Pubdate: Mon, 04 Apr 2016
Source: Dominion Post, The (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2016 The Dominion Post
Contact:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2550

TIME FOR CALM DEBATE ON DRUGS

Are we hearing the first murmurs of a more calm and rational approach 
to minor drug offences? Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne, the 
Government's go-to man on drug regulation, is sidling cautiously 
towards some meaningful changes. His national drug policy, released 
last year, puts a new emphasis on treating drugs as a health issue. 
Among other things, the policy calls for a review of drug 
paraphernalia laws, as well as options for "minimising harm in 
relation to the offence and penalty regime for personal possession" of drugs.

Would that mean decriminalising possessing small amounts of cannabis? 
"I'm not going that far . . . yet," Dunne said last week.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor has begun carefully saying 
that if New Zealand does want to relax the law on cannabis, it ought 
to legalise the trade, like the US state of Colorado.

"We should balance the damage that is likely from the inevitable 
short-term increase in the amount of drug use from legalisation of 
drugs," he told the Drug Foundation, "against the damage done to 
society by the same drugs being illegal, and supply and quality being 
left in the hands of unregulated criminals."

Neither Dunne nor O'Connor explicitly calls for change. Perhaps they 
are undecided or perhaps the politics are too tricky. But they have 
begun a useful debate anyway. O'Connor is exactly right to frame the 
problem as a balance of competing harms.

On the one hand, there are real health concerns about cannabis. Its 
effects on young people's brains are plainly damaging. It has been 
associated with the onset of serious mental illness for a small 
minority. More lenient laws would surely increase its use at a time 
when major efforts are going into cutting the availability of other 
drugs (tobacco, especially).

On the other hand, the current prohibition eats up police resources, 
makes criminals out of many people for a voluntary, relatively 
low-harm act, and enables a lucrative illicit trade, run mostly by 
the gangs. And it doesn't even work: despite decades of punitive 
efforts, 80 per cent of New Zealanders try cannabis by the age of 21. 
One in 13 smokes it monthly.

In some ways, the landscape has changed without the law: one study 
found that police arrests for cannabis possession almost halved 
between 1994 and 2008. AUMR poll released last week found that as 
many New Zealanders support a law change as oppose it. (A clear 
majority, meanwhile, backs legalising cannabis for medical purposes.)

So there is plenty of cause for an adult debate, and Dunne is right 
to gently prod it along. Whether he can is another story. Many of his 
fellow MPs are scared. Some will be mindful of 2014's painfully 
handled "legal high" regime. Others fear any mention of "drugs".

They would seem to include Health Minister Jonathan Coleman, who 
dismissed talk of changing the law on cannabis. "I think we've got 
too many drugs in society," he said. He should reflect harder than 
that. The drugs that worry him are here in spite of the laws as they stand.

Reasonable people can disagree about what to do, but it's 
unreasonable to shut the debate down before it gets started. A system 
that's been failing for 40 years needs more scrutiny than that.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom