Pubdate: Thu, 10 Jan 2013
Source: Press, The (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2013 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
Contact:  http://www.press.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/349
Author: Rosemary Mcleod
Page: A7

NABBING DOPE SMOKERS TOO COSTLY

I have changed my mind about cannabis. I don't think it should be 
legalised and so normalised  the avowed aim of some lobby groups  but 
I do accept that it's madness to have overflowing jails bursting with 
its lowest-level dealers and the people they sell to.

The lobby groups are full of hot air and paranoia, but low on 
presentation of facts.

However, the Ministry of Justice has convinced me this week with its 
statistics on how this minor offending is taking up court time that 
would be better spent on speeding up justice for serious offenders.

It makes no sense that there are as many cannabis users in jail as 
there are dealers, or that hundreds of people are jailed just for 
possession of a needle or a pipe. And there cannot be a good reason 
why having small amounts of cannabis or smoking utensils make up 
roughly half of all drug charges laid by police.

The fact that imprisonment for petty offences like these almost 
equals the number of people locked up for serious crimes makes the 
issue a no-brainer, and I wouldn't be surprised if many police think so too.

I am not a recreational drug user. It never appealed to me because I 
felt I had enough problems already.

I was stupid in other ways, but most of the people I knew when I was 
young were users, and I had no problem with it.

Cannabis and, for that matter, acid and heroin, were relatively new 
then. People insisted they were harmless and I believed them.

Time has made me glad about the choice I made. Heavy cannabis use 
among my former friends didn't do them much good. Some became boring 
paranoids or conspiracy theorists, and a good many more became ill. 
There will be more of this.

Iwould like to see statistics on the number of people currently being 
treated for drug-linked illnesses like hepatitis C and bladder 
cancer, and how many people attribute those conditions to their dope use.

If people I know are any indication, they would make depressing reading.

Those people may well regret the decisions they made when they were 
young and thought that somehow they would never reach middle age. It 
was so far away and the present was so pressing. But we do get older 
and are pleased to be alive, even if ageing involves many 
humiliations and much mordant humour. It still looks better than the 
alternative.

I wouldn't gloat. We'll all be felled by something in the end, but 
when you compare the legal outcomes for cannabis users and 
alcoholics, I suspect there's a degree of inequality.

I don't accept that cannabis and alcohol are equivalent, though. Most 
alcohol abusers, I should think, are less likely to progress to using 
a cocktail of other, more harmful, drugs as well, but prove me wrong.

The New Zealand Drug Foundation rightly points out that statistics on 
imprisonment and prosecutions show that the system is not putting 
anyone off drug use. Its executive director suggests a mandatory 
cautionary scheme instead, which would progress towards compulsory treatment.

The minister of justice is unimpressed. She probably thinks of how 
much that would cost, although jail also costs a lot, as does police time.

I don't know what would get people off cannabis use, especially as 
generations of some families treat it as normal, and their children 
are around it from babyhood.

Information doesn't seem to work on its own. People won't give up 
what they enjoy now because of what will happen in 20 years, but the 
kind of social ostracism that has slowly worked with nicotine smokers 
could be one way to go. You look damned silly smoking dope as well, 
especially when we know the harm it does to you and those around you, 
let alone the future health cost and misery of becoming old and sick.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom