The claim that cannabis is addictive is one Harete Hipango keeps making but does not offer scientific proof. That's because there is none. Photo / File
The claim that cannabis is addictive is one Harete Hipango keeps making but does not offer scientific proof. That's because there is none. Photo / File
COMMENT
Whanganui MP Harete Hipango (National) is steadfastly opposed to cannabis legalisation.
She expressed that opinion both at the recent science forum arranged in preparation for the coming referendum, and her article (Chronicle, March 4).
I happen to disagree, in that the status quo isworse than legalisation. It's not her opinion that troubles me but rather her explanation of that opinion, the facts she adduces, and the ideology which she sees as guiding her decision-making.
Hipango admits to be being biased. A welcome acknowledgement.
In the forum and in her column, she seems to base part of those biased views on her many years of work as a criminal lawyer and her experience in civil law.
Perhaps that explains her advocacy as lawyers are permitted to pick and choose the evidence that supports their positions.
That is contrary to the accepted standards of science in which all the data, pro and con must be reported.
Unfortunately, she stakes out her opposition to cannabis in areas where science is necessary. And the science just isn't there, and what science is there, makes more modest claims that do not support her certainty.
Hipango claims "cannabis addiction is a precursor to ongoing and intensified harm, domestic and social problems, family violence, intra and inter-familial issues, mental health afflictions, and inter-generational cyclical manifestations".
One reader, John Milnes, responded by pointing to the confusion created as a result of Hipango's refusal to acknowledge alcohol, not cannabis, as the recreational drug most associated with violence, domestic and otherwise.
Both reports acknowledge gaps in research but also do report health benefits, which Hipango omits entirely.
A singular bias which Hipango claims and admits, informs her views on such matters as cannabis, abortion, the ELOC Act, and even the democratic decision process of the referendum itself.
At the science forum, Hipango stated proudly that she represented her community, which she clearly demarcated was the Māori community.
It was with reference to the values she attributes to Māori that she has decided her position.
That might be fine if the issues at stake involved only Māori and she were to address those issues — cannabis, abortion, the ELOC Act — solely within the confines of the Māori community.
Except that as the MP for the Whanganui region, her brief is to represent the entire community, Māori and non-Māori.
To say she represents the community which is Māori raises the question, "What about the rest of us?"
In her opposition to the referendum last year, Hipango made clear her preference for a Māori form of decision-making that keeps individual choice as subservient to the decision of the group, the whanau or the iwi.
Harete Hipango states proudly that she represents her community, which she clearly demarcates as the Māori community. Photo / File
In her column she goes so far as to dismiss the democratic framework, saying no to "liberal, ideological individual-rights based entitlements".
Curiously, the liberalism she derides is basic to National's ethos, self-reliance, free trade, and business freedom from governmental regulation.
Moreover, individual rights are not "entitlements".
They are the result of the continuing historic struggle for freedom and liberty, paid for in the blood of patriots.
The rights of each individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not simply the ideals of America's Thomas Jefferson. They underpin the framework by which we all govern ourselves.
In this multicultural democracy we need to respect each other's beliefs and values, but the imposition of Māori values on the rest of us is no more warranted today than was or is colonialist imposition of values on the Māori minority.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
• Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
