David Lange – and Mo Mowlam – Peace heroes remembered

"Treat it [cannabis] the same as you do other substances which produce euphoric effects, and license and tax it" - David Lange, 1993 Norml News

As NZ mourns popular former PM and occasional advocate of legal regulation, David Lange, cannabis law reformers wish to pay tribute as well to a perhaps more prominent legaliser who also passed away last week: - the former British MP and Secretary for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam.

Apart from being instrumental in brokering peace in Northern Ireland, it was Mowlam who linked the War on Drugs to the rise and empowerment of global terrorism.

In 2002, as US invaded Afghanistan and plotted its attack on Iraq, Mowlam wrote: "may I suggest that rather than bombing innocent civilians in Muslim countries, the United States and Britain begin to take a more intelligent approach to the drug trade: namely, to legalise it… The most effective means of fighting the war on terror would be to legalise the drug trade and thereby dry up a significant source of funding for criminal activities and political violence world-wide." See http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/256/mowlam.shtml

Mo Mowlam contributed to a peace accord after 400 years of secular warfare and terrorism in Ireland, and bravely advocated the logic of genuine, workable global security. David Lange will always be remembered as the man who put NZ on the world stage as a bastion against the evil of nuclear weapons proliferation.

At David Lange's Memorial Service, PM Helen Clark lauded her former colleague as a man who 'hated injustice'.

Unfortunately the outgoing coalition Government, with an unscrupulous United Future party support agreement maintaining the criminal status of cannabis, did not do justice for an estimated half million cannabis Kiwi consumers.

In NZ it appears we have no senior statesperson who will stand up against the counterproductive hypocrisy and taboos surrounding drug policy, and advocate instead a judicious, productive R18 solution.

"Instead of vision and honour, Parliament is riddled with drug and alcohol double standards, vested interests and cowardice", says the ALCP.

"We are here to change that, and bring honesty, wealth and wellbeing back to NZ."

The Party is hopeful that with cannabis again to the fore in this election, that the new Government will have the cognisance and courage to push cannabis/hemp-reform as the crucial 'early intervention' needed to restore respect and equilibrium in Aotearoa.

“Stop the War”, say the ALCP. May Mo Mowlam, and our own Mr. Lange, crusaders for humanity, rest in peace.

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