NORML News Spring 2007

Down in Dunedin we have been taking matters in to our own hands recently and have been achieving some pretty amazing outcomes in furtherance of cannabis law reform. On the heels of our successful hot-boxing of the Dunedin Central Police station two consecutive JDays in a row in 2003 and 2004, we have established a weekly mini-JDay on the Otago University campus, known as Friday 4:20, which as you could probably imagine is held on Fridays at 4:20pm, on the Union Lawn in the centre of campus. This event has become a weekly safe zone, where cannabis smokers can come and know they can smoke in peace, safe from persecution and arrest, as well as partake in music, barbequing, chatting, and even a game of frisbee or oversized, cannabis-themed snakes and ladders!

In the middle of the year we did have a bit of an incident where we had to fight off the new University security squad, Campus Watch, but in that case we simply held our ground and refused to be moved, and the outcome was them leaving us alone because they knew the cops wouldn’t care even if they called them. Because of that incident we got written up in articles in the Critic student newspaper as well as on the front page of the Otago Daily Times, with the article quoting the head of the Dunedin Police, Dave Campbell, saying ‘It would be quite a logistical exercise to arrest 50-60 cannabis smokers, and to be honest, I think there are a lot of people in this tow that would think that we had better things to do’, in response to a question as to why the police would be unlikely to act. We even appeared as one of the three segments on TV One’s Close Up program at prime time on Friday night and were portrayed in a very favourable light, except for the title of the piece being ‘Dope Heads on Campus’. The Close Up piece, and the reaction from the community that followed it, really showed that the tide is turning, and we may be entering a political climate in which we can proceed with cannabis law reform, at least in Dunedin.

This was particularly evident in the candidates who were standing around the country for the local body elections. It seems that pandering to the green lobby has finally become perceived as popular, with many candidates in many centres talking about environmental and social sustainability. In Dunedin, the candidates who believed that the best way to ensure Dunedin’s future with massive spending projects and subsidies to big business were clearly in the minority this time around, with most candidates preferring to advocate for economic growth based on sustainability. How did they plan to achieve this? Well from my reading of the debate, the general consensus seemed to be that we need to attract creative young people to the city so that they may start business based on creativity and not resource exploitation, and we need to grow the tourism industry, but all without impacting on the environment. Sounds like a pretty daunting task, but what ideas did the candidates put forward for achieving this? There seemed to be a consensus that a new stadium wasn’t going to do it. We have a fashion show, which is great, but we need more than that. We need something really audacious that will make us stand out from the crowd, something that will ‘put Dunedin on the map’ in the words of many candidates.

Lets look at another city that has faced the challenge of economic stagnation and population decline, Invercargill. How did they manage to stave off the ruralization reaper? Well they have zero fees at their tertiary institution, they have a nice new stadium, and they have a velodrome. How did they get all this you may ask? Did they create a massive public debt for their city in the way that Dunedin’s civic leaders have recently done? No, because they have heaps of money from their Liquor Licensing Trust. Well why can’t we just do that here? Because for some strange reason we feel like we owe our entire existence as a city to the liquor merchants who openly parasitize us and then we clean up after them. And don’t forget, Invercargill has an entertaining and charismatic mayor who openly admits to having smoked massive amounts of cannabis.

This brings me to an idea that I had when thinking about creative ways to achieve what seem to be our collective goals of revitalizing the city. Unfortunately the outcome of the Dunedin local body elections was about as bad as it possibly could have been in terms of electing new candidates sympathetic to cannabis law reform, but I think it is important to develop this idea anyway … COMPLETELY LEGALIZE CANNABIS WITHIN THE DUNEDIN CITY BOUNDARY! What better way to simultaneously attract creative young people and boost tourist numbers without pouring money down the drain on some ‘think big’ style vanity project? In fact, it would hardly cost anything, but I won’t argue if the council wants to give me $5.8 million to do a feasibility study (that’s what they recently paid to consultants for the stadium)! But what about the central government you say? Isn’t it really up to them? Well let me remind you, in the past ten years we’ve had two select committees investigating cannabis, one under a National government and one under a Labour government. And guess what, BOTH OF THEM RECCOMENDED CHANGING THE CANNABIS LAWS!!! Why haven’t they done so? Because they are backstabbing little pussies who prefer to play the prejudice against ‘drug users’ card for political expediency, rather than carry out the duties for which they were elected and as mandated by the public! Remember Corngate and the last minute deal with United Future? So fuck the central government, they’ve been told in every imaginable way to do something, but they won’t. I think it’s time to show some kiwi ingenuity, and remember that ‘if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself’!

So next year we are going to use this leverage and momwentum that we have built up, and we are going to push the point home even further. Leading up to JDay 2008 we will be presenting ‘Cannabis Awareness Week’. During which we will be hosting the ‘First Annual Otago Cannabis Cup’ (cannabis tasting evening), to showcase students enjoying cannabis in a responsible manner and appreciating it for it’s quality and subtle flavours, rather than just getting wasted. Additionally we are now extending the 4:20 sessions to twice weekly, on Wednesday as well as Friday, and we plan to start cranking the BBQ. We would like to invite every cannabis smoker in Dunedin to come and take advantage of our regular event where you can know you will be safe and not have to fear arrest or persecution. We would have liked to lobby the new city council to officially sanction our events and get them to look to formally requesting that the police treat cannabis possession as the lowest enforcement priority within the city boundary. I’m not sure if this particular council is the right one to approach, but that is the next step, and if this council won’t do it, a future one will.

Just look at the Dutch, they have had legal cannabis for decades and I don’t see their society crumbling. They have high education, low poverty and low crime, something that hopefully New Zealand aspires to. Amsterdam is a great city to visit, it’s clean, they have great public transport, and hundreds of thousands of creative young people from all over the globe that flock there as tourists to sample the finest greens. After all, the European name for our country comes from Holland, so let’s embrace our Dutch history and get this party started!

Welcome to Dun-sterdam!