‘Never again,’ says Brian Edwards

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 10

‘Never again,’ says Brian Edwards

By

DAVID CLARKSON

Brian Edwards played down convictions for growing and possessing cannabis yesterday, saying, “I would have been considerably more disturbed if I had been guilty of drunken driving.” After being fined a total of $9OO in the District Court at Lower Hutt, Dr Edwards, a writer and former television current affairs reporter, acknowledged he was “unashamedly guilty” and attacked New Zealand’s tobacco and alcohol laws. “What we have here is a quite nonsensical situation,” he said.

Tobacco companies were allowed to sell “a toxic substance without any doubt known to' kill the people who use it, a highly addictive substance.” “Alcohol is another toxic substance legally sold in large quantities, and probably responsible for more non-criminal deaths than anything else one can think of.

“Our legislators say this

is fine: you can sell these substances which are involved in extraordinarily high numbers of deaths but you may not in the privacy of your home have a couple of puffs of a substance which is not well known to be addictive, and not well known to have any long-term harmful effects on the people who use it. “Enormous profits are made from the deaths of those who smoke cigarettes, and from the indirect deaths of people killed by alcohol, but an individual such as myself who prefers to smoke a little dope, and in this case grow a little dope so I do not have to associate with dealers, is criminalised.” There seemed to be an anti-marijuana campaign being reported by the news media, which was “very sad,” he said.

“I would be considerably more disturbed if I had been guilty of drunken driving,” said Dr Edwards, who describes himself as a moderate drinker, and a non-

smoker. He said he gave up a 60-cigarettes-a-day habit by “wanting not to die.” If all the doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, school pupils, teachers, university lecturers, journalists and other professional people who were smoking or growing marijuana in New Zealand were prosecuted, a third of the population would be in court, he asserted. He said he smoked cannabis “for the same reason that people have a glass of chablis, or whisky, because it creates a mild sense of euphoria.”

Dr Edwards hopes the court convictions will have no effect on his career but he will check whether they will cause problems for a planned business trip to the United States.

As to the future, he said, “Obviously I am never, ever again, in my entire life going to smoke marijuana or have anything to do with that noxious weed.”-