Pubdate: Mon, 15 May 2000
Source: Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)
Copyright: Allied Press Limited, 2000
Contact:  P.O. Box 181, 52-66 Lower Stuart Street, Dunedin, New Zealand
Website: http://www2.odt.co.nz
Author: Dene MacKenzie

YOUNG NATS TOUGH ON CANNABIS LAW

Southern Young Nationals have adopted a hard stance against any 
liberalisation of cannabis laws.

The party's Otago electorate chairwoman, Elspeth Ludemann, and her husband 
Grant, moved and seconded a remit at the Southern region conference calling 
for the National Party to oppose any liberalisation of the cannabis laws.

Former Young Nationals Southern chairman, Hamish Forsyth, said the remit 
did not go far enough and did not provide a solution to a growing drug problem.

He proposed the remit should also include the party supporting more active 
enforcement of existing laws.

The best deterrent against increasing cannabis use was to keep the 
situation as it was but to enforce the law better, he said.

The amended remit was then passed unanimously. Support for the remit by 
Young Nationals was surprising as they have mostly supported liberalisation 
since the 1970s when the then Young Nationals president, Gavin Muldoon, son 
of former prime minister the late Sir Robert, caused a furore in party 
circles by pushing for an easing in cannabis laws.

Youth vice-president Daniel Gordon said in an interview the party's youth 
wing did not have an official policy on cannabis use. The organisation was 
divided on the matter.

He was polling members on the subject and would release the results in a month.

"Our policy will depend on what our members feel. It is an issue we wanted 
debated. Some of our members are more liberal than others."

It was the first time this year the issue had been debated at a regional 
conference, he said.
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