Category Archives: Vote 2011

This garbage is not worth replying to

On 11 August 2003, Greg Soar, Coordinator of the GreenCross Medicinal Cannabis Support Group, sent a letter to United Future MP Judy Turner.

He cc:ed his letter to United Future MPs Peter Dunne, Paul Adams, Gordon Copeland, Marc Alexander, Bernie Ogilvy, Murray Smith and Larry Baldock.

From: gc soar [mailto:gcsoar@ihug.co.nz]
Sent: Monday, 11 August 2003 10:13 a.m.
To: Judy Turner
Cc: Peter Dunne; Paul Adams; Judy Turner; Gordon Copeland; Marc Alexander; Bernie Ogilvy; Murray Smith; Larry Baldock
Subject: Medicinal Cannabis – from a dying person
Importance: High

Greg Soar
Coordinator
GreenCross Medicinal Cannabis Support Group of NZ Inc.
P O Box 27 209
Mt Roskill
Auckland 1004

11th Aug 2003

Judy Turner
United Future Health Spokesperson
Parliament Buildings
Wellington.

Dear Ms Turner,

GreenCross has been in contact with UF regarding medicinal cannabis since late 2002. We met with Paul Adams in March 2003 to provide evidence from our doctors and other sources attesting that cannabis is helping our health problems. Mr. Adams chose to insist cannabis once damaged someone and would never change his mind about cannabis / medicine. He was so emphatic about not changing his mind he repeated himself three times during the conversation. This is very far from taking the time to examine proper evidence. When I pointed out people were suffering and dying Mr. Adams stated ” don’t be so dramatic there are other things you can use”.

My dear friend Evan Clive Shephard lived with HIV. He was so sick when he took his medications. Severe nausea to the point he couldn’t eat. His life was one long nausea session. More than once I was with him in public when he suffered severe diahorrea resulting in extreme embarrassment. Evan smoked cannabis when he could obtain some. It stopped his severe nausea dead in its tracks. No prescribed medications were able to do this. Unfortunately for Evan he could not afford cannabis so mostly went without. The medications were so nasty he chose a better life not taking the meds realising his time would be shorter but at least more enjoyable. Evans immune system depleted so badly due to his inability to stomach HIV medications he began to have lesions form in his brain. Toxoplasmosis is a nasty virus. My dear friend Evan lost his ability to talk, then his ability to walk and finall

I myself have the same nasty effects and currently my HIV medications are failing due to inability to stomach them. My cd 4 count is down to 54 and my viral load sits at 4.2 . I am afraid to say that I am losing the battle for the reasons stated. I would be willing to try Marinol at this point but my own specialist told me that at a conference he recently attended that to many people report an acute high. My specialists name is Dr Rick Franklin of the Auckland Sexual Health clinic and you may indeed check with him as to what I have said regarding Marinol.

If United Future and / or Paul adams are aware of these ” other drugs” we can use then why have we not been told what they are? GreenCross made several phone calls to Mr. Adams offices over the six months since the meeting only to never be given the courtesy of a response let alone an answer. Our members are upset Mr. Adams knows of medication better than cannabis yet makes us suffer by not informing us of what they are. We can only conclude one of the following.

1. Paul Adams / United Future does not want to help us. 2. Paul adams / United Future was wrong about the other drugs and should therefore reconsider the statement and opinions on medicinal cannabis.

Could United Future please supply us the names of these drugs or apologise to our members. We wish to work with United Future on this issue and an apology or drug naming would serve to placate some of our members who suffer daily.

During the meeting with Paul Adams I felt he was genuinely surprised when told that the sick are not medicating but actually going without. Too many people especially MP s seem to be of the impression we can have cannabis already albeit illegally. This is not true due to the cost. The sick are often on benefits and cannot afford $150.00 per week to medicate with. The prohibition of medicinal cannabis really does cause suffering.

As you are aware the Health Select Committee into cannabis recommends the use of medicinal cannabis. Again I have been receiving a flood of calls from our members [ membership means a registered medical practitioner has signed forms attesting the benefits of cannabis]. All of them have been in regard to your press statements along the lines of those mostly wanting medicinal cannabis are the social pro legalisers. This is offensive to those of us who face death and depleted quality of life from severe illness and who have doctors backing medicinal cannabis use but are left to go without the product for lack of ability to afford black market prices. Will you please inform our members as to how you arrived at such a conclusion.

We are all decent members of this society and deserve to be heard. In a press statement dated Aug 5 2003 you asserted cannabis use leads to methamphetimine use. This is not true and there are both international and local studies debunking the long held gateway theory. We feel that you have deliberately mislead the house.

