Personal use of marijuana shut down by Police
It's Cannabis & Co - cops
A national indoor gardening chain would not have turned a profit if it hadn't been knowingly supplying equipment and advice to cannabis growers, police say. Directors, managers and staff from the 16 Switched On Gardener stores - which are advertised on national television - around the country have been arrested and charged as part of Operation Lime which targeted businesses responsible for the commercial sale of equipment used to grow cannabis. Police yesterday raided indoor gardening stores, including Switched on Gardener branches in Auckland and Tauranga and GreenDay Hydroponics in Mt Maunganui. They swooped on 35 businesses and at least 100 homes throughout New Zealand. More than 250 suspects were arrested, and 750 charges are likely to be laid. Police said Operation Lime would "break the cornerstone of the illicit cannabis cultivation industry".
One of the great lies about weed is that Police don't target personal use, well many personal users grow their own from equipment they buy at these shops, this is a massive waste of time and resource to pursue a prohibition agenda that is as morally and ethically defunct as it is pointless.
Marijuana is not even in the same ball park of social damage booze, ciggies or even fast food for that matter inflict upon society and the continued waste of precious tax payer dollar resources ($100 million per year to Police weed) could be spent much more effectively in other parts of the community.
This isn't a victory in the war on drugs, it's just more collateral damage. What a pointless waste of time and energy, weed isn't the problem, it never has been and all the Police do is provide more reasons for smokers to distrust and disrespect them.
When the law is an ass it is our responsibility as adults to ignore and belittle it.
Oh and watch the NZ Police use those new powers that were sold to you as aimed at 'dem gangs, dem gangs' to steal all the money now they've lowered the evidential threshold. That's a business about to be robbed of all their money by powers you were conned into believing would be aimed at 'da gangs, da gangs'.
You are so easily led NZ.
posted by Bomber @ 5:33 am
17 comments
17 Comments:
This is ridiculous when is this country going to wake up and see how stupid we are to follow America on the war on drugs, when its this very thing that causes so much of the harm that we see related with drugs.Obviously no hope of change with a hard right govt.
Well said Bomber. Funny how the booze barons are given knighthoods and lauded in the business pages but kiwis organically growing their own weed for personal consumption are demonised.
100 million TAXPAYERS dollars a year to police weed??
100 million TAXPAYERS dollars chasing plants??
Why?
What harm to society does it create?
What are the facts?
Only victims of a crime of this nature are the ones the police create when they enforce this fucking stupid & expensive law.
When are our politicians gonna grow up?
School prefects the fucking lot of them.
This raid is about showing that nobody is immune and that you cant flaunt against the law so openly and get away with it. As someone said, sog's been open for 10 years, did they just work it out? Is that how good police intelligence is or were they just letting them trade to build up a bigger case!
People, for fucks sake dont go and get involved in any 'give cash to help sog's fight against the cops' fund or whatever bullshit theyll bring out, sog has been completly shafting their customers for years, tripling the trade price for whatever they get and even tried to get a monopoly going with easy grow but eg had the dignity to not do it. So stay away from that noise, theyve got plenty of cash and trust me, theyll be back. the cops only arrested all these peole to make up numbers. What the hells the point of arresting employees! its just a numbers thing and we all do realise this WILL cripple the business as people will be wary of it from now on.
dont see them raiding your local plant shop now do you! Because thats where the growers will be heading now. this is simply a case of some higher up person has one day noticed the shop and said 'how dare they!' not realising the police have known about it for fucking years and didnt care.
Its a bullshit situation but if you have lights or drugs I bet the price just went through the roof for what youve got!
Absolutely agree Bomber.
Also, have you noticed police charging people with "participating in an organised crime group" more often these days - and in this context how dumb is that?! So some of the company's employees sell some dope to some cops. They are so NOT an organised crime group - watch how many of them roll over and get convicted of these dumb charges!
"When the law is an ass it is our responsibility as adults to ignore and belittle it."
Shouldn't that be to change it?
If we all ignored and belittled each of the laws we personally didn't believe in what kind of society would we live in?
Never has there been a better time to push for cannabis law reform than now.
Whith all the noise about alcohol legislation lately, I think that injecting cannabis legislation into the public consciousness NOW would highlight the hypocracy of the current set-up.
I mean if alcohol's ok for those who are "responsible"...then why not x,y,z..
Direct comparisons between the two, is what we need..
While the topics hot.
"When the law is an ass it is our responsibility as adults to ignore and belittle it."
So Bomber who decides which laws are asses?
If I don't particularly like the Income Tax Act because it takes money away from I, the producer of wealth and gives it to bludgers. SO in your view it's entirely legitimate to avoid paying tax because the you is an ass?
Works for me.
At one of the anonymouses above (It's not that I'm stoned, its just that a scroll up is just such a frikken effort).
The Poeleece have always let one or two things ride for a while as a means of gaining evidence. Whether its been letting one address dealing "homebake" back in the "whenever it was" in Strathmore, and another in the Hutt Valley, its lazy but pretty effective intelligence.
Let's just wait and observe, and before too long you have most of the indulgent public on your books, photgraphed and registered.
More fool the indulgent - I mean really - you take the risk and don;t moan about the potential outcome.
