Wednesday 23 May 2012

Effective advocacy

I suffered a few "banging my head on the kitchen counter"-related injuries yesterday afternoon while listening to Afternoons with Jim Mora.* Waimate District councillor Sandy Mulqueen was talking about her support for marijuana law reform (starting around the 18 minute mark here). Things started well, but then started downhill. Apart from the absurd claim that prohibition is almost making the marijuana plant extinct, we then got into the too-typical blend of odd anti-business sentiment** and perhaps overenthusiastic support for marijuana's potential medicinal benefits.***

Things went very sharply downhill from there with proposals for drinking licences, marijuana licences, and sex licences to encourage personal responsibility.

And, at the 23 minute mark, she started talking about how, when she was a bus driver long ago, she often was stoned out of her mind, [Update: I'd heard "drove a lot stoned" rather than "drove stoned, a lot"; the latter speaks to frequency rather than intensity. Now corrected.] and that it improved her driving. Then she talked about how both her kids support legalization despite that her daughter started smoking marijuana at age 14 and that it may have helped contribute to a mental breakdown.

I would have thought that:
  • the cannabis reform movement could field better advocates
  • Candidates for local councils who advocate driving while stoned would have a hard time being elected. I guess I don't know much about Waimate.****
Despite all that, the Stuff poll accompanying the story currently has majority support for relaxing the drug laws, either to decriminalisation or to legalisation.

Legalise marijuana, regulate it like alcohol and tobacco, set an excise tax to keep the selling price to consumers equal to that currently paid by consumers. If the policy goal is demand reduction, excise is a less harmful means to that end than is prohibition. And maintain criminal penalties for driving while stoned out of your mind. Is it really that hard to say that 25 second bit without descending into madness?

* Who my kids love as narrator on "The Adventures of Massey Ferguson"; we've bought both DVD box sets. You should too, especially if you're not from NZ and want a slice of awesome NZ programming for the under-4 set.

** we can't let big business grow it or let big tobacco muscle in, maybe Councils could grow it, etc

*** At one point she argued everybody should smoke it; I'm happy to believe it really helps with some medical conditions, but I'd be a bit reluctant to say it's great for everybody.

**** A colleague, originally hailing from Waimate, writes: "Everyone from Waimate has a bus story. Our bus driver stole the bus one morning and headed South. Made it as far as Invercargill I think. I was waiting at the bus stop for a while...."

14 comments:

  1. "We all need this plant," she says. Agreed, she's not a good advocate for reform.

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    1. I'm not surprised she was picked for The Panel; always more fun to have outrageous people on air. But if Waimate elected her, I'm curious to know something about the candidates who lost!

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  2. One thing I'm curious about the "taxes>prohibition" argument is that it seems to imply that taxes or fines are always superior to non-pecuniary penalties like prison setences, which seems implausible. I can understand that sometimes the optimal fine level is beyond that of which a criminal is able to pay. Under what other conditions are taxes/fines inferior?

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    1. I think those are different questions, Henry. Legalization plus tax gets the criminal element out of the supply side. You might get some increased use as the demand side is less worried about criminal sanction, but you trade off the harms from that against the reduction in harms you get from having more certain quality of supply in a legal sale environment.

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  3. Marijuana makes you feel better, and then not,it gets worser

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  4. I haven't listened to the piece, and I missed the Panel last night, although I'll often listen on the way home from work, but if her comments were as wacky as your description then I agree wholeheartedly that the pro-reform folks are probably still shaking their heads. Unfortunately contributions such as this do the movement more harm than good.

    I think most reformers are sensible enough to agree that, while moderate cannabis use is a relatively low risk behaviour, taking a responsible position on the use of the substance is warranted. This means, among other things, discouraging driving while under the influence, accepting that use may be a really bad idea for some folk prone to mental illness, setting guidelines around age of availability much as we do with alcohol, and advocating for moderation in use. To deny these sensible precautions makes one guilty of being as irrational as the ardent prohibitionists.

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    1. I completely applaud her bravery in coming out as a Councillor who smokes weed. More people who smoke should come out of the closet. But the point of having lots of people come out of the closet is letting everybody see that marijuana smokers are normal, productive people whose consumption isn't a threat to them.

      Driving while stoned on weed is far less dangerous than driving while drunk - stoned drivers drive more slowly and are more likely to compensate for intoxication in other risk-avoiding ways; drunks don't do that. But we still shouldn't recommend doing it!

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    2. It's a bit of a catch 22 situation though. I'd imagine most smokers aren't likely to come out while the activity is still illegal, which brings with it a certain stigma. And while the public perception is that only criminals and dead-beats smoke it is unlikely that the law will change. Tricky, real chicken and egg stuff.

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  5. As President of Waimatians for Tubby, I'd like to launch for Michael Hansen to stand in Ms. Mulqueen's constituency.

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    1. I'd consider moving to Waimate to be represented by Tubby.

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  6. Some friends on facebook just shared this with me. Hope you don't mind my side of the story being aired? Oh and Tubby, can have my seat... its too small for me and I doubt he will be more comfortable...
    2 reasons for the "spill" about driving buses stoned: dish the dirt at the beginning, and broach the subject of indignity of random drug tests and the need for a harm/impairment approach instead...
    I have listened to the Panel twice now and I didn't hear myself say stoned off my face... I said: stoned, a lot... subtle difference... medicated every day on Prozac doesn't have the same sound-bite punch, but could be worse for driving ability...

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  7. Also, better to air my family's dirty washing myself than have it pop up in a snide TV snippet...
    My proposed licences would have profound sociological benefits, I believe, encouraging responsibility without going all wowzer about it... Telling young people that when you are such and such an age you can go and do all the things you're forbidden to do now, is just abdicating our responsibility, as a society to, effectively, educate our young people in ways that prepare them to face an increasingly complicated world with confidence, temperance and compassion.
    Many parents worry that if their teens start smoking pot they will go-to-pot, permanently... My parents never gave up on me, and I never gave up on my daughter and we are the best of friends, all 3 generations of Mulqueens (my parents have never smoked the herb)...

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    1. Sandy, I applaud your bravery in coming out as a marijuana user; more users should. But there sure isn't much that terrifies anti-marijuana folks more than the thought of their kids being driven to school by somebody who's stoned (other than their own kids winding up using it). It really sounded like you were advocating driving while stoned. I have a hard time seeing how that helps the case for drug reform.

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  8. Happy to keep talking about this very important plant... don't shoot your mouth off without knowing what you are talking about, next time, though, eh Eric?

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