GreenCross Medicinal Cannabis Support Group formally ask that you honour your role as an MP and apologise immediately for your attempt to mislead the house and members of New Zealand society. Education and advancement in social / medical policy can only be based upon truths. Anything less is indeed a crime.

Finally could United Future give their response to the fact doctors are signing forms attesting to the benefit of cannabis for their patient. Put this in context with your comments about the proponents of medicinal cannabis being pro legalisers and I am sure even you must admit why we feel so offended and utterly devalued of any worth.

I repeat that GreenCross Medicinal Cannabis support group wish to work with United Future on the issue and look forward to open and honest dialogue. Our members will not however sit quietly by when contemporary propaganda is exercised.

Sincerely

Greg Soar

On 22 August 2003, Greg Soar received a one line reply from Peter Dunne.

This garbage is not worth replying to

Hon Peter Dunne
MP for Ohariu Belmont
Leader, United Future

UNITED FUTURE – FOCUSING ON FAMILIES

More information at www.unitedfuture.org.nz

Vote 2011: The Freedom Lover’s Guide

Liberty Scott has just posted his New Zealand election 2011 electorate voting guide.

Ah yes, I’ve done the hard work for you, it has taken hours, but I’ve gone through every electorate candidate list. My test is simple, is there someone to positively endorse who is more freedom loving than the status quo? If so, vote for him or her. If not, is there someone positively evil and anti-freedom worthy to oppose, if so vote for whoever will remove him or her. So…

Without further ado, I’ll copy and paste Scott’s endorsements for the Hamilton West and Mana electorates.

Hamilton West – Tim Wikiriwhi – Independent

National’s Tim Macindoe narrowly pushed Labour’s Martin Gallagher out of Parliament. Yet he led Arts Waikato, and seems to be into environmentalism (Sustainable Business Network). He’s not really worth endorsing, even though he is up against the awful Sue Moroney, who wants a subsidised passenger train service to Auckland (that would be slower than a bus), and wants to force “pay equity” and longer compulsory paid parental leave. Moroney is number 10 on the Labour list so is a sure thing, Macindoe is 49 on the National list so may not make it if he loses here, but then that isn’t a real loss for those who believe in less government. Yet there IS a candidate who does passionately believe in freedom and less government. Although he has chosen not to stand for Libertarianz this time, he is still worthy of my support. Vote for a man who has turned his life around, and who is passionate about what he does, and works very hard to get across his message. He is his own man, true to himself through and through, and while you may not always agree with him, he deserves your vote – Vote Tim Wikiriwhi. If he got in, Parliament wouldnt know what’s hit it.

Mana – Richard Goode – Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party

Labour’s Kris Faafoi took this in the by-election last year and Whaleoil revealed the truth absent tactics that were used there. Yet the awful “Pakeha owe Maori loads” public sector consultant Hekia Parata of National is simply vile – from personal experience. Richard Goode, standing for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party is mild mannered and one of the most rational speakers on liberalising drug laws in New Zealand today. He has decided not to stand for Libertarianz this year, but he is still libertarian. Vote for Goode.

Also be sure to check out Scott’s guide to New Zealand election 2011 – party vote options.

Thanks, Scott!

A household name

Electorate Candidates for Mana

These are the candidates seeking your electorate vote.

Candidate Name Party Name
FAAFOI, Kris Labour Party
GOODE, Richard Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
LOGIE, Jan Green Party
PARATA, Hekia National Party
WARREN, Michael ACT New Zealand

Party list for the 2011 General Election

Any list seats to which a party is entitled are filled from its list of candidates in the order they appear here, after deleting any candidates who have won electorate seats. Candidates who stand for an electorate seat only will not appear here.

Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party

1 APPLEBY, Michael
2 BRITNELL, Michael
3 HERBERT, Maki
4 CRAWFORD, Julian Lloyd
5 LYE, Jeff
6 HEWLETT, Jasmin
7 KINGI, Emma-Jane Mihaere
8 WILKINSON, Steven
9 GOODE, Richard
10 MACDONALD, Fred
11 BIGGS, Leo
12 FITTON, Jay
13 MANNING, Romana (Marnz)
14 McTAGUE, Geoffrey
15 DOMBROSKI, Jamie
16 MITCHELL, Christine
17 SHERWOOD, Dwayne
18 GRAY, Abe
19 DAVIDSON, Sean
20 McDERMOTT, Adrian
21 POPHRISTOFF, Philip
22 YATES, Neville
23 BRADFORD, Mark
24 ANDERSON, Blair
25 O’CONNELL, Kevin Patrick
26 LAMBERT, Paula
27 BRITNELL, Irinka
28 McMULLAN, Paul

EasyVote cards and packs were delivered to voters today. Because of this, I like to think that I’m “a household name”.

