‘Race Card': Clifford W Thornton Jr. arrives in NZ

A leading black American advocate on health, race and drug issues is set to arrive for an in-depth community based New Zealand tour this morning.

Clifford Wallace Thornton Jr. is an executive of ‘Efficacy’, a State-side group working to end racial and drug-war injustice, and is being hosted by the Mild Greens with the generous support of numerous community groups, individuals and organisations particularly sympathetic to ‘decriminalisation’.

Mr Thornton arrives at Christchurch International airport at 11:30 am (Wednesday) and will be in the country for an unspecified period of time. He is keen to meet with ordinary Kiwis, community leaders, politicians, trade unions and media.

An initial interview has been booked by Auckland's Radio 95BFM (Auckland) for Thursday 27th Nov at 12:15pm.

It is hoped that Mr Thornton will be able to make a strong contribution to a community debate around the increasingly doubtful ‘war on drugs’ methods being used in New Zealand.

A recent Parliamentary inquiry found that cannabis ‘criminalisation’ enforcement disproportionally targets Maori. Law reformers suggest the apparent discriminatory enforcement amounts to exploitation, and is indicative of extremely poor public policy ‘long past its use-by date’.

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