefits of cannabis and how to prescribe it for patients,” he said.

“There will also be courses for those who want to get more involved in the hemp industry.”

These regulations will encourage cannabis commerce while ensuring an even playing field and and a market driven approach to pricing. All New Zealanders will be better off once legal cannabis sales are contributing to public revenue.

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The new Ministry of Cannabis will have the following areas of responsibility:

Stop the Arrests:

  • Instruct Police to use their discretion and stop arresting cannabis users.
  • Instruct courts to drop all pending cannabis charges.
  • Ensure cannabis is removed from the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Overturn Convictions:

  • Ensure all cannabis convictions are quashed and a Royal pardon issued.
  • Instruct Corrections to release all prisoners who are serving cannabis only sentences.
  • Instruct Corrections to wipe all outstanding fines and probation sentences for cannabis offences.
  • Establish a judicial panel to issue compensation for historical cannabis convictions.

Personal Use:

  • Allow adults to possess and use cannabis for personal use.
  • Allow adults to grow cannabis at home for personal use.
  • Allow adults to trade cannabis with each other for personal use.
  • Instruct IRD not to tax personal cannabis use.

Medical Cannabis:

  • Allow medical patients to use cannabis and access it from a doctor or pharmacy.
  • Allow caregivers to grow cannabis for individual patients.
  • Issue licences to grow medical cannabis on a commercial scale.
  • Issue licences to process or wholesale medical cannabis on a commercial scale.
  • Issue licences to dispensaries and pharmacies to retail medical cannabis.
  • Train doctors in how to prescribe medical cannabis.
  • Instruct IRD to give a 50% tax-break to the medical cannabis industry.

Industrial Hemp:

  • Allow anyone to register to grow industrial hemp without a licence.
  • Run training programmes in growing industrial hemp.
  • Run training programmes for processing and manufacturing industrial hemp products.
  • Allow any business to retail industrial hemp products.
  • Instruct IRD to tax industrial hemp at the usual tax rate.

Commercial-Recreational Cannabis:

  • Issue licences to grow cannabis on a commercial scale.
  • Issue licences to process or wholesale cannabis for commercial purposes.
  • Issue licences to operate a retail cannabis outlet.
  • Instruct IRD to tax commercial cannabis sales at the usual rate with an added excise duty.
  • Allow adults to buy personal amounts of cannabis from retail outlets.

International Trade:

  • Issue licences to import cannabis products into New Zealand.
  • Issue licences to export cannabis products from New Zealand.

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Sensus divinitatis

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For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (NIV)

A while ago I borrowed a friend’s copy of the New Scientist’s special edition, the God Issue. (Note to self: Return it!) Contrary to the tiresome claim of online atheist trolls, that everyone’s born an atheist, it turns out that

The vast majority of humans are “born believers”, naturally inclined to find religious claims and explanations attractive and easily acquired, and to attain fluency in using them.

Justin L. Barrett, the author of the article, then goes on to say

This attraction to religion is an evolutionary by-product of our ordinary cognitive equipment, and while it tells us nothing about the truth or otherwise of religious claims it does help us see religion in an interesting new light.

Of course, Barrett would say that. And, of course, that’s not the only explanation of human beings’ natural tendency to theism. Reformation theologian John Calvin wrote that

God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges

Calvin explains, Barrett explains away. The distinction between explaining and explaining away is an important one. I think the consistent atheist/Naturalist incurs an unfeasibly costly explanatory overhead.

But that discussion’s for another day. Really, this somewhat shallow blog post of my own is just a protracted excuse to post some awesome Christian deathcore from awesome Christian deathcore band I Built The Cross.

For somewhat greater depth on the current topic, I recommend Glenn Peoples’s awesome blog post Born Atheists? Science and Natural belief in God.

See also Psalm 19:1 (for something a little more soothing).

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree

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A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.

And he said to the vinedresser, “Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?”

And he answered him, “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” (ESV)