Herald: "Do you support widespread legalisation?"God, he's inspiring isn't he. Rodney Hide: Making the world safe for obfuscation and evasion.
Mr Hide: "No."
Herald: "What about cannabis law reform?"
Mr Hide: "No, I think he's confusing me with Nandor [Tanczos]."
Herald: "So you don't support cannabis law reform?"
Mr Hide: "Well, it's not been an issue in Parliament."
Herald: "It has in the past ... "
Mr Hide: "It's never come up for a vote in my time there..."
Herald: "What about the NORML website quotes?"
Mr Hide: "I'm just not interested in commenting on his letter."
Herald: "Do you have a view on cannabis law reform?"
Mr Hide: "I don't think the prohibition on cannabis is giving a good result and I'm all for looking at better ways of managing it. I think it's having no impact on the use of cannabis at all and you can easily see that because we can't keep cannabis out of prisons so we certainly can't keep it out of our streets, no matter how many police we have. So I've always been sceptical of our drug policy and always probably will be. But does that mean I go around and advocate legalisation, of course not."
Herald: "Not decriminalisation either?"
Mr Hide: "It hasn't come up for a vote but certainly if it did it would get interesting because I think it's an important debate to have."
Herald: "Are you saying you don't have a view?"
Mr Hide: "No, I'm saying it hasn't come up for a vote."
LINKS: Worth launches an attack on Hide - NZ Herald
MP Pages: Rodney Hide - NORML New Zealand
TAGS: Victimless Crimes, Politics-ACT
12 comments:
Hmmmm. To be fair he was probably caught on the hop with this one....but yeah I wish he had said he was in favour of legalization....which I know he is.
That surprises me greatly. I have written to Rodney and to ACT for clarification on their policy. However I can say with certainty that the official Libertarianz policy on drugs is unswerving and principled - legalise them all, let adults partake as they wish, but keep them responsible for their actions even if they choose to become intoxicated.
I almost think Worthless's attack on Hide along with his silence on blasphemy laws, and his lack of effort in attacking Labour. Rodney was attacking current cannabis laws on his blog weeks ago, someone give him balls!
Oh dear. Limp.
Maybe Rodney was trying to make the news story about Worth blustering without substance but the effort failed. However, he has succeeded in blunting Worth's puny efforts for electorate attention and that was the right tactical thing for Rodney to do.
But I wish he could have been imaginitive enough to do it witout being also limp!
Topics that really excite libz: drugs and prostitutes. After all, 1,000 voters agreed with them.
Berend, please be aware that Libertarianz tends to use drug-taking and prostitution as examples of where government should butt out of the lives of individuals because, despite being relatively extreme and controversial, they are still areas where adults exert free choice over their behaviour and other people are not hurt. Libertarianz does not endorse or condone drug-taking and prostitution for the simple reason that what people choose to do peacefully in a private capacity is none of its damn business!
Well said, Richard.
I always encourage those who have a problem with the legalisation of, say, drugs or prostitution, but understand the rest of libertarian philosophy, to concentrate for the time being on the 95% we have in common, than the 5% we do not.
I sometimes wonder if the objections raised by Berend and others are not really an admission that they themselves would most likely indulge in these activities if they were legalized but its only because they are currently illegal that checks them,. kind of a mental chain.Once legalized they would be into it like rabbits... ;-)
"The prohibition law, written for weaklings and derelicts, has divided the nation, like Gaul, into three parts -- wets, drys, and hypocrites."
-- Florence Sabin
(1871-1953) American scientist
Source: Speech, February 9, 1931
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Florence.Sabin.Quote.0CAC
I handed ACT some lovely insider dirt on Corrections before the last election, which they mostly ignored.
Ever see the bit on videos about not for public viewing , prisons being specificly mentioned?
It seems copyright law is not something Corrwections need pay heed to...
Richard,
Having policy on drugs is as pointless as having policy on civil unions or euthanasia. They are conscience issues and MPs make their own mind up rather than following party policy.
Very few parliamentary parties bother to have specific drug policy and can really only do so when all MPs agree (United, Greens).
Have you ever seen National or Labour's policy on decriminalising cannabis?
I handed ACT some lovely insider dirt on Corrections before the last election, which they mostly ignored.
That could blow the whole government apart!
You'd have to assume Rodney and Heather are saving it up for the next election.
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