High in the news at the moment is the story that six young people have killed themselves in three months in the town of Kaitaia, population 5,000. Kaitaia is in the search for solutions; so far suggested is a youth space and more streetlights in some back streets.
Predictably, no-one in the New Zealand ruling class has the courage to suggest the legalisation of cannabis.
According to a study by Montana State University, suicides among men aged 20 through 39 years fell roughly 10% after medical cannabis was legalised compared to those states that did not legalise.
The study says that the lower rate of suicide in states that have legalised medicinal cannabis “is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events.”
This is something that almost every young person in New Zealand knows! Almost 100% of New Zealand youth know that cannabis should not be illegal. They’ve seen most of their parents smoke it and they know it’s less dangerous than alcohol. I personally can credit the use of cannabis with saving me from a desperately dark psychological situation.
But the ruling class puts young people in prison for this medicinal plant that saves lives, and then says the problem is a lack of streetlights! The fact that the ruling class is so appallingly out of touch is another reason why it’s so difficult to be a young person in New Zealand.
How stupid are they? Why don’t they ask the young people with mental illness what they want, instead of assuming that because they are mentally ill they can’t possibly know?
85% of Kaitaia live on some kind of benefit. If you are on the benefit in New Zealand and don’t have cannabis, then insanity is never far away. Being a young person in New Zealand is difficult, due to the almost total absence of stimulation.
Being a young person on a benefit in economically depressed small-town New Zealand is an extremely difficult psychological challenge.
If a person doesn’t understand that, then they don’t have the empathy necessary to be involved in the process about how to solve our mental health problems.
Mike King has it right when he said “If we’re going to put a dent in these appalling numbers we have around suicide then we’re going to have to start listening to communities,” he says.
Well, at least 90% of these young people want the right to relax, to calm down, and to stimulate their artistic and creative endeavours by smoking cannabis. Are you going to listen to that?
This is what the community is saying: smoking cannabis takes our suffering away. Cannabis prohibition takes away a mental health medicine that we could be using to make our lives better. It’s even backed up by the statistics.
Young people are dying because you’re not listening.
Grate Work Mate totally Support every thing you said, Keep up the good Work, feel free to ask if I can Help any time, I might not be able to but I will if I can, up on Cannabis Charges now and on the doll, so uncertainty is my thing right now, I’m a engineer Welder Gardener Cannabis Grower Breeder among many other things. Top Work Thanks!
I agree with every word. The problem you face when dealing with the leaders is, the smoking of tobacco among Maori has a very detrimental effect on their health and mortality rates. As a result Maori and their leaders are very proactive about not smoking. So getting your message across , while I believe you to be correct, is much harder , when the top brass have a smoke free by 2025 policy as their goal.
But the link between prohibition and suicide is unmistakable. Instead we have a fuckwit set of leaders who are bringing in saliva tests. Go figure. This is not what democracy looks like.
I agree Jeanette. The truly sad thing is that tobacco is used mostly as a mental health medicine as well, the difficulty is that a person using it should smoke maybe 5-10 cigarettes a week, not 30 a day. In the absence of anything better, and if the structural problems in society are not fixed, then people will turn to tobacco out of desperation. Do note that tobacco smoking became mainstream at about the same time as cannabis prohibition – not a coincidence!
Points noted re: Maori leadership, will have to think about that. Do note that the Maori Party represents less than a quarter of all Maori.
Sadly this is what democracy looks like, it’s up to us to educate our fellows so that they don’t fall for the same stupid lies as the older generations did and which John Key and the Establishment are still spinning.
Have you been to a mental health ward and seen that most schizophrenics smoke? They are self medicating. It’s not good for their physical health but it’s good for their mental health. Their expectant life expectancy is about 55 years old. It’s a combination of lifestyle and medication, and the side effects of their medication. What I’m saying is that cigarette’s should be subsidised for the schizophrenic consumer. They should be tax free. Typically they can’t afford it, and it’s so good for their mental health. But I believe schizophrenics would be able to get off tobacco using Cannabis. I wouldn’t recommend the alternative, Valium. It makes people drowsy, it blunts them and it’s highly addictive. Cannabis doesn’t cause psychosis, and psychiatrists can’t tell their patients that it can. The therapeutic benefits of cannabis are widely known. https://scveteransalliance.com/
Hi Shona, I actually am a schizophrenic who stopped smoking tobacco thanks to cannabis. This is one reason why cannabis prohibition makes me angry – it creates an incentive for me to take a medicine that will shorten my lifespan by 20 years.
Benzos are terrible compared to cannabis. As is Zopiclone.
The easy way around the issue of smoking any substance is to use a vaporiser. Of course, the ruling class has made them illegal and you risk confiscation at the border if you try to import them. Harm reduction government style. Works well, doesn’t it?
Police or a judge will tell you that no violent crime has been committed while under the influence. It is simply not possible. You are relaxed and are having positive thoughts. It’s a pity doctors can’t prescribe it bur I don’t think their pharmacological companies would stand to make a record profit off people smoking marijuana, so they are not going to put the dollars into the research.