Simple solution
People are dying of synthetic cannabis use and it could be prevented.
It is no wonder the public are confused about what is called ‘‘synthetic cannabis’’, which is not cannabis, but a manufactured product attempting to produce a similar effect.
Peter Dunne allowed this synthetic cannabis ‘‘product’’ to be legally sold for a long period of time, despite reports from hospital emergency rooms warning of dangers.
Any consumable substance that is manufactured is capable of contamination or mistakes.
People may have the misguided impression that synthetic cannabis is safe because of the fact that it used to be sold in NZ shops.
The mother of all absurdities is that the cannabis plant has never caused an overdose death and yet, Peter Dunne refuses to re-legalise this natural plant.
The immediate re-legalization of the natural cannabis plant will save lives. What is stopping you Peter Dunne? A simple deletion of the natural cannabis plant from the Misuse of Drugs Act is all that is required. Everybody lies? Seems so. You don’t need a scientific survey to know that trust in politicians telling the truth is at an all-time low.
Yet the Green Party has always held itself apart from all that.
The party acts like it has a natural advantage in a place where the rest of the participants struggle to sell us on their honesty and integrity.
Maybe that’s why Metiria Turei’s admission that she lied to maximise her income from the DPB is so jarring.
‘‘I was one of those women, who you hear people complain about on talkback radio,’’ she confessed.
Turei might as well have added: ‘‘Talkback was right.’’
Because she admits that while she was on the DPB she failed to tell Work and Income about some extra flatmates. It meant she got more than she was entitled to.
In the scheme of things, the ‘‘crime’’ is not huge. Turei claims she did it to feed her child. But that hasn’t made it less polarising.
On the one side there is anger – for every Turei, there are countless more women who managed to feed their children with less.
But on the political Left there is near euphoria.
After months in a state of torpor, Turei has galvanised the party’s base. The #Iammetiria hashtag is sweeping Twitter. Leftwing commentator Chris Trotter has even likened the lie to storming the Bastille.
It’s hard to imagine the same rapture greeting the darling of the American Left, Bernie Sanders, admitting to something equally shocking, like cheating on his taxes.
Bernie’s halo is bigger than Texas. That was – is – his appeal. There would probably be openmouthed silence.
To be fair, the grassroots of the Green Party have an innate distrust of the system.
So Turei’s confession might be viewed as the politics of ‘‘sticking it to the establishment’’ – even if it doesn’t do other DPB mums any favours, given that it plays up to the stereotypes on talkback.
But at its most basic, Turei’s admission is also an acknowledgement that she’s no might drive them from Labour to NZ First.
The damage might be even closer to home for the Greens.
A growing number of voters – the much derided urban liberal included – are concerned by the sight of children living in cars or substandard boarding houses.
They worry that some of the more punitive sanctions – like cutting benefits for women who won’t or can’t name their child’s father – only take food out of the mouths of children.
Turei’s speech might have appealed to those voters on one level.
But her DP- bludging confession is a huge turnoff to many of them.
It’s also an in-your-face reminder that the Green Party and the hugely powerful Green ‘‘brand’’ are two very different things.
Facebook feeds suggest that’s the conclusion many have already reached.
And in an election that is shaping up as a fight over the haves and have-nots, it probably tips the scales on addressing inequality further than many of them would be comfortable with.