Three years ago, I was also an electorate candidate for Mana, and on the (Libertarianz) party list. Mid-afternoon, I strolled along to my nearest polling booth to vote for myself. At a trestle table inside St. Barnabas Church hall sat two or three officials with electoral rolls, rulers and pens. I approached and gave my details. The woman I was speaking to drew a line through my name and gave me my ballot papers.

“Richard Goode,” I said. “Recognise the name?”

“No.”

Pros and cons

As the ALCP’s candidate for the Mana electorate, I was interviewed this morning by Nigel Hopkins (“the Rascal”) on Beach FM. I sang the praises of cannabis, God’s miracle plant.

The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party exists to legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes; to empower people to work together for peace and true justice; and to institute a proper and just balance between the power of the state and the rights and dignity of the individual. We believe adults have the right to freedom of choice unless that choice harms other people or the planet.

I’ll post the interview soon. Apart from that, not much time for campaigning. Or blogging. Thank God for my co-blogger Tim who is taking up the slack!

Drill it, Mine It, Sell it! Vote Wikiriwhi!

How Ironic, The National Party actually had some good policy on their Bill boards! Unfortunately they were lies. This Bill board attack is typical Green modus opperandi. They are a bunch of Leninist Cretans whom practice his vile asertion that whatever actions serve ‘the party’ and world revolution… are ‘moral’. This is why they vandalise private property, and were caught throwing fire bombs and practicing ambushes with The Racist criminal Tama Iti.

For the few Hamilton West voters whom actually realise the justice and prudence of ‘Drilling it, Minning it, and selling it’… Vote Libertarian Independent Tim Wikiriwhi. They are exactly the sort of Free-market principles needed to grow our economy, create jobs and resolve our debt crisis. I would also Burn it, legalise it, abolish it, deregulate it, …

Why socialism Fails.

I received this by email and thought it was a valuable lesson on Socialism.

When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Is this man truly a genius? Checked out and this is true…it DID happen!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
It could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on)

Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2011 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Can you think of a reason for not sharing this? Neither could I.

A Transitional Drug Policy

I wrote this article in 2007 when I was the Libertarianz Spokesman on Drugs. It was published in the now defunct Free Radical magazine and has appeared elsewhere.

Vote Richard Goode for Mana and party vote Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party! Tick, tick.

Libertarianz Transitional Drug Policy

“The first casualty when war comes,” said Hiram Johnson, “is truth.” Indeed, truth was always a casualty in the now decades-long War on Drugs™. Debate on drug policy these days is characterised by disinformation and fear. Even the chemical arch-demon of our time, methamphetamine, or “P”, is far less dangerous than you have been led to believe. New Zealand’s drug czar, Jim Anderton, once described methamphetamine as “pure evil”. But the fact that in the U.S. methamphetamine, under the brand name Desoxyn®, is prescribed to children with attention deficit disorder, must give pause for thought.

Nonetheless, in a climate of disinformation and fear, Libertarianz drug policy – which is, basically, to legalise all drugs (yes, even “P”!) – is routinely met with horror and incredulity. The implementation of Libertarianz drug policy, absent the sky falling, is simply inconceivable to many people. This is why we need a transitional policy – not as a compromise proposal, but as an exit strategy for those currently pressing the War on Drugs™.

Libertarianz transitional drug policy is to legalise all drugs safer than alcohol. The motivation for this is the government’s own stated National Drug Policy: harm minimisation. Many people prefer drugs other than alcohol. Where those other drugs are safer than alcohol, the application of legal sanctions against the use of those alternatives is inconsistent with the principle of harm minimisation.

Libertarianz transitional drug policy is to legalise all drugs safer than alcohol, but the policy package contains a number of other measures. These include a moratorium on arrest for simple possession (or manufacture or importation for personal use) of any drug, and a downgrading of remaining penalties from the draconian to the merely harsh. (All drugs which remained illegal would be reclassified as Class C. This means, for example, that the maximum sentence for manufacture of methamphetamine would fall from life imprisonment to 8 years imprisonment.)

This policy is not, of course, the “tax and regulate” policy favoured by many drug law reformers, most often proposed as a model for the legalisation of cannabis. As legal products, drugs would be subject to any taxes, such as GST, which apply to goods and services in general, but would not attract any special taxes. In fact, part of the transitional policy package is to remove excise tax on alcohol, and reduce tobacco tax to a level where smokers pay for no more than their own health costs. Currently, it is estimated that tobacco smokers pay 3-4 times more in tobacco tax than it costs the public health system to treat their smoking related ailments. Thus, in line with a “user pays” philosophy, tobacco tax would be no more than a third what it is now, effectively halving the retail price of tobacco.

