Regarding censorship
Are our politicians now allowed to use the police to clear a venue of any possibly contentious questioners before they arrive?
My mate Michael Balderstone, President of the HEMP Party, was removed from a venue today by a police officer. The only reason I can possibly conjure up that could possibly motivate this manhandling of a social justice campaigner was that he might possibly be about to ask an awkward question. The thought that Mr Balderstone might pose a threat to any individual, or public order, is simply silly.
Anyone who knows Mr Balderstone, even for the briefest of passing moments, will instantly recognise a cultured, good-humoured and well-educated fellow. He’s instantly appreciated to be a mild-mannered middle-aged cannabis advocate – not a bikie. So I simply cannot believe he was removed because he represented a danger to anyone.
In fact, Mr Balderstone ran for the Senate at the last election and is doing so in this election. Did the police think he was about to launch himself bodily at the PM? Did they think he might be about to start screaming abuse? Or baring his buttocks? All of these possibilities must be viewed as being fairly remote at best. So why was Mr Balderstone removed from the venue even before the PM arrived? The only possible reason I can think of is that he might have been about to ask a difficult question. That is utterly unacceptable. In so many ways.
I was sad, horrified, and angry when I saw the picture of Michael being led away like a common criminal by a policeman. I am still furious.
Yes, Mr Balderstone is a man of firm ideas and is never afraid to ask a question whenever the opportunity arises. So Mr Turnbull has the option of either not attending the venue, or ignoring or not taking a question from Mr Balderstone, but he does not have any right to have a nice jumper and sandal wearing public advocate evicted from a venue.
The police have no official interest in the social discourse at an election time. Either you abide by this injunction or you can resign as a police officer. If the police officer was acting on his own initiative then he must be disciplined.
If this action was directed by the Turnbull camp then questions must be asked about why Mr Turnbull thinks it is appropriate to use the Police as an ideological shield against unwanted questions. On its face this is illegal and unacceptable behaviour
Or have we simply decided to accept that one of the fruits of being in power is that you can now manufacture an Australia of your own choosing by sending the coppers ahead of you to remove anyone who might ask an uncomfortable question?
Apparently Mr Turnbull doesn’t want to be bothered by petty matters (like the suffering of sick Australians, or people still being gaoled for using a relatively harmless therapeutic herb or seeing all of us continue to spend millions of dollars each year in a fruitless and inane attempt to ‘eradicate’ cannabis in our country). This is understandable! Especially with a lot of reporters about. And most especially not in an election campaign.
So Mr Turnbull has every right to not talk about these matters. But he does not have a right to have the Police remove people from a venue who have been identified as capable of asking him an awkward question. And the police have no right to do so. Yet still it happened with journalistic eyes actually watching, so it cannot simply be dismissed as being unimportant.
At the very least Mr Turnbull owes Candidate Balderstone a fulsome apology.
Regarding cannabis
The only way in which cannabis is talked about in our mainstream media, and by our politicians, is as if it is a dangerous drug that needs to be ‘controlled’. This is factually incorrect. Cannabis can be described as being a therapeutic herb or a recreational drug but it has been acknowledged by even the circuit court in Washington DC that most every other drug or therapeutic agent used in our society is more dangerous.
Since I do not think we should have laws designed to protect us against imaginary perils or moral hazards, cannabis should not be considered by the criminal law at all. Most other Aussies think much the same. It is all just a huge amount of hullaballoo about nothing.
If the current laws weren’t harming so many people it would be simply ludicrous instead of tragic. After all, paracetamol, aspirin, Coca-Cola, playing in the sand, surfing, fishing, driving a car and simply walking down the road are all far riskier. All of these things result in the deaths of Australian citizens every year.
Yet Cannabis kills nobody. Ever. In all of recorded history. But if you can get a serving Aussie politician to simply acknowledge this fact in public, I will buy you a green cigar.
Thousands of people die each year from abusing alcohol, yet we do not outlaw the substance nor do we require those that use it as a recreational aid to obtain a prescription. That would be silly. Yet our political class are proposing that the best way to increase the availability of this relatively harmless therapeutic agent for people who really need it – is to manufacture a huge number of additional restrictive laws.
The idea that we need to set up a huge new bureaucracy to oversee the licensing and distribution of prescription cannabis is, at its heart, preposterous. It is as ill-judged and stupid an idea as making cannabis illegal in the first place.
The best way to ensure that sick people have access to cannabis, is to legalise the use of cannabis. So let’s end the silly charade and start spending our money on policing crime instead of morality. We need to scrap our cannabis laws entirely and start again with a clear eyed and scientifically informed appreciation of the risks that attend the use of the substance. We can put the money we save into better supporting and assisting those people in our society who are suffering from using far more dangerous substances like methamphetamine, oxycodone, alcohol, and sugar.
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