CUSHELA C. ROBSON
Whanganui
Wild meat solution
In reply to the recent editorial "Appetite for meat rising worldwide": Just a thought — we would not need to turn to industrial farming to produce more meat if the 1080 and brodifacoum poisons were not being spread all over our land.
Trappers and hunters could provide many thousands of tonnes of choice meat and fur from rabbits, possums, deer, goats and pigs, harvested from our reserve public lands, with a bounty on rats and stoats to keep their numbers down.
At present one small company is farming possums to supply meat and fur for export and pet food, because sourcing this product from the wild is too dangerous for the trappers and consumers alike with the poison being dropped everywhere on public and private lands.
MERV SMITH
Bulls
Terminal illness danger
It beggars belief for David Seymour to claim that narrowing his euthanasia bill to terminal illness would result in only a small number of cases.
While cancer is not the only terminal illness, its prevalence among our population is staggering. Nearly half of New Zealand males, and a third of females are estimated to have a risk of getting cancer before they are 75.
This is the highest regional rate in the world, according to recent figures released by the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Yes, I know that some other conditions need to be met, including that of "unbearable suffering", although the bill does not specify that the suffering needs to be physical.
And "unbearable" is a subjective yardstick which no doctor can argue with.
When combined with the latest news on delays in proper cancer treatment affecting large numbers of Kiwis, the Seymour bill looks like an accident waiting to happen.
Far from being a last resort as Seymour claims, euthanasia or assisted suicide could well be the first thing that comes to mind when New Zealanders receive their fateful diagnosis.
MPs should throw out this bill at second reading.
PAULA SALISBURY
Hamilton
Euthanasia debate
On May 31, Helen Cartmell's letter in the Whanganui Chronicle was published in support of euthanasia.
She told us that in 6 per cent of deaths, pain cannot be adequately controlled.
My wife has worked for over 20 years in a palliative geriatric hospital, where she has witnessed literally hundreds upon hundreds of deaths.
She tells me patients in her hospital do not die in pain.
If 6 per cent are dying painfully, that tells us a lot about the quality of care they are getting.
What also concerns me is the old adage that "hard cases make bad law".
Should we be decriminalising euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide or should we be working to improve our palliative care systems?
Every year, palliative medicine is getting better and better.
It seems to me that when we know the many documented and proven risks in decriminalising, then it would be very foolish for our country to go down this route.
We can only hope that our MPs will recognise that danger and vote this pernicious bill down at its second reading.
CHRIS O'BRIEN
Christchurch
THC levels higher
Jay Kuten neglects to mention the fact that the psychoactive THC content in marijuana in this century is about 15-20 times that of marijuana in the 1960s.
Old studies cannot be used in this context.
MANDY DONNE-LEE
Aramoho
•Send your letters to: Letters, Whanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Whanganui 4500 or email letters@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
