"I just want to be able to buy and smoke weed legally"
That's the carrot they dangle - the ONLY thing that anyone gets out of it. And yes, you'll be able to smoke (at home) without arrest. But you can already do that. They aren't going to let you smoke in the park, or anywhere around people.
"decriminalization does not achieve that, it would still be illegal to buy and sell."
Huh? Decrim means ending all the bad cannabis laws that got created starting in the 1930s. It means not arresting people for weed, not charging people for weed, not going to court for weed, not punishing people for weed. It would still be illegal? Then that's not decrim. What we want is the end of the bad laws, NOT NEW LAWS.
"In many parts of Canada and the USA people can go into shops, and have a choice of many different cannabis products to purchase."
Government stores. Overregulated isn't the word. It's $30 for a shitty gram, but only $5 for a REALLY nice gram on the street. And you can't get edibles, or extracts. They even made weed shirts illegal in many places here. My wife needs a gram of THC per day, and she'd be DEAD right now if we had to buy at government prices. Besides, it's toxic, literally. People are getting respiratory infections left right and center after smoking govt weed. Grown in warehouses by corporate idiots.
Seriously, all these debates have been had, for years. Everything you say is like something out of a textbook here. We heard it here for years, the exact same justifications. You're making exactly the same mistakes, and I even saw that coming- I even said NZ would be next, YEARS AGO! And here we are, and you guys still won't listen to warnings.
You're aware cannabis messages are still censored on YT, right? I can't get this message out there. I can't warn people like you. Nobody can. We're SCREAMING over here, trying to get you to listen, but nothing we do has any effect.
Please, listen to those who were there! It's NOT a good thing. And no, I'm not paid by anyone to have this opinion, or to say these things. I'm independently motivated and have been speaking out against legalization since 2012, when it was just a distant rumour here.
That's Jan 2014, when I could see everything that's going on now forming up, I put out that warning to Canadians. I wasn't listened to. It was 100% right. When I show fellow cannactivists from Canada that clip now, they say "why didn't I see that back when it mattered?"
You have the opportunity to see it and hear it when it matters.
Your rejection of my research into vaccines hints that you aren't likely to be willing to consider my position on anything else. You have an unscientific approach - anything that doesn't agree with your hypothesis is discarded as "fake news". You will not reach the truth that way, unless you do so by accident, and I wouldn't count on that.
RE: PGR plague in the Land of the Long White Cloud (Aotearoa/New Zealand)