LIVING, THIKNING + BEING
Tadhg Stopford: Vote YES for the “Cannabis Legalisation & Control Bill A founding doctrine of medicine is that ‘the physician tends and nature mends, let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food’. But ‘health’ industries and their lobbyists have twisted law and healthcare far from food. Nutrition has been switched for drugs in medical education and legislation and that’s why cannabis is a uniquely politicised plant. It’s a monopoly profit killer, unless monopolised itself. Is our ‘Cannabis System’ under-taught in medical schools because nutraceuticals are pharmas fear? Perhaps we should... vote YES for the ‘Cannabis Legalisation & Control Bill’, because we can make New Zealand healthier, wealthier, happier, and more sustainable AND the Chief Scientists’ Report supports a YES vote. In fact, the Chief Scientists’ Report says YES, without even taking into account the reduced binge drinking, opioid deaths and expensive drug prescriptions that will follow legalisation and control. Furthermore, the Report says YES, without mentioning the public cost benefits, of “do-it-yourself medicine” (Aka, having hemp/cannabis legally available to the public). Interestingly, in Italy pharmaceutical sales dropped by 11 percent in three major categories when industrial hemp became legal. So we could potentially improve health, make money, and save a billion dollars a year in health costs (based on our health spend, and the percentage of medicines that target the cannabinoid system) simply by voting YES to an ‘olde garden remedy’ that medicine is slowly remembering. If you want to read the Chief Scientists’ Report summary ‘Legalising Cannabis: At a Glance’, google it now, or copy the footnote below. Let’s tax gangs out of business.
We can, if we vote YES. In Italy, the mafia has lost hundreds of millions of euros to legal industrial hemp. Isn’t that also interesting? People do hemp instead of drugs because it’s about getting healthy, not high - CBD, CBG and more. It’s not about THC. Colorado, about our size and population, also taxed gangs and supported local industry by legalising cannabis, and they just earned their first billion dollars in tax revenue. We could do that, if we vote YES. But even with a big profit motive and open industry, legalisation in Colorado has been a public health success; with youth use dropping and the population supporting the new way of life it seems there is little to fear. The Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill that we will be voting on, is much less commercial than Colorado’s. In fact, we will still have the most conservative and controlling cannabis legalisation bill in the world. If we vote YES it will enable cottage industry and individual entrepreneurship in a broad range of sustainable industries such as in food, fibre, medicine, and pleasure. But if we vote NO, we are leaving cannabis markets to be monopolised by crime, business and medicine. We will lose health and wealth opportunities, and probably not even realise what we have lost for decades. A NO vote will see Kiwis lose out to greed and ignorance. Our Poor, Elderly, and Sick will be denied preventative and curative home remedy medicine. Due to its cost, and fearful doctors, ‘medical cannabis’ is a failure right now. It’s not as good, it’s too expensive, and most doctors simply won’t prescribe it. These are some of the reasons why you should vote YES. It’s the PN people’s plant. Free it for the people! (TADHG STOPFORD) #MakeItLegal
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62 PONSONBY NEWS+ September 2020
PUBLISHED FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH (except January)
