Pubdate: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 Source: Sunday Telegraph, The (Australia) Copyright: 2003 News Limited Contact: http://www.news.com.au/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/436 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) GREENS GO SOFT ON HARD DRUGS Perhaps we should have guessed something was amiss when the NSW Greens dropped the symbolic tree from their campaign literature. That the sanctimonious former tree-huggers are resorting to the same sophistry as the major parties from which they have so strenuously sought to distance themselves can only deepen voter cynicism. The Greens have presented their party as the genuine "small l" liberal alternative. They have portrayed themselves as being above the dispiriting point-scoring and deviousness that typifies election campaigns, even one as comparatively uneventful and bland as that currently underway in NSW. In this State, an average of 40 people are joining the Greens each week. Indeed, so popular has the Greens' anti-war stance been with an electorate generally opposed to sending troops to Iraq, that the party appears certain to become a third force in Australian politics. Perhaps it is this tantalising prospect that has led the Greens to adopt the same spin-doctored tactics that they would have us believe are the preserve of Labor and the Coalition. The Greens' devious and systematic concealment of their policy of decriminalising personal drug use and allowing controlled importation and wholesaling is outrageously hypocritical. It is also a rank public deception. The Greens' NSW website lists what is represented as a comprehensive listing and explanation of the party's policies and agenda. With reference to drugs, it states: "The Greens NSW support a harm minimisation approach." This empty euphemism is defined as "reducing the adverse health, social, ecological and economic consequences of drug use to the community and to the individual user". You have to scroll down a long way before the matter of legalising cannabis is mentioned. Of going soft on hard drugs, there is a great want of candour. The Sunday Telegraph has discovered that in addition to seeking to keep voters in the dark over its pro-drugs stance, the Green agenda includes such patently silly notions as the banning of helicopters during aerial drug searches. The party's animal welfare policy calls for a reduction in the use of animals for food and the phasing out of "the keeping of caged birds as pets". Neither these bizarre policies, nor any of their raft of equally radical notions, appear on official Green campaign material. The reason is very simply that the party would rather keep the voters in the dark than speak to any of its potentially divisive and unpopular policies. In doing so, the party has shown complete contempt for the people of NSW. The electorate owes it to the Greens to reciprocate this feeling in full on Saturday, March 22. Last Word THE Greens waffle about a bill of rights for prisoners in NSW jails. In the real world, however, a constructive step has been taken towards the rehabilitation of inmates. Prisoners at the Kirkconnell minimum-security prison near Lithgow are training two golden retriever puppies for future careers as companions for disabled people. The inmates have entered into the task with such willingness that the seven-month-old dogs are considered to be more advanced than is average for animals of this age. So successful has the three-month trial program been that more than 100 trainee dogs could be introduced to prisons throughout the State. Not only are the inmates making a valuable contribution toward the community whose laws they have broken, they are re-acquiring something many of them have long since lost and will need when they get out - self-respect. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk