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Gareth Morgan response to Judith Collins and Paula Bennett

23 May 2017

AN OPEN LETTER TO JUDITH COLLINS FROM DR GARETH MORGAN LEADER OF THE OPPORTUNITIES PARTY

Dear Judith and Paula,

The Opportunities Party had a pretty good idea of how the old establishment politicians would react to the release of our Real Deal Cannabis reform last week.

While the public reaction to the idea of taking millions of dollars off criminals and spending it on drug and alcohol education and rehabilitation to reduce harm was overwhelmingly positive the reaction of the old political guard has been deeply disappointing.

The Greens liked it but after twenty years in Parliament they say effecting real change for the better is just really difficult, Labour say they need to think about it more and you and your Cabinet Colleague threw out some tawdry personal one liners about me.

The Opportunities Party believes New Zealand voters want and are entitled to a better level of public debate than that just a few months out from one of the most important elections in the country’s history.

If you folks don’t think drug addiction and the criminalisation of tens of thousands of New Zealanders who chose to use cannabis is an issue feel free to ignore this letter.

If not I’d invite you both to lay out your solutions to those problems and if possible improve our evidence based Real Deal Cannabis reform in a public debate at a time and place to be mutually agreed.

Yours

Dr Gareth Morgan
Founder and Leader
The Opportunities Party


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