Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Cannabis: legalisation versus decriminalisation

Neil

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 10:08:39 +1300

Who becomes minister responsible for Oranga Tamariki will be very indicative.

Neil

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 07:09:33 +1300

Any trade off needs to be explicitly stated by the government so it can be transparently evaluated. Which is not happening.

For example, the continued policy of starving acute mental health of resources has resulted in people with mental health issues spending more time in police cells. That’s a trade…

BenWilson

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 17:11:33 +1300

Nick

But you'd have to be pretty naive to think legalisation will result in lower rates of convictions or imprisonment for Maori.

Overall, maybe not, but it would lead to zero convictions and imprisonment for Maori for something that it also leads to few convictions and imprisonment for non-Maori, so…

Sacha

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 13:39:49 +1300

There are never enough resources to go around in any health system, so there will always be trade-offs about who receives which care.

Neil

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 19:28:27 +1300

I would have thought though that a policy predicated on harm reduction would pay special attention to those most at risk of harm.

And perhaps one would have good reason to be sceptical of the ability of a health system that scrimps on acute care to deliver on promises for…

Sacha

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:36:08 +1300

Acuteness is not the same as overall level of harm across a population, nor a guarantee of greatest benefit. It is natural when you work in acute care to think that should be the priority.

Neil

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 08:42:45 +1300

I keep getting the impression that with harm reduction the most at risk of harm are being ignored.

The SACAT Act is basically unusable – very long delays in having someone placed under the act and then there won’t be an inpatient bed for them anyway.

And a four month…

Nick Russell

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 19:12:20 +1300

Regarding the decriminalisation argument – it is interesting to see there has been some research. But fundamentally, the whole argument about criminalisation disproportionately affecting Maori is a bit of a category error in this context. Maori suffer disproportionately from the illegality of cannabis because the Police are more likely to…

Public Address

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 19:12:20 +1300

Discussion from blog post.