http://www.news.com.au/common/story_pag ... 21,00.html
Greens back illegal drugs
By Gerard McManus
August 31, 2004
ECSTASY and other illegal drugs would be supplied over the counter to young users in a radical policy framed by Senator Bob Brown's Greens.
The Greens manifesto backs official supply of the dangerous drug ecstasy as well as state-sanctioned heroin and marijuana sales at what it calls appropriate venues.
The ecstasy policy suggests distributing the drug to users while providing official information detailing the dangers of the drug.
About 15 people have died from ecstasy use since it hit Australia in the 1990s. The drug can cause severe psychological side-effects in some people.
A Herald Sun examination of Greens policies reveals other extraordinary plans for Australia including:
LAWS to force people to ride bicycles more often and eat less meat.
DRIVING farmers from their land.
MEDICARE funding for sex-change operations.
CAPITAL gains tax on the most expensive family homes.
AN OPEN door policy on asylum seekers.
With a chance to grab the balance of power in the Senate, the Greens have for the first time released a comprehensive set of policies beyond their environmental platform.
They want a welfare program that allows people to remain on higher dole payments indefinitely without any requirement to look for a job.
The Greens also want the population cut by two million, and for unspecified farms, roads and buildings to be turned back into nature.
With Senator Brown at its helm and two other MPs already in Federal Parliament, the Greens are aiming to treble their representation by installing a new senator in each state and picking up Lower House seats.
Senator Brown said yesterday he believed one million Australians would vote for the Greens at this election - double the number of Green voters at the last election.
Senator Brown said the Greens hoped to unseat a sitting Liberal senator in the ACT, win the ALP seat of Melbourne held by Lindsay Tanner and hold the NSW seat of Cunningham.
Green critic Mike Nahan, of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Right-wing think tank, said the party was the most radical Australia had seen.
"The Greens are loopier than any party I've seen, and will be much worse than the Australian Democrats ever were," he said.
"It was OK while they were playing devil's advocate, with Bob Brown shouting from the sidelines, but now there is a real prospect of them winning the balance of power."
Prime Minister John Howard yesterday described the Greens' agenda as kooky.
"The Greens are not just about the environment," he said. "They have a whole lot of other very, very kooky policies in relation to things like drugs and all of that sort of stuff and new taxes and whatever, which people never talk about because they try and portray themselves as a one-issue party of just being warm and fuzzy about the environment."
Greens policies also include cutting Murray River irrigators by 3000 gigalitres - or six times the size of the Sydney Harbour - each year.
Herald Sun
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If this is accurate, then the Greens just lost my vote indefinitely.
