Bonus Quote of the Day: On prohibition

"We have to ask ourselves as lawmakers, has the prohibition on cannabis been effective? ... We know from the number of people who are doing it -- from police, including former police officers in this chamber -- that it is a highly ineffective prohibition because so many people are doing it. The objective is to stop people smoking cannabis; the effectiveness is almost zero. The people that want to do it are doing it.
...."The unintended consequences are that people put themselves in danger dealing with criminal elements whose criminal sphere they fund by acquiring elicit cannabis, and they receive a product that is made all the more dangerous by being underground ...
...."What you want to be doing is asking the simple question: is the policy of prohibition a successful policy; if not, would New Zealand be a better country if we ended that policy for people with chronic illnesses, and would it be a better policy if people could acquire what they are acquiring already through much safer, much more legitimate means that did not lead to children in this country growing up in households funded by the proceeds of [a] crime that only exists because of prohibition?"
~ Act Party MP David Seymour speaking last night in favour of Chloe Swarbrick's Members Bill to legalise medical marijuana

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