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Roderick Aldridge has never smoked or used cannabis in his life.
But the 80-year-old Hamilton man will vote “yes” to legalize cannabis in the upcoming referendum to be held as part of the October 17 general election.
On Sunday, Aldridge was helping lobby group Health Not Handcuffs deliver brochures to Hamilton households from the New Zealand Drug Foundation, which supported regulations to minimize health and social harms from cannabis.
The referendum asks whether recreational use of cannabis should be legal, and the foundation said it supported an affirmative vote to establish health controls on how cannabis is handled.
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MARK TAYLOR / Stuff
Roderick Aldridge is placing pamphlets in the mailboxes of Hamilton homes, hoping that people will support an affirmative vote in the upcoming cannabis referendum.
Aldridge, a former Bay of Plenty horticulturist, said he understood that people could find it difficult to support a movement that would allow legal cannabis use.
“I have a personal reason for voting in favor. Someone close to me got into drugs after being sexually abused.
“He died of an overdose, we don’t know if it was an accident or not. But because drug users are classified as criminals, they are unlikely to ask for help, and she did not.
“What people need is help to quit their addiction and help to deal with the underlying problems, the trauma that led them to become addicted in the first place.”
Aldridge said legalizing cannabis would allow some control over how much was used and would reduce the ability of the black market to make people use more addictive drugs.
“If you vote yes, you are making it possible for people to get help and at least reduce the black market, so that the money can be used instead to help people with addiction problems.
“If you vote no, you are voting to continue a system that has failed for 40 years.”
Aldridge was in a bicycle accident recently and his leg was in a brace, but that wasn’t going to stop him from making his deliveries.
Armed with a handful of pamphlets and his sun hat, he said he would probably spend a few hours delivering in Hamilton’s Silverdale.
He became involved as a supporter after he wrote an article on the Cannabis Control Bill and submitted it to the New Zealand Drug Foundation.
In the article, he said that his first instinct was to be against anything that increased cannabis use.
“But when I did research and thought about it, I completely changed my mind,” he wrote in the article.
Aldridge said it was not the first time he had changed his mind on an important national issue.
In 1967 there was a referendum on whether hotel bars should continue to close at 6pm, or whether closing hours should be decided according to local conditions.
The change was favored by 64.5 percent of voters and the 6 p.m. closing was abolished.
“At that time I was a teetotaler and I was against anything that increased alcohol consumption and the damage it caused.
“But I could see that the attempt to control alcohol consumption before 6:00 pm backfired, had led to the infamous Six O’clock Swill.
“He established a culture of binge drinking that persists to this day and has resisted all attempts to switch to a culture of drinking in moderation.”
