YOTY contestant Ethan Stafford interviewed

Ethan Stafford, representing Year 11, Cleveland State High School, was runner up in Redlands Youth of the Year (YOTY).

In Cleveland YOTY is sponsored by Cleveland Lions. Ethan has turned 16 since the semi-finals.

All YOTY semi-finalists presented to a public audience and were judged by professional speakers and assessors including Redlands Forum. They competed in three categories, comprising long interviews (not open to the public), impromptus and an 8 minute speech on a topic of of their choice. 

YOTY contestants were given 15 seconds after being given their impromptu questions to think their answer which had to last two minutes.The impromptu questions were:

1. Are welfare payments a right or a privilege?
2. Would national service after leaving school be a benefit to youth? 

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Ethan was interviewed after completion of the YOTY judging by Adel Berridge. Here’s what he had to say.

Q. Thank you Ethan for sending Redlands2030 your YOTY speech for publication. Your argument that marijuana. should be legalised is well researched and no doubt controversial so best we let the readers think that one through but how hard did you find the impromptu questions?

A. I felt they were adequately challenging for the format, however the question about national service felt like it was a little out of left field. Students participating could not possibly have the life experience to answer the question

Q. Have you decided on a career?

A. I am undecided as yet. My opinions on what I want to do change from one day to the next. I see myself pursuing whatever area I am interested in at the time of my school graduation. I feel like it is a little ridiculous that 17-18 year olds are supposed to know what they want to do when they leave school. Especially for males whose brains don’t even finish developing until around age 25.

Q. Are there any issues in the Redlands that concern you?

A. Yes, the development project planned for Toondah Harbour. Any more development over areas of environmental significance is extremely concerning and I am disappointed in the lack of action taken by people in power. 

Q If there’s one message you could give our local and state government about your concern, what would it be?

A. If I had an opportunity to say something, I would tell them that they have a platform for great positive change, and not to use it to fill their own pockets. 

Q. What’s your views on the student ‘strike’ in Brisbane?

A. I thought the rally was great and was perfect for getting our voices heard. There was a strong sense of achievement. Lots of people went in together and getting involved in the chanting was energising and powerful. It was something positive, and it felt as though we were making a direct impact. Something that amused me was when Mr. Shorten said it was a positive thing but should be done after school. Well, what’s the point of that? You don’t strike after work, do you? 

Q. There’s an election in May. Can you tell us what the youth think about Australian politics?

A. Not much. Many people don’t think about it at all really. While there are small pockets of people who are passionate about political issues, there tends to be a lot of apathy. I know that in some cases this apathy stems from an inability to participate in the voting process, as well as not feeling like many of the issues being discussed affect them in any way. I think this is, again, part of the reason why the climate strike was so hugely successful; the youth could see a problem that directly affects them, and they were able to express themselves, and stand up for what they believed in.

Q. Ethan, thank you so much for meeting me today. It’s so refreshing talking to pro-active people. Will you enter YOTY again next year?

A. I will definitely be giving it another go next year. I’m looking forward to it..

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“Mariuana should be legalised” by Ethan Stafford for YOTY

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ethan, and I strongly believe that the recreational use of mariuana should be legalised in Australia. Now, I don’t say this coming from the stand-point of a current user, wishing for it to be legalised so I can cut classes and smoke a joint with my friends. I can simply see that from an objective stand point, it can only be beneficial to decriminalise the recreational use of the drug. In fact, it’s criminalization wasn’t even justified.

Let’s take a trip back to the decade 1930. The Great Depression was in full swing, however more important to this discussion, racism was still rampant. To properly understand why cannabis was first made illicit for Australians in 1925, we must first look to the US. Among the white population, there was growing racial hatred toward Mexicans. White politicians wanted to find a way to punish them, but there was nothing they could do within the law. This was until they realised one thing that many Mexican people had in common; they smoked marijuana. For politicians such as Harry Anslinger, banning cannabis meant punishing Mexicans, which worked for him, and a lot of the white population. To popularise his ideas, Anslinger and his team set about spreading lies that marijuana would cause criminal behaviour, violence, and even lead to death. This was the sentiment that snuck cannabis into a League of Nations act drawn up to ban ‘harmful drugs’. Fast forward to the 1960s, and Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’ had led to his creation of the Controlled Substances Act, ranking mariuana as a class 1 drug, placing it on the same level of dangerous as heroin and crack-cocaine. This classification and further vilification of the drug by the US government lead to a consensus in the west that marijuana = bad, pushing legalisation even further out of the minds of legislators in Australia.

I would like to ask you the question; how is alcohol and tobacco legal, however marijuana isn’t? I’m going to throw some quick stats at you. Stats from 2004 and 2005 (I know, a little old, but these are the most recent ones out there), show that there were 14,900 tobacco related deaths in those two years. In those years, mariuana killed zero people. Another report from 2014 showed that 5,554 deaths and 157,132 hospitalisations were caused by alcohol in 2010. In that year, there were zero deaths caused by marijuana, and as far as I could tell, zero hospitalisations. In fact, there have been zero, medically verifiable deaths caused by mariuana… ever. So again, I ask the question; how is alcohol and tobacco legal, however mariuana isn’t? Clearly marijuana isn’t lethally harming its users like the other drugs, and whilst the exact results will vary for many users, marijuana seems to actually have many positive effects when smoked in moderation, including an increase in the creativity of its user and a release of stress through relaxation. However, the real benefits that should be considered are those to do with society.

To begin with, legalising mariuana for recreational use would free up a large amount of time for police. In 2013 – 2014, there were 66,684 cannabis related arrests. 87% of these arrests were consumer arrests, meaning that police arrested approximately 58000 people for possession of, or actively using cannabis. For a drug that is less harmless than alcohol, this is ludicrous. Police should really be focussing their efforts on more important issues, or more dangerous drugs.

Secondly, it could increase tax revenue by a large amount. It’s hard to predict the exact numbers in Australia, however looking at America’s figures could give us a fairly good estimate. In 2015, Colorado alone made over $135 million US dollars in tax revenue and fees. This number is projected to skyrocket to $20.1 billion dollars in 2021 according to Arcview Market Research. This would be extremely beneficial for the Australian economy, and could be put to use in the community, constructing new roads, giving funding to schools, or helping out hospitals. Wherever it is used, more money fed into the Australian economy can only be a good thing and is a large part of the reason that the drugs should be legalised.

So, to conclude, mariuana should unquestionably be legalised for recreational usage. Its initial banning was predicated on racist views, and flat-out lies. If it were to be legalised, the benefits would be overwhelmingly positive, including a boost to the economy and freed police time. Plus, mariuana is 100% less lethal than alcohol and tobacco – both legal drugs. The United States and Canada are both making moves to legalise the drug, and I firmly believe it is time for Australia to join them. 

This article is accredited to Citizen Journalist Adel Berridge.

Redlands2030 – 23 May 2019