As for regulation, the only special regulation which would apply to newly legalised drugs would be an R18 age restriction on their sale – but this restriction would be properly enforced, as is meant to be the case with already legal drugs alcohol and tobacco. As with any other product, the sale of legal drugs would be subject to the provisions of existing legislation to protect the rights of the consumer, such as the Fair Trading Act 1986 and the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993. For example, the packaging of legal drugs must not falsely state their ingredients, and the drugs themselves must be fit for their particular purpose. A manufacturer who claimed his drug gets you high when it only gives a nasty headache would be breaking the law.

Who would decide which drugs are safer than alcohol, and how would they decide? In a widely cited paper published in the Lancet earlier this year, David Nutt and colleagues showed that the UK’s classification of illegal recreational drugs into three categories of harm (similar to the ABC classification in our own Misuse of Drugs Act) is only modestly correlated with expert ratings of the drugs’ actual harms. They asked experts in psychiatry, pharmacology, and other drug-related specialties to (re-)rate a selection of 20 common recreational drugs on three major dimensions of harm: physical health effects, potential for dependence, and social harms. The experts, who showed reasonable levels of agreement in their ratings, ranked heroin, cocaine and pentobarbital as more harmful overall than alcohol, but ranked MDMA (“ecstasy”), cannabis, LSD, GHB (“fantasy”), methylphenidate (Ritalin®) and khat as less harmful overall. I mention this list for indicative purposes only. How to decide the dimensions of harm which ought to be considered and the relative weighting to be given to scores on those dimensions, and, consequently, the final ranking of drugs on the list according to overall harm is yet to be determined, but the methodology is sound. Ultimately, the decision would be left to the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. For a change, the EACD would no longer determine how to classify new recreational drugs, but determine instead which existing recreational drugs to declassify. If their past performance is anything to go by, their judgements would err on the conservative side.

Libertarianz transitional drug policy is a partial implementation of Libertarianz drug policy. It is a step in the right direction, and potentially quite a big one, depending on how many drugs turn out, on assessment, to be safer than the drug of choice of most New Zealanders. Is it too big a step? Will it frighten the horses? To reassure even the most fearful, I propose a pilot of the Libertarianz transitional drug policy – to test the dihydrogen monoxide, as it were – which would run as follows.

Before legalising all drugs safer than alcohol, just two drugs safer than alcohol would be made widely available. One would be a mild stimulant and one a mild psychedelic (people who like depressants are fortunate in that a major representative of the class, alcohol, is already legal). Both drugs would be relatively safe, but might have some unwanted side effects which, to some extent, would serve to discourage widespread and/or excessive use. These two drugs would be made widely available for a period of, say, 3-5 years, after which time a “sunset” provision would come into effect and the trial would end. At this point, the social experiment would be assessed. Did the sky fall? Did hundreds die or spiral into addiction and crime? Was there more carnage on our roads and violence in our homes? Did the drugs ravage communities and destroy the futures of our young people? If the answer to these questions is yes, then we would conclude that legalising any more drugs conflicts with the principle of harm minimisation. But if life continued pretty much as normal, if society’s predicted descent into lawlessness and chaos failed to eventuate, if 400,000 New Zealanders consumed 20 million doses of these two drugs over the period in question with no lasting ill effects and no deaths, then the only rational conclusion to be drawn is that the experiment is a resounding vindication of Libertarianz transitional drug policy, immediately opening the door to legalising all other drugs safer than alcohol. This is an experiment we must try, and New Zealand’s legislators must be bound to act upon a favourable outcome by legalising a range of relatively safe substances for adult recreational use, for we have tried the alternative – total prohibition of almost every known recreational drug – and it is a failed, disgraced policy.

Libertarianz transitional drug policy is an important step, but only a step, towards full drug legalisation. Which brings us back to methamphetamine, because ultimately we would legalise “P”, too. So, what would happen if we legalised “P”? Those concerned by rampant methamphetamine use in this country must be brought to realise that the use of “P”, and other drugs with a high potential for harm, is widespread because of, not in spite of, criminal sanctions. The fact is that if all drugs were legalised, the use of methamphetamine and many other dubious and dangerous drugs would decline. If you like stimulants, why would you take methamphetamine if you could just as easily take 4-methylaminorex or organically grown khat? If you like empathogens, why would you take the potentially neurotoxic chemical MDMA (ecstasy) when you could just as easily take methylone (marketed for a short time as “Ease” by party pill creator Matt Bowden of Stargate International)? If psychedelics are your cup of tea, why mess with LSD (which causes permanent psychosis in a small minority of users) when the exotic delights of 5-MeO-DIPT and 2CI beckon?