Until "P" came along, I've always been of the view that this "war on drugs" only ever served to make Police statistics look good; ended up with bit players being convicted and placed into the cycle of institutional residency, then welfare support, then institutional residency....; and ruined the lives of a few "crime battlers" - such as undercover agents.
Not a lot got learned then, and not a lot since. Toughen a penalty, make a law, get a conviction on the basis of rolling the dice - THEN WHAT?
But then came this thing called "P" came along which is a brain frier however you look at it - it's not even a decent drug apparently (if you've been priviledged, or unfortunate enough to have sampled the range).
So....why the fuck are we wasting time on all this sort of kaka?
It wasn;t all that long ago that the Police themselves were in favour of "decriminalising" dak.
In fact they'd probably prefer it if all they had to clean up after a Friday o Saturday night was a Cheech and Chong or two - as opposed to three quarters of a township in Anywhere, New Zealand pissed as newts.
Really, its all beginning to look like its more about making statistics look good, and keeping the liquor lobbyists happy.
It's all been a croc of shit for a very long time. One had hoped that we'd be de-crocking it, but instead we're simply taking easy options
Hey, and here's another thing: just announced is an incredible increase in the price of tobacco - on the basis of a number of reasons that could just as easily (and in some cases MORE SO) be applied to alcohol.
But wait...will the same rules punative measures be put on alcohol on the basis of that same reasoning? You bet your ass NOT.
And the reason? I'll hazard a guess.
Tobacco companies (as evil as they are) have offshore leadership. The chances of a noice little Nat at a cocktail party having to placate a senior member of the tobacco industry (I.e. one that they'd fawn all over) is minimal. Whereas when it comes to alcochol, there'll be local purveyors giving lessons to the Nat MP mates on what they're required to do.
But this is the demokrissy NZers asked for - they wanted CHANGE! -And so here it all is.
exclamation mark I suggest you get an education. Weed is less harmful than paracetamol. Government, cigarette company and alcohol company propaganda is the only thing that says otherwise. Beer and ciggie companies in the United States spend millions on trying to keep weed illegal. Luckily most states are waking up.
I agree with Rangi, how can they expect people not to shoot back or kill to protect their freedom and medicine (health)? Nobody on this planet owns you and IMO you are born with the right to protect yourself against unjustly being put in a cage or having your medicine taken away. I know many people will disagree with this but many people also share this thinking. It's not fair on anyone to keep it illegal, even the police.
By the way, I love how the cops are proclaiming they've broken the cornerstone of the industry as if one of the biggest industries in the country is about to collapse as a result. Or maybe when there's no pot left the dealers can hook the kids up with some P instead?
With the rise in the tax on tobacco cigarettes its now cheaper to smoke the herb!
the law is blackmailing its victims in many areas of NZ as follows:
The choice is yours victim of John Key Nanny Victoria
On charges of selling paraphernalia and gear for Cannabis growing we can press for
maximum seven years imprisonment
Plead guilty and accept lower charge.
More later dudes
The vast majority of citizens who grow dope at home pursue this harmless gentle pastime because they don't want mix with and buy from criminals.
This latest publicity stunt by the police will serve only to drive otherwise law abiding citizens into contact with criminals and increase the profits and power of the gangs -- commercial dope suppliers will be laughing all the way to the bank. Clamping down on cannabis also has the effect increasing consumption of more dangerous and easily obtainable drugs such as alcohol and P.
Instead of doing 'flashing lights, cop cars and I got myself on TV' stuff the police should be putting their energy in the the hard stuff that is eating at core of society: domestic violence, white collar crime and alcohol abuse (and, yes, by any objective scientific measure, cannabis really is harmless when compared with alcohol and P).
The hidden hand of National's zombie death cult puppet-master becomes ever more visible.
You could call this another "hollow" victory in their ongoing covert battle against the modern world.
We will now have an opportunity to find out if our law courts are actually bastions of logic and reason, or merely slaves to lies and propaganda.
We really are a stupid bunch of fucks!
If we were smart, we would let the Australians make a mess of their country - digging up and selling all their minerals to China, then we would encourage them to spend all that money here by having removed our useless prohibition laws.
If I was an Australian with a choice of risking the death penalty in Indonesia or Malaysia, or being able to smoke in peace legally in NZ, I know where I would be spending all my (Chinese) money.
Our nation is just too fucking brainwashed by yank TV to work that one out for ourselves anymore.
Boohoo poor little junkies can't get their fix without being arrested.
Sorry Bomber but parliament as the people's representatives has spoken for us to sort these clowns out by criminalising drugs.
Is weed ruining my life?
I was a top placed student at my uni last year,
I just got back two A+ essays last week,
I play social football,
I go to gigs,
I meet my Nana once a week for a cup of tea,
I bike 15 KM a day,
I've traveled to over 30 countries, payed my own way,
I like baking muffins,
I'm yet to turn 30.
Is my life going to be better if I stop smoking and start drinking?
I'm one of the 46% of kiwis who smoke or have smoked.
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/drug-use-in-nz-key-results-of-the-0708-nzadus
The only negative effect it has on my life is I am considered a criminal.
Post a Comment
<< Home