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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    New Zealand Voters Approve Euthanasia but Reject Recreational Marijuana

    I'm not surprised by the former, but I would have expected different from the latter.

    Ant?

    New Zealand Voters Approve Euthanasia but Reject Recreational Marijuana
    Oct. 30, 2020, 4:06 a.m. ET

    New Zealand will join a small number of countries that have legalized euthanasia after its citizens voted overwhelmingly in favor of it in a referendum this month.

    A second question on the ballot during the Oct. 17 federal election — on legalizing recreational marijuana use — was set to fail, according to preliminary results released on Friday.

    Proponents of the cannabis measure expressed frustration with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who had declined to take a position on legalization before the election and revealed only on Friday that she had voted in support of it.

    On euthanasia, though, her stance had been clear. Ms. Ardern, who retained the prime ministership with a landslide victory in the federal election, had long expressed support for legalization, and the measure passed with 65 percent of the vote.

    The ballot question had bipartisan backing, with her primary opponent in the election, Judith Collins of the center-right National Party, also expressing support. Parliament passed a bill legalizing euthanasia last year, though it needed to be ratified with at least 50 percent support in a referendum to come into effect.

    Now, beginning on Nov. 6 of next year, doctors will be able to legally prescribe a lethal dose of medicine to patients suffering from terminal illnesses likely to end their life within six months.

    To be eligible, patients must have a significant and ongoing decline in physical ability and experience “unbearable suffering that cannot be eased.” They must voluntarily request the procedure and show that they are able to make an informed decision. Two doctors will have to sign off on the decision.

    “What a great day to be a Kiwi,” David Seymour, the lawmaker who had sponsored the act, said to supporters gathered to celebrate the result at Parliament on Friday. He added that the vote had made “New Zealand a kinder, more compassionate, more humane society.”

    Euthanasia is legal in five other countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada and Colombia. Physician-assisted suicide, in which doctors give patients the means to kill themselves, is legal in Switzerland. Some American states and the Australian state of Victoria have legalized forms of assisted dying.

    Similarly for marijuana, only a few nations have legalized its recreational use, though several have decriminalized it.

    In New Zealand, the ballot measure required voters to approve not just the general principle of legalization, but also specific regulations for the creation of a legal market. Fifty-three percent of voters opposed the measure, and 46 percent voted yes.

    Unlike the euthanasia vote, the cannabis referendum was nonbinding, but Justice Minister Andrew Little said on Friday that the government would drop efforts to legalize or decriminalize the drug.

    Proponents of legalizing marijuana said they believed that the result could have been changed if Ms. Ardern — who acknowledged during a debate on Sept. 30 that she had used the drug “a long time ago” — had declared her support.

    Richard Shaw, a politics professor at Massey University, said the seven-point gap would most likely have “been a whole lot tighter had the P.M. taken the position in public that we now know she took on the ballot herself.”

    Especially online, he said, “there’s a certain measure of disaffection, frustration and no small amount of anger that she’s now indicated she has this position and hasn’t clarified why she didn’t take this position before the election.”

    New Zealand has historically taken a conservative approach to drugs — in legislation if not always in practice, said Marta Rychert, a drug policy researcher at Massey University. The result, she said, “shows that it’s difficult to garner public support for quite a radical cannabis law reform.”

    Dr. Rychert added that the messaging used by proponents, which focused on the health and well-being of New Zealanders, might have been less effective than the economic-focused pitches made by advocates in some American states.

    The New Zealand Drug Foundation said the country still must act to reverse a punitive approach to drugs that fell disproportionately on young people and the Indigenous Maori.

    “Although a majority of New Zealanders did not vote for the proposed model of legalization, the debate has shown a clear public desire for legal change in some form,” the group’s chairman, Tuari Potiki, said in a statement.

    Half a million “special votes” in the referendum still have to be counted, and official results will not be released until Nov. 6. But Mr. Little said the results were “highly unlikely” to be overturned.
    New Zealand Voters Approve Euthanasia but Reject Recreational Marijuana - The New York Times

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Little bit surprised at that latter result, thought it was more of less fait accompli.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    but Reject Recreational Marijuana
    How the hell did they manage to do that?

  4. #4
    I Amn't In Jail PlanK's Avatar
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    It's a fair reflection of the disproportionately large boomer population that a lot of western countries have.

