The Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc.
P.O. Box 13-683 Johnsonville

Media Release
1 July 2009

Pot-smoking, VoteYes and S. 59 Bad Logic

Former NZ First MP Deborah Morris-Travers, now spokesperson for the VoteYes Campaign Coalition, whilst the Minister for Youth Affairs in the late 1990s, stated that because more people were breaking the law by smoking cannabis (pot) and calling for a liberalisation of the law pertaining to the use of this drug, then the law should be changed and cannabis smoking made legal.

Mike McKee of Seatoun, Wellington, had a letter published in the Dominion Post at the time in which he showed how illogical her argument was. He referred to the fact that some people in society advocated having sex with children (paedophilia) and some engaged in that criminal offence. He noted that applying the Minister’s ‘logic’ it would mean that when it could be established that enough people wanted sex with children and were engaged in this criminal offending, then politicians should feel compelled to change the law?

Ms Morris-Travers is ever so good with numbers and logic. She argues that organisers of the referendum should call it off and save the country $6 million. She appears impervious to the fact that in doing so they would abandon their democratic right to seek to change the law; after 300,00 New Zealanders who are on the organisers’ side have said they want the necessity of law change communicated to the government by way of a referendum vote. She blames organisers of the referendum for wasting tax-payer’s money and decries genuine efforts by organisers’ to negotiate a means of avoiding the waste:

“Demanding an amendment to the child discipline law in return for calling off the referendum is outrageous,” she states in her latest dispatch on the VoteYes website.

It is ironical that she adds: “organisers [of the referendum] are coming off as arrogant, inflexible and unconcerned at the massive and unnecessary expense they are responsible for.” – Yeah right!

And what about the massive and unnecessary expense to the country from cannabis smoking, other drugs, infidelity and promiscuity and a host of other social evils?

Perhaps we should abandon all drug law enforcement and surveillance operations and just hang out with Ms Morris-Travers after school closing time, smoking dope and watching her town’s children picking up used-condoms in their school grounds, as punishment for insolence, priggish behaviour, and lack of logical and numeracy skills (see previous Scoop story “Condomania, S. 59 & Yes Vote Silence”).

ENDS

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