NZ to vote on cannabis legalisation and control

Even as Australia bumbles along, clinging to 1930s-style prohibition, New Zealand will vote on legalising Cannabis in September.

And as NSW massively increases police detection quotas for drugs, former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark  has labelled prohibition as "the worst waste of taxpayers' money".

“For me, it’s just a no-brainer to stop wasting our taxpayers’ money with police helicopters hovering over the Kiwi bush, hounding ordinary citizens who are having a joint of cannabis rather than a glass of wine, hunting down the Kiwis who are desperate for some kind of relief for a medical condition. Let’s stop all that... lets put it into something better,” she said.

The proposed legalisation will ban items designed to appeal to young people, set a four-year prison term for selling to under 20-year-olds and allow cannabis “coffee shops” to open.

Despite this, local prohibitionists claim the new law would make the drug more available to children, because they apparently trust criminal dealers to protect children better than police and the legal system.

Let's hope common sense prevails. In neanderthal Australia, police continue to burn taxpayers' money taking helicopter joy flights around Nimbin looking for the pot plots of hippies.