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He also criticized his fellow MPs who refused to publicly reveal how they planned to vote. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Justice Minister Andrew Little, whose name was on the cannabis control and legalization bill, voted in favor, but did not admit it before the results were published.
In August, Little said he was only 50/50 on whether he would vote for legalization, and Ardern always said that he did not want to influence voters in any way.
Swarbrick refused to directly criticize Ardern or Little – “I’m not going to give you a headline that doesn’t really help the cause” – and instead decided to label “most MPs” as hypocrites.
“I made it very clear all along the way that one of the many reasons we have not seen drug law reform on a significant scale over the last 40 years is because politicians have been left in their hands.
“What drives me the most crazy about that is the blatant hypocrisy. There is a majority of MPs who have … said ‘yes, I have used cannabis, in the mists of time.’ But now they oversee a law that prosecutes, penalizes and criminalizes people for doing exactly what they did. “
