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Mike's Minute: We made the right call on cannabis

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 2 Nov 2020, 11:04AM

Mike's Minute: We made the right call on cannabis

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 2 Nov 2020, 11:04AM

I think most of you will realise the election result wasn’t my dream come true. But in all honesty, what I really cared about was the cannabis vote.

You could have given me several bad election days and one good win on weed, and I would have been happy. I am more than happy.

53% to 46% is a good result. It’s a clear gap, it’s a solid victory, it backs up, to a large degree, the polls, and most importantly of all it shows that middle New Zealand was having none of the madness.

How it ever got to go to a vote is a massive failing of the system in and of itself. It was the pet project of fringe nutters in the Greens, and acquiesced to by Labour. It was dangerous and made worse by the fact those that pedalled the idea of throwing yet more social misery on the country would pretty much say and do whatever was necessary to get it across the line.

The Drug Foundation, an apolitical organisation, should be ashamed of itself, and it's just as well the Chief Executive has quit because he was the chief instigator. Helen Clark should have known better. And as for her polls which told a completely different story to the real ones, we need to ask some serious questions over what sort of opinion is available for hire.

But through it all, common sense won the day.

The media should hang, at least, some of their heads in shame. The number of pro-stories got embarrassing. We didn't hear often enough from the doctors who treated the psychosis, the parents who dealt with the suicides and illness, or the lives that had been lost or wasted.

Nothing wrong with taking a view. I took a view, but you knew I did because I was honest. Too much of the media wasn’t.

The basic premise of the argument, lots of people do it, was so pathetically infantile. And all the rest of the crap they piled on top, the gangs would vanish, people would access health care, we'd collect lots of tax. It got farcical, but it never got traction and that’s what counts.

So, thank God we are done, we dodged a bullet. Add the euthanasia vote to the list of wins, and for the common sense of middle New Zealand.

The week ended on the best of notes.

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