    Vote themselves the right to die peacefully? Yes.
    Let the youngsters enjoy some weed? Oh Hells, No! We never needed weed in our day! Good old fashioned values, that's what the kids need these days. More hard work in the coal mines, less blah, blah, blah...


    It's the reason the flag and monarchy also won't be changed for a few more decades at least.
    Some people think it don't, but it be.

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plan B View Post
    It's a fair reflection of the disproportionately large boomer population that a lot of western countries have.

    Vote themselves the right to die peacefully? Yes.
    Let the youngsters enjoy some weed? Oh Hells, No! We never needed weed in our day! Good old fashioned values, that's what the kids need these days. More hard work in the coal mines, less blah, blah, blah...


    It's the reason the flag and monarchy also won't be changed for a few more decades at least.

    You mean the same Boomer cvnts who did drugs to their hearts content in the 60's. The dope smoking, qualude taking, acid dropping Boomers..

    This is why referenda is a bad idea and certainly not the answer to everything

  6. #6
    I Amn't In Jail PlanK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backspin View Post
    This is why referenda is a bad idea and certainly not the answer to everything

    It's the most accurate way to gauge the feelings and values a population has. If the result doesn't go in your favour you just have to suck it up. That's the will of the people and it's a better way of doing things than letting the Pollies run the country.

  7. #7
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plan B View Post
    It's the most accurate way to gauge the feelings and values a population has. If the result doesn't go in your favour you just have to suck it up. That's the will of the people and it's a better way of doing things than letting the Pollies run the country.
    I'm not a democrat. Democracy is the communism of politics

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backspin View Post
    I'm not a democrat. Democracy is the communism of politics
    Is there a minute in the day when you are not talking utter shit?

  9. #9
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    I am all for uthanasia
    Emphasis on the You.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plan B View Post
    It's a fair reflection of the disproportionately large boomer population that a lot of western countries have.

    Vote themselves the right to die peacefully? Yes.
    Let the youngsters enjoy some weed? Oh Hells, No! We never needed weed in our day! Good old fashioned values, that's what the kids need these days. More hard work in the coal mines, less blah, blah, blah...


    It's the reason the flag and monarchy also won't be changed for a few more decades at least.
    I'm pretty sure it wasn't about that at all. There was a tremendous amount of input from the mental health people on radio and TV. They certainly believed that smoking dope had a detrimental effect on the population. They were hammering it everywhere. Six months ago it was a shoe in as far as polls were concerned.it was much younger people than the boomers, that were against it.
    In my house two people in their fifties voted for the legalisation and two people in their early twenties voted against it. Go figure...

    As for the end of life thingie, many people have been touched by situations of chronic pain in parents/grandparents and loved ones before they pop off. The only people that I know of against this was the religious pricks.

  11. #11
    I Amn't In Jail PlanK's Avatar
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    In my workplace the young 'uns were all for it. The Xers were evenly split and the oldies against it. The main point of contention that would sway people either way was workplace safety. No one really cared if Jill in HR was smoking weed or the majority of the population but most didn't wanna work with a stoner at the coalface.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plan B View Post
    In my workplace the young 'uns were all for it. The Xers were evenly split and the oldies against it. The main point of contention that would sway people either way was workplace safety. No one really cared if Jill in HR was smoking weed or the majority of the population but most didn't wanna work with a stoner at the coalface.
    Yep.

    I have a couple of family members in the earth moving business. One of them just had to sack the best digger driver he has ever had.Payed the guy really well, but he was always stoned. Can't have that if there was an accident.

  13. #13
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    The dope smoking, qualude taking, acid dropping Boomers..
    I'm a BaB (Barely a Boomer), but all of the B's I know laugh at the ridiculous illegalisation of weed (and ignore it), and scoff at the US in particular for it's primordial laws, and the overcrowding of it's jail system for this trivial bullshit.
    I know it's all the rage, en vogue with the babies & all that, but I doubt you can pin this one on Boomers- unless perhaps they are weed dealers & growers who don't want their profitable business upset by legalising it.

  14. #14
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Euthanasia? Aww I reckon we should look after our own children first.

  15. #15
    Thailand Expat
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    Euthanasia? Aww I reckon we should look after our own children first.
    No doubt. We could use that argument for most things.

    if you are in a situation where you see somebody in a terminal situation in insane pain, euthanasia is the way to go. Christ knows what it would be like to be in that sort of pain. It is very disturbing to watch, that's for sure.

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