Middle East: Israel's Green Leaf (Marijuana) Party Could Win Knesset Seats [Archive] - Green Grass Forums

Euphoric

03-21-2006, 07:39 AM

Middle East: Israel's Green Leaf (Marijuana) Party Could Win Knesset Seats

Israel's pro-marijuana reform Ale Yarok (Green Leaf, or marijuana) Party is poised to win a pair of seats in the Knesset in elections set for the end of this month, the Associated Press reported. Two years ago, the party came within 7,000 votes of winning a seat, and this year, according to some pollsters, it could go over the top.

Headed by 47-year-old Boaz Wachtel, Green Leaf's platform is centered on legalizing marijuana, but also calls for legalizing gambling and prostitution. The party also calls for overall drug policy reform. And Green Leaf takes a dovish stance toward the Palestinians, with candidate Shlomi Sendak making waves with his call for negotiations with Hamas, the fundamentalist party that won Palestinian elections and now controls the Palestinian government.

"If it was up to the youth, I would be the Prime Minister of Israel," Wachtel told the AP. That's unlikely, but the chances of winning seats in parliament are less so. "If I didn't think we had a chance of getting into the Knesset, I wouldn't be wasting my time," he said.

While single-issue parties are nothing new in Israel, Green Leaf manages to stand out. Past campaigns have included an election jingle using the national anthem to a trance music beat, and the party's calls for settlers to just light up and chill out during the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer also made waves. This year, the party made the news when two of its candidates were arrested for trying to enter a high school to participate in a mock election and made news again when their legal petition to be allowed to participate was rejected by the courts.

Green Leaf has become the de facto home for a variety of youth and alternative culture dissidents, but Wachtel said it was mainly about pot. "The common denominator is the love of cannabis," he said.

About one out of six Israelis have tried the weed, according to government statistics.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/427/greenleaf.shtml

Euphoric

03-23-2006, 12:59 AM

I think this is surprisingly progressive legislation, even more progressive than the current US political atmosphere on pot, possibly on par with canada's progress even.
Myth is justa republican dont pay attention to him

Israel's Green Leaf party poised for poll

Tel Aviv - Dressed in sneakers, khaki pants and a sweatshirt, the chairperson of Israel's pro-marijuana Green Leaf party takes a drag from his cigarette.

"If it was up to the youth, I would be the Prime Minister of Israel," Boaz Wachtel says, sitting on a worn-out sofa in his Tel Aviv office. That may be a pipe-dream, but the prospect of Wachtel and his party getting into parliament is not.

Some pollsters say Green Leaf - buoyed by support from young, urban, secular Israelis - could win two seats in the 120-member Knesset in the March 28 election, leading the charge of small parties.
The ultraliberal party, whose platform includes legalising marijuana, gambling and prostitution, was twice before on the verge of gaining access to the halls of power. In 2003, it was just 7 000 votes short of a place in parliament. This time, Wachtel promises to break through.

"If I didn't think we had a chance of getting into the Knesset, I wouldn't be wasting my time," he said.

Despite widening its platform to include a dovish attitude toward Palestinians, Green Leaf has remained firmly on the fringes, and public opinion experts say the legalisation of marijuana is not a campaign issue in Israel.

"It is more like an 'in your face' thing, like saying 'we are turning our back on the political establishment and we will vote for someone who is against the mainstream'", said researcher Tamar Hermann of Tel Aviv University. "People don't take them seriously because everything they say is taken as if it is said under the influence of drugs."

Israel is no stranger to political fringe parties. Other candidates vying for parliament this year include an ex-spy chief representing pensioners, a fishmonger and a puppeteer campaigning to do away with bank fees for transactions.

In the past, single-issue parties campaigning on men's rights in the family and the establishment of a national casino have also made a run. But no one has gotten as close, or attracted as much attention as Green Leaf.

The party's past election campaigns have included a jingle with the national anthem played to the beat of trance music. During Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer, they recommended settlers roll up a joint and relax.

On February 20, two of party's candidates for parliament were arrested after trying to break into a high school to protest the party's exclusion from mock elections there. Green Leaf petitioned the courts to be allowed to join the vote, but was rejected.

The latest public official to lash out at the party was Silvan Shalom, a former foreign minister and a candidate from the hawkish Liked Party, who recently said, "legalising drugs is insane. It starts with a cigarette, leads to a joint and ends with cocaine."

Wachtel said the criticism and media exposure have only helped Green Leaf. He said his party represents an alternative culture of people who care about the environment, civil rights and personal freedom.

But he acknowledged that drugs were the great unifier for his motley crew of candidates for parliament, some of whom had their official portraits taken with sunglasses and a glass of beer in hand.

"The common denominator is the love of cannabis," he said.

Yet the 47-year-old Wachtel is hardly your typical hippie.

Educated in the US, he has become a respected lecturer on the Middle East water crisis. In the 1980s, he was the assistant to the military attache at the Israeli embassy in Washington, and served on a team of Israeli representatives to former President Ronald Reagan's space-based anti-missile shield programme.

It was there he first became interested in alternative drug-abuse treatment. In 1999, he established Green Leaf. He stressed his party does not promote drug use, only its decriminalisation, like in the Netherlands.

According to a recent survey, 16 percent of Israelis said they had tried soft drugs at least once. In 2005, 12,5 tons of marijuana and 922 kilogrammes of hashish were confiscated by Israeli police.

"People in Israel are slaves of the status quo," he said. "We try to liberate this plant and the people who consume it from these horrendous laws and penalties that cause much more harm than the use of cannabis."

He pointed to world leaders who have tried pot, including former President Bill Clinton, who said he didn't inhale. "So I don't see the difference," Wachtel said.

source http://iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw11420820008B226