A Few Random Thoughts on Society 2025

Our New Zealand culture is at a U Turn, a crossroads of conflict and uncertainty.  Up until the 1970's, we were a nation of drunks and smokers.  Smokers made up at least 45% of the population and drinking was endemic in every facet of our culture, be it beer, wine, or spirits.  And at this time, Marijuana made inroads into our new everyday culture.  Drugs became available, and even though illegal, made huge inroads into everyday life, for good or mostly worse.  In the 1980's the then labour government, with the Minister of Health at the time, Helen Clark, increased the costs of cigarettes and started imposing bans on where smokers could ply their habit.  Yes, that's when Bars and aircraft and other public transportation no longer allowed smoking.

Of course, this was for the greater good of non smokers initially, but successive governments and lobbyists have really struck deep into the smokers pocket to such an extent that 30 years later, the figure of smokers has dropped to a little over 20%.  And now Turiana Turia, Asssociate Minister of Health and Maori Party Co Leader is on a crusade to eliminate smoking from the New Zealand population by 2025.  This is being done with a great deal of  support of the greater population, and even from many smokers.  Remember, the original levy passed by Clark was to raise money from smokers to put in the Health Budget to cover smoking related illnesses.  In essence, they created an insurance policy for smokers, paid for by smokers, but run by the State.  But the original focus has now shifted to total abolition.

Good or bad, who knows.  I do know that many smokers smoke to quote "Take a Chill Pill" or to de-stress.  I'm not sure how many ex smokers these days are going with their stress levels but I do know that there is one part of the population that will find this progress very hard to deal with, both financially and health wise.  They are those many that have a mental illness.  From my own observations, and several surveys both in the mental health wards and in the community, 67% of those with a mental illness are heavy smokers.  Disadvantaged, or should we make allowances for this population base?  But anyway, that's another story.

Where I want to go with this discussion is the field or Marijuana and Alcohol.  If the Government is hell bent on stopping cigarette smoking, what is their programme for stopping Marijuana smoking?  I mean, smoking is smoking.  One direction they can go, legalise marijuana and then gain control of supply and demand.  Once this is achieved, incorporate it in the Health area, and equate it's use to that of cigarettes and other tobacco products.  Make it  atarget, like smoking, of having everyone off Marijuana by 2025 too.  I know this will force a lot of people underground and a vibrant black market will ensue, much like it is today for Marijuana, but if all resources are put into making both illegal then everyone is in the same boat.  But how to deal with the alcohol problem?

Yes, problem.  Everyday on our TV sets we see young people binge drinking and suffering and causing suffering, everyday on our TV sets or on the radio we hear of recidivist drunk drivers being picked up, or the subject of a serious crash story.  We here of business men, politicians, doctors, nurses, in fact all facets of society at some time having alcohol problems.  And yes, compared to all drinkers, they are in the minority.  But how many incidents of domestic abuse and violence borne out of alcohol abuse don't we hear?  HOw many stories of people on benefits thanks to their inability to cope with having money and having one or two outlets to drown their sorrows (drink/weed).

Alcohol, like Tobacco, is a hangover from our recent past.  New ZEaland was founded on boozy nights after a hard days work.  Alcohol is the ultimate destressor, is the ultimate social tool for relationships, is the two old ladies and a tipple of sherry every day, to the cop and a bottle of whiskey a night.  It's the tool to trouble, yet is also the tool to fun?  When abused, and it often is, it's lethal.  P:Lus it also has some very disturbing undercurrents.

I mentioned relationships.  How many marriages are founded on alcoholic meetings, dances, parties, discos, etc?  How many couples met pissed, courted pissed, married pissed, only to find when children come along, the fem,ale sobers up because she has too and the guy keeps up his pissy social life?  How many marriages end in the first five years because alcohol was a contributing factor?  Wrong, I am not a ardent anti booze ex drinker.  My own past is littered with alcoholic damage so I know the fall out.  And yes, I don't want to ban booze.  What I do want is rather radical.

Too much emphasis these days from childhood to young adulthood is the need to be the best you can be.  For a majority of the population this is not an issue as most adapt overcome and conquer.  But many also fall by the wayside, and find they need to escape their family life and their school life.   One bad stone dropped into a pool of water makes many ripples, and one bag egg has multiple effects on society.  multiply that but many and we have disruption, chaos, and death.  Youth suicide is high, drug use is high, a lot of teenagers have tried booze before they were 14.  That's fact.  So what to do to curb these sad realities.

Responsible drinkers drink responsibly because they know consequences. The installation of the Youth Act, though decreed by the UN, failed parents and teachers as caretakers of our youth.  Youth found a way to rebel without restriction and consequence.  This at a time when marijuana and alcohol became too freely available.  A ticking Time Bomb was born, and for the last 15 years, the consequences to society as a whole have been at times very devastating.  I say before wholesale changes are made to alcohol regulations, repeal the Youth Act, and at the same time raise the legal age for alcohol across the board at 20.  Install Responsible Parenting Classes in schools from Intermediate level, maybe cutting back on sex education and placing more importance on the need for responsibility.  Yes there is a lot to do, to change.

If government wants to attain Utopia by 2025, there are a lot of hard rules to put in place, to be policed and monitored.  I seriously doubt raising prices works.  Programmes that allow people to buy into the future vision are more beneficial and in the long run more cost effective.  Raising prices is seen as a cash cow for government and there is no guarantee that that money will be used in sensible legislation and sensible helpful programmes for those most at risk, be they smokers, dopeheads, boozers, or errant youth.