Why New Zealand Said No
By: Brad Flutey
Tags: Drug Reform, Monopoly, Cannabis, Cannabis Industry, New Zealand

Recently, a few people kicked up a hoo-hah over the results of the recreational Cannabis referendum. They claim that the referendum was unfairly influenced by misinformation from those who supported a no vote. They claim this whilst having people in their group who influenced the results of the referendum with misinformation.

They want the electoral commission to throw out the referendum results and leave it up to ‘the people’ (Blair thinks ‘the people’ are the government). These claims sound similar to the current situation surrounding the US election, where witnesses have put forward testimony of actual cheating and revelations of widespread voter anomalies. Anomalies that don’t make a lot of sense when contemplating how a safe and secure voting process should work. Except the latter has evidence, whereas the former is a cacophony of whinging from those who also took part in the spreading bullshit to influence the results of the referendum. Oh, the irony…

Buuuuuuuullshiiiit, Mike Finlayson put this rubbish up all over Northland and it’s complete propaganda.

As the old saying goes, those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Former Northland councilman Mike Finlayson, and others looking to profit from a potentially positive result in the referendum, did their best to promote bullshit to influence a yes vote. Had they not done that, instead focused on constructing a better control bill and a competent regulatory framework model for the CRA (Cannabis Regulatory Authority); the result of the referendum may have been different. We may have succeeded in legalising Cannabis next to the success of legalising the killing of those who deem themselves a burden. To me, the most embarrassing result (next to Labour winning by a landslide) is the fact that the country thought they chose death over a plant that reduces suffering and boasts unbelievable economic potential for our rural industry. An industry craving diversity and in desperate need of a revival.

In my pre-election article — Why You Should Vote No To The Control Bill, I highlighted the real problems present in this referendum. I didn’t bother talking about issues that meant very little in the whole scheme of things, like many other influencers bothered to do. Topics such as health effects, mental health effects, fears around the promotion of consumption, and the potential negative impacts on communities. It’s not that these issues aren’t relevant, I’m sure they are to Conservatives, and I understand their concerns; however, to a Liberal who acknowledges that we use everything that we purchase in society as a form of trauma treatment. I must recognise that if we won’t ban all of these products to combat addiction, then the problem must be more to do with unresolved trauma rather than self-prescribed pain treatment. This scientific acknowledgement invalidates any argument the con side has as it pertains to product effects on a consumer. After all, they can’t have all their vices and propose the banning of someone else’s.

What I addressed were problems that would impact whether a Liberal voted yes or no to the referendum question, because why on earth would a Conservative vote yes? I also do my best not to indulge in spreading bullshit to support my ideological dogma; my focus is on addressing the actual issues to find solutions. I’m not a politician that enjoys childish perpetual arguments! The referendum question was — Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill? The problem is clearly in the second part of the referendum question, the entire recreational Cannabis industry and consumer relied on. It’s no surprise to traditional Liberals who still think and still support the working class’s dignity that Labour is not the party of the worker or the small business owner. This is evident in Andrew Little’s control bill, where egregious over-reach in marketing legislation and a retarded feign at limiting price deflation through a ludicrous production cap made the bill look like an upper-class socialist’s dream, i.e. a workers nightmare!

A government-enforced production cap is almost unheard of in a working market economy; they don’t do it for sugary drinks, cigarettes, or alcohol. I’m pretty sure they don’t do it for any product in the market; why? Because it’s a stupid bloody thing to do, demand is what sets the production limit, and no government anywhere in the world has ever been smart enough to manage production to meet demand. The reason no government has been able to do that is simple; it’s because governments are stupid; they’re selected through a popularity contest instead of a competency process. A popularity contest where monopolies support the monopoly parties!

A production cap would likely serve to severely limit the number of people who can participate in this new legal, economic market. Yep, you guessed it; it’s there to promote a handful of large companies having the monopoly on recreational Cannabis and only a small increase in ‘jobs’ until some tech wizard automates almost all of the process. It’s not like it wasn’t obvious it would be like this either; we just watched it happen to the medicinal industry through awfully high licencing costs and over the top pharmaceutical standards. Once those who can afford to be in the market secure high production, a cap will make it so no one else will get in, that is government-aided monopolisation.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone; if you keep voting for the big parties, you are by default, voting for big corporations who whisper in their stupid ears. How do you think these parties got big in the first place? Pandering to big pockets gets you noticed; pointing out the inconvenient truth gets you censored. The vast majority don’t vote for the empowerment of regular working-class people; you’re voting for wages that don’t account for inflation. Therefore, there is little possibility of you or your children owning their own home or a niche business. How does homeownership and business ownership accessibility tie into this? This country is overburdened with a burgeoning housing market; it is a country that is marketed to the world as a desirable place to live, but the average wage does not translate towards a feasible path to homeownership for the vast majority of New Zealand citizens. Part of the reason it is like this is because of a massive lack of industry diversity in 80% of the land area (rural). For people to be confident in succeeding in their investments into industry, there have to be many market games in which one can win The reason why people are more likely to invest in urban economics is that there are many games where you can find success.

This dynamic results in a population concentration in urban areas, roughly 88 per cent of the country live in urban areas, and this area is less than 53,600 square kilometres. This isn’t a high population concentration by international standards, but that’s not the point; the point is almost all of the economic diversity is focused on this small plot of land as the other 80% per cent is mostly dedicated to poorly supported animal agriculture, agriculture, and tourism. Our brand is lauded around the world primarily because of good marketing rather than substance. There should be a collective desire to improve rural business diversity, symbiotic land management methods, and the quality of products produced. Simply because it increases the number of economic games we can all partake in, it increases the diversity and number of New Zealand products available for the local, national, and international markets. Cannabis could have played a role as part of several economic games for our passionate horticulturalists and shop owners had the control bill been formulated correctly. Alas, until we promote niche business investment, people will continue to invest in the housing market.

I hope that the reason why a population of kiwis voted no was that they’re not stupid. Maybe they read the bill; perhaps they noticed that the chains that unjustly kept a plant from benefitting the many were only changing colour, from a police shade of blue to a ghastly mix of government red with a monopolistic corporate green tinge. Blow it out your arse, you sell out vote yes influencers! I’m glad the country voted no! For me, it was a consolation middle finger to dishonest, manipulative influencing for corporate gain. Hopefully, more middle finger gestures will occur in the future; this country needs more middle fingers pointed at manipulative narratives.

There’s still a nagging question that bothers me. If it wasn’t the control bill that put off voters, how come the referendum result for Cannabis did not match the landslide election result for Labour? Of the roughly 59% of the country who voted retarded far-left, around 9% voted conservative for the Cannabis referendum. If this isn’t a strange anomaly, then I guess it means that 9% of the Labour and Green voters read the bill and saw what I saw. In which case, why the hell did you guys vote for them at all?

By the way, Blair, ‘the people’ aren’t the idiots they dangle in front of us for electing; the voters are ‘the people’. Tell the 350 whingers who failed to influence a yes vote to ‘grow up’ and do a better job of not lying next time.