YOUNG NATS TOUGH ON CANNABIS LAW

Southern Young Nationals have adopted a hard stance against any
liberalisation of cannabis laws.

The party's Otago electorate chairwoman, Elspeth Ludemann, and her husband
Grant, moved and seconded a remit at the Southern region conference calling
for the National Party to oppose any liberalisation of the cannabis laws.

Former Young Nationals Southern chairman, Hamish Forsyth, said the remit
did not go far enough and did not provide a solution to a growing drug problem.

He proposed the remit should also include the party supporting more active
enforcement of existing laws.

The best deterrent against increasing cannabis use was to keep the
situation as it was but to enforce the law better, he said.

The amended remit was then passed unanimously. Support for the remit by
Young Nationals was surprising as they have mostly supported liberalisation
since the 1970s when the then Young Nationals president, Gavin Muldoon, son
of former prime minister the late Sir Robert, caused a furore in party
circles by pushing for an easing in cannabis laws.

Youth vice-president Daniel Gordon said in an interview the party's youth
wing did not have an official policy on cannabis use. The organisation was
divided on the matter.

He was polling members on the subject and would release the results in a month.

"Our policy will depend on what our members feel. It is an issue we wanted
debated. Some of our members are more liberal than others."

It was the first time this year the issue had been debated at a regional
conference, he said.