Responsible adults who like drugs ought to have access to safe, effective and legal alternatives to alcohol. Libertarianz transitional drug policy would make this a reality.

Richard Goode

Libertarianz Spokesman on Drugs

Lessons from Dr Goebbels.

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” Jesus Christ. John 8:44


Picture: Hitler, Goebbels, Hess.

“Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” Jesus Christ. Mat 15vs14

In a Facebook response to my recent Blog post attacking anti-smoking Legislation, A young woman expressed support for the smoking ban in Bars, Pubs and Clubs, etc saying she believed it was right to Ban it from all ‘public areas’ and cited the passive smoking argument as vindication for her position. She said this was a subject she ‘felt very strongly about’.
Though I understand her reasoning and sympathise with her sentiments, I don’t accept her argument but see her comments as an example of the ‘conditioning’ that the Socialists running our country have ‘successfully’ engineered.
This is what I wish to talk about in this post. The dangers of State control of education, and their Massive Engines of Spin.

The Nanny state smoking bans are a product of Joseph Goebbels type mass mobocratic manipulation… of relentless Propaganda, which subtly undermines the boundaries between the jurisdiction of State power, and the Rights, liberties, and responsibilities of Individuals. It demonstrates the nature of creeping democratic tyranny accruing power unto itself and extending it’s spheres of authority and control… usurping dominion in what is properly the private sphere of personal Liberty and ethics, and trampling Private property rights under foot.
The state through the education system and an anti-smoking Ad campaign on TV and Radio, decried the ‘costs of smoking upon our society’, parading the so-called ‘victims of liberty’ across our screens…the Non-smoking Muso… the Bartender… thus ‘preparing the soil’, and ‘planting the seeds’, before they moved to impose their political ambitions upon us. Textbook Propaganda and Mass manipulation!

The Wolf often wears the garb of a sheep. The Pedophile often wears the garb of a Priest, and so it is that the Evil Socialist Bitch known as ‘Nanny State’ has cloaked herself in motherly apparel, spending gazillion$ convincing her victims that her tyranny is actually for our own good!

The Facebook response gave me pause to consider how successfully Nanny has ‘Educated’ the masses on the ‘Evils’ Smoking Cigarettes sufficiently enough to convince the majority to accept the government passing Laws which encroach upon private property rights. Of course this ‘Education’ conveniently leaves out any trace of Libertarian Enlightenment principles regarding the legitimate duties and limits of Government and The Inalienable rights and liberties of individuals! Thus What has not been taught is as fundamental to Nanny’s ‘success’ as what has been hammered home via propaganda. Seeing this stark contrast in what had been rigorously indoctrinated, and what has been completely swept under the mat I realised the great tragedy it was that this young woman had not been thoroughly taught how ‘Evil’ and unhealthy it is to have a cankerous government that does not respect Individual liberty, private property, Free enterprise, and Self responsibility!

If only our people had been ‘educated’ in the principles of justice to the same extent that they have been ‘educated’ about smoking cigarettes. Thus it is upon a sheepishly engineered ignorant population that The Socialist political parties of New Zealand have been able to pedal the lie that Private business, are ‘Public areas’/ pseudo Pubic property and thus con them into thinking the state can pass such legislation…without violation of private property rights!

I perceive that the socialists are allowed to pull off this fraud only because it suits the majority of sheeple . The nasty Hellbound deluded dunces in favour of this oppressive legislation.
Dr Goebbels would be impressed. Sheepish ignorance and Fascist complicity!

The socialists have manipulated the minds of the masses on many other topics too, justifying Big Government, oppression, and political favoritism. Eg The gross fabrications regarding the so-called breaches of the treaty by the invading British colonists, the so-called treaty settlements, and ‘First Nation’ status of Maori with special rights and privileges.
This is another travesty whereby indoctrinated lies are poured into a vacuum of unenlightened political ignorance.
This parallels with what Goebbels taught the Germans about the Jews, and we all know how that turned out!

Policy Statement 2011: As an Independent Libertarian standing in Hamilton West, If elected I would fight to repeal all laws which undermine legitimate private property rights, and would work to remove the State from Education and Health thereby reducing the States ability to indoctrinate the people with their filthy propaganda.

The Previous Blog post I mention is ‘Smokers have Rights’.