Won't somebody think of the children

Key defends his Justice Minister, saying

"No one is probably arguing necessarily that if someone uses a small amount of marijuana that that is necessarily of itself the end of the world," Mr Key said

"But, and I have to acknowledge because its factually correct that a lot of New Zealanders do, but what's the message we want to send youngsters? And the message is don't engage with drugs."

Isn't that nice. Key can feel good about the message we're sending to kids equating law and morality. I don't much like the message, but I'm more worried about the costs of sending it. Here's Nandor Tanczos, from July of last year:

I have a friend who wakes up every morning and wants to vomit. Most of the day he wants to vomit. Food often makes him actually vomit, and he sometimes vomits blood. The doctors have given him some pills for the nausea but they are hard to keep down. There is one very effective inhalant that his specialist has recommended, but he is not allowed to use it.

Another friend is tetraplegic. That's like paraplegic but with all four limbs incapacitated. He lives in constant pain. The doctors gave him morphine and other pain killers, but he won't use them because he becomes like a zombie when he does. He doesn't have much quality of life, as you can imagine, so anything that gives him some is very welcome. He found a herbal remedy that takes the edge off his pain, makes it manageable and gives him some get-up-and-go. Apparently a lot of people with spinal injuries use it, but when my friend grew some the police arrested him and a judge locked him in Mount Eden prison.

The medicine in both these cases is called cannabis. Whatever people think about the recreational use of cannabis, I find it difficult to believe that anyone thinks sick people should suffer needlessly.

I find it difficult to believe too. But you have to think about the message we're sending to the children. It's more important that a few cancer patients get to choose between agony and prison than that the kiddies get the wrong idea about marijuana.

For once, I'm a bit glad of Key's status quo bias. Because if he equates law and morality and worries about the message sent to children, it's only status quo bias keeping him from re-criminalizing prostitution.