ACT ZAPS GREENS FOR AGM BOOZE

The Greens, the party of cannabis rights for consenting adults, stands
accused of sly-grogging at its annual meeting in Turangi.

Organic sly-grogging, of course.

Act MP Stephen Franks says booze was illegally sold at the party's Queen's
Birthday retreat - illegal because it did not have a licence to sell it.

Greens co-leader Rod Donald confessed last night: "No, we did not have a
licence. I don't think it crossed anyone's mind that we should have got one."

Whether it was actually selling depended on how you looked at it.

"I look at it like, 'You send one of your mates down the pub for your beer
and when he comes back you pay for your share of it'."

One delegate had brought Nelson-made organic brew and Hawkes Bay-made
organic wine, a red and a white, and was reimbursed for it.

Proper stuff, not parnsip wine or hop-free beer.

"It was a commercial product with a bio-grow certification on it," said Mr
Donald. "Organic stuff is a bit dearer than regular."

That accounts for why the mate was reimbursed $4 a bottle of beer and $4 a
glass of wine.

But Mr Franks, a first-term MP, is not content simply to have sprung the
Greens.

He seeks to expose them as well, suggesting the annual meeting is a
cautionary tale about the Greens' attitude to children and cannabis, were
the latter to be decriminalised.

Organic cannabis, of course.

"If the Greens despise alcohol-licensing law enough to sell organic wine
without a licence, will they have the same attitude to organic dope?" he
demanded with a fitting touch of outrage.

"The Greens propose that alcohol and cannabis share the same age of
consent," he said, further explaining his sly logic.

"How will this be respected and enforced when a national political party
ignores the law designed to maintain the enforceability of age restrictions?"