Paul Little ("It's a miracle any of us is alive", October 27) is right. It's better "to spend your last years as a fit and energetic person than someone with a heart condition eating all the fries they want", but it isn't fair to say the latter always results from a fear of walking and being run over by buses. Also true, gambling usually fails, but "It's for losers" is just using a pun to insult.
Instead of wondering how people get to where they are, Little prefers to mock them for their bad choices. This is the new moral elite — tears and praise for groups that will look good on a Diversity March and utter contempt for the rest.
Gavan O'Farrell, Lower Hutt
Quoting the Bible
Joyce Cooper believes animals are food because it says so in the Bible, and she strongly advises against "thumbing your nose at the Creator of the Universe" (letters, October 27). Once someone enters a discussion with "the Bible says ... " we can wave goodbye to rational debate.
My strong advice to Joyce is that she tries to grasp the idea that believing strongly in something does not guarantee that what she believes in is real.
But even if she is correct in her belief that God exists and created the universe, I'd caution against basing policy or behaviour on what's written in the Bible. Psalm 139 tells us God knows exactly how long each of us will spend on this Earth, before we're even born! No point teaching children to watch for traffic then, is there?
Chris Elias, Mission Bay
Cannabis contradiction
Wonders never cease, neither does this Government's contradictory plans!
In one breath it wants people to stop smoking, to quit this addiction, listing all the benefits of being tobacco-free — healthwise, financially and socially as well as promising all sorts of help for those wanting to stop. All very honourable and principled for a government concerned for the wellbeing and future of the citizens under its governance, I thought!
Before I could get over the amazement of how caring this Government is for the citizens, I was struck down by the Government's push to legalise cannabis!
Isn't that also smoking? Won't that also lead to some form of addiction as well? What guarantee is there that cannabis is any different to tobacco with its hold on the people that smoke it? Won't it be more sensible to encourage people to stop smoking rather than have something else replace it?
As there's no research on the effects of cannabis on humanity, perhaps a trial run with members of this Government who are for the legalisation of cannabis, as guinea pigs, leading the campaign to gather proven results so the people can have first-hand observation of the effects of cannabis on human lives before making a decision at the referendum.
At least NZ would be the first country to have such top-echelon personalities test out what they are pushing to legalise.
And future generations smoking cannabis will have only this Government's tried and tested decision to legalise cannabis to thank for rather than a government that contradicts (shoots itself in the foot) itself all the time.
Margaret Scott, Pakuranga
