Effective advocacy

I suffered a few "banging my head on the kitchen counter"-related injuries yesterday afternoon while listening to Afternoons with Jim Mora.* Waimate District councillor Sandy Mulqueen was talking about her support for marijuana law reform (starting around the 18 minute mark here). Things started well, but then started downhill. Apart from the absurd claim that prohibition is almost making the marijuana plant extinct, we then got into the too-typical blend of odd anti-business sentiment** and perhaps overenthusiastic support for marijuana's potential medicinal benefits.***

Things went very sharply downhill from there with proposals for drinking licences, marijuana licences, and sex licences to encourage personal responsibility.

And, at the 23 minute mark, she started talking about how, when she was a bus driver long ago, she often was stoned out of her mind, [Update: I'd heard "drove a lot stoned" rather than "drove stoned, a lot"; the latter speaks to frequency rather than intensity. Now corrected.] and that it improved her driving. Then she talked about how both her kids support legalization despite that her daughter started smoking marijuana at age 14 and that it may have helped contribute to a mental breakdown.

I would have thought that:

• the cannabis reform movement could field better advocates
• Candidates for local councils who advocate driving while stoned would have a hard time being elected. I guess I don't know much about Waimate.****

Despite all that, the Stuff poll accompanying the story currently has majority support for relaxing the drug laws, either to decriminalisation or to legalisation.

Legalise marijuana, regulate it like alcohol and tobacco, set an excise tax to keep the selling price to consumers equal to that currently paid by consumers. If the policy goal is demand reduction, excise is a less harmful means to that end than is prohibition. And maintain criminal penalties for driving while stoned out of your mind. Is it really that hard to say that 25 second bit without descending into madness?

* Who my kids love as narrator on "The Adventures of Massey Ferguson"; we've bought both DVD box sets. You should too, especially if you're not from NZ and want a slice of awesome NZ programming for the under-4 set.

** we can't let big business grow it or let big tobacco muscle in, maybe Councils could grow it, etc

*** At one point she argued everybody should smoke it; I'm happy to believe it really helps with some medical conditions, but I'd be a bit reluctant to say it's great for everybody.

**** A colleague, originally hailing from Waimate, writes: "Everyone from Waimate has a bus story. Our bus driver stole the bus one morning and headed South. Made it as far as Invercargill I think. I was waiting at the bus stop for a while...."