Cannabis & Drug Policy Reform

At least when it comes to marijuana, the war on drugs is over.

Two states have passed marijuana legalization laws that fly in the face of national drug policy.

Polling on the issue shows a rejection of prohibition. The opinions of law enforcement commanders has begun to shift.

This has implications for drug testing and abstinence only Drug Courts.

The author argues "any bolshie academic who speaks out of turn is likely to get the chop"

It's a great move in principle - but Peter Dunne describes a process designed to curb demand and says the process will be sufficiently lengthy and costly to deter a number of suppliers from proceeding. The threshold for proving the drug 'safe' is going to be 'a very high test'. This doesn't give much hope that the law is intended in good spirit to allow new substances to become legal and regulated. Will the framework be used to deter, stifle and set the bar so high that few if any substances will gain approval?

Drug companies not the government have to do all the running, the cost of the trials will be considerable - which is all fair enough. But if the expectations of having to prove the drug as 'safe' will be very high it could prove impossible to get any new substance approved.The new NZ law will only be effective if it is made in good faith and enacted in good faith, otherwise new chemical compounds will continue to be distributed as 'new illegally highs'.

Other countries may look to New Zealand as world leaders in the managements of legal highs - but it may not be all it appears to be - the new regulation could be used as just tweaking the war on drugs and engineered a clever political move that effectively makes it less hassle and stress by banning every 'legal high' in one legislative move,  - unless they can be proved safe - which no substance is (even water could be deemed lethal and therefore unsafe - as in excess it has killed people). So if the threshold is very high will anything be able to meet the approval criteria? If they system for approval is little more than a scam then the chemists will continue with the underground market as before.

Sadly in respect of criminal justice New Zealand is terribly punitive - with the 3 strike law adopted from the US, NZ has one of the worst incarceration rates in world, and the over representation of indigenous people in prison is shocking. New Zealand's record on drugs is punitive too with: around 10% of incarcerations resulting from drug supply/possession; the government prohibited medical marihuana; recently a woman was criminalised for supplying cannabis to her child through her breast milk; new laws by the present government who want to regulate new legal highs, will force people of state benefit to be drug tested and have benefits stopped if they continue to test positive; employees of some government departments are now subject to random drug testing; and following trips to/from USA, NZ has rolled out an Abstinence Drug Court - so this apparent progressive desire to live with drugs and regulate legal highs needs to be seen in this context and questioned.

NZ drug policy is certainly not progressive, will any new legal highs be regulated - we'll see!

Former Vic Attorney General, Rob Hulls, stating the obvious.

...instead of catching criminals?

ironically tomorrow I'm doing a tour of the Tuatara Brewery who produce a much more dangerous substance, but I don't imagine I'll see the police helicopter flying ahead.

Is the state policing business interest or crime?

The 'Scarman Lectures' at the Department of Criminology, Leicester University, England on 13 June 2012 I examined 'The damage caused by drugs, or the damage caused by drug policy?

the lecture podcast is here: http://julianbuchanan.podomatic.com/