Dakta Green Jailed for New Zealand Cannabis Club
One of New Zealand's most prominent and aggressive marijuana legalization advocates will spend the next eight months in prison. Dakta Green was sentenced Tuesday after being found guilty on three marijuana charges earlier this year.
[image:1 align:right caption:true]For two and half years, Green had operated The Daktory, a west Auckland club where marijuana could be freely bought and sold. He was charged following police raids on the club in January 2010, after he went public with plans to expand operations and open pot clubs nationwide.
The protests of dozens of Daktory supporters outside the courthouse could be heard inside the courtroom as Green objected to the sentence. But Judge Phil Gittos said the sentence was more lenient that than sought by the Crown and that the "law must be upheld."
It's not the first time Green has been jailed for the herb. He spent a year in the Chester County (Pennsylvania) Jail in 1999 and nearly three years in prison in New Zealand beginning in 2002. But those experiences only strengthened his activism. He legally changed his name from Ken Morgan to Dakta Green in 2008, was a candidate in a regional election for the Aotearoa Legalize Cannabis Party in 2009, and is a regional director of New Zealand NORML.
Green shut down The Daktory to its 2,000-plus members after he was convicted. Its motto was "Live like it was legal."
Comments
The Daktory is still open as
The Daktory is still open as a BYO cannabis club and a center for cannabis activism. We are not giving up this struggle.
The Daktory has operated for two and a half years. In that time thousands of people have come through its doors. It is R18 and an alcohol free zone.
Cannabis was sold through the dispensary, where it was weighed out by the gram in front of the customer. Usually several varieties of bud were available, like in a Dutch coffeeshop. Not quite the same as "freely bought and sold" - it was an attempt to demonstrate how a regulated cannabis market for adults would work. It would have worked fine if the government had not got involved.
See www.thedaktory.org.nz
Harry
Campaigner's Sentencing Political Injustice
Politicians and Prohibitors may call Dakta Greens sentencing 'Justice' but health and justice policy activist Dakta Green is right, this is, indisputably political.
see: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1106/S00350/campaigners-sentencing-political-injustice.htm
It should be obvious to all that there is no New Zealand Alcohol Party, or Tobacco Party of Aotearoa, nor is there likely to ever be on your next electoral ballot sheet a Party of Kronic. But there it is, every by-election, every general election, and many local body elections "ALCP", the monicker for the MMP inspired Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.
On its merits ALCP polls more than Jim Anderton's Progressives, or Dunne's United Future... It does so without access to mainstream media, televised debates or material resources. Two of its former candidates have been elected, and re-elected to parliament.
To suggest support for cannabis law reform only comes from those who ingest, inhale or apply cannabis topically is delusional, just as it is to suggest that those who are against reform are reasoned, intelligent and able to offer argument that prohibition is an effective, efficient, just and equitable solution.
It is perverse to even hold out hope that the sanctioning and imprisonment of Dakta Green will stop ONE SINGLE PERSON from using or experimenting with cannabis.
Evidence suggests it will probably verify in the minds of young people that ALL THEIR PEERS ARE DOING IT, and contrary to the intent of the legislation enforced under the warrant of the Minister of Health, will mean these young people cant bloody wait to try it. Yet NO MEDIA WILL PUT Health Minister TONY RYALL on the spot and ask him why enforce such a counter productive policy?
Where is the fourth estate on this. The MildGreens (mildgreens.blogspot.com) suggest an AUT Media Studies paper on the subject is instructive. It identifies that it is collusion "between media and police" that this perpetuated mayhem sells advertising real estate.
There is NO INTENTION to hold a reasoned debate or report the real harms of prohibition for to do so would eliminate one of the impediments to achieving the post prohibition social dividend, politicians who continually profess they are are tough on crime while maintaining crime for the purpose of saving us from it.
Dakta Green's 8 months inside is intended to 'chill' debate. That's POLITICAL!
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