Prohibition was the radical option. Anyone who has any doubt at all of the coorelelation between gang patches and all that the L.A. bling bling to street/rap culture we have imported stands for, and NZ drug policy, needs to broaden their reading.

CConsider this from today’s [UK] Telegraph:

Britain’s drug policy is “not fit for purpose” and is failing to cut
addiction or drug-related crime, an influential study will conclude today.

Current policy is driven by “moral panic” and is ineffective, with huge
amounts of money being wasted on “futile” attempts to get drugs off the
streets.

The system, it says, is “crude, ineffective, riddled with anomalies and
open to political manipulation”, while existing drugs education is often
“inconsistent, irrelevant, disorganised” and “delivered by people without
adequate training”.

Problems are so acute that the Home Office should lose its lead in dealing
with drug treatment and enforcement, according to the panel of academics,
drug workers and a senior police officer.

The RSA Commission report, which will seek to influence Government policy next year, will prove controversial in some of its findings.
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It recommends the introduction of “shooting galleries,” where heroin
addicts can go to take drugs and receive supervision and help.

It also says that only the worst drug offenders be jailed and that drug
misuse should be treated as a social problem rather than a crime.

Among its other recommendations are that the focus of drug education
should switch from secondary schools to primary schools in order to better
stop children falling into substance misuse.

The focus of enforcement and treatment should also shift, away from
illegal drugs - many of which are often “harmless” - and towards alcohol
and tobacco - which are the most damaging drugs of all.

Professor Anthony King of Essex University was commission chairman for the RSA, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Recognising that the report would prove controversial, Prof King insisted
that a radical shake up of Britain’s drugs laws is essential. “Current
policy is broke and needs to be fixed,” he said.

“The idea of a drugs-free world, or even of a drugs-free Britain, is
almost certainly a chimera.”

He continued: “The use of illegal drugs is by no means always harmful any
more than alcohol use is always harmful.

“The evidence suggests that a majority of people who use drugs are able to
use them without harming themselves or others.

“They are able, in that sense, to ‘manage’ their drug use… The harmless
use of illegal drugs is thus possible, indeed common.”

Calling for the concept of drugs to be extended to take in alcohol and
tobacco, the report says: “Unlike most other such substances, however,
illegal drugs have been demonised - by politicians, by the media and to
some extent by the general public.”

The report says that “in an ideal world” drug production, importation and
use would be stopped altogether.

“None of these things, however, is possible and at the moment large
amounts of money are wasted in attempting to achieve the impossible,” the
report says. “The law as it stands is not fit for purpose.”

Describing the Misuse of Drugs Act as unwieldy and inflexible, the report
recommends it be scrapped in favour of a wider-ranging Misuse of
Substances Act abandoning the current ABC classification system and
introducing an “index of harms”.
….. ends…..

Where the rules are the same, the shite is the same.

there are too many alienated people in NZ - and this vile law has a lot to answer for in that regard, and gives the gangs a moral reason to be staunchly anti-authority, and accounts for alot of the disrespect amongst kiwi youth (eg look at the gross double standards alongside tobacco and alcohol)

re: the argument about the public of NZ never going for legalisation(decrim) - there is support as stuey points out, but even if a majority says ‘no’ that does not make criminalsation a good, effective, fair or legitimate law.

Labour copped out on its pot law review earlier this decade because it was too weak and cowardly to advocate the arguments it heard at the select committee - Clark had to call an early election in 2002 to avoid completing due process on their review/inquiry into the legal status.

I recall the Maori Council ten years or so ago making a submission on policy to ‘tackle gangs’ (harassment and criminal associations bill). Their starting point was, you guessed it, ‘decriminalisation’ of cannabis.

regards

vs

“How ironic that the man (Borrows) who wants the law to state how we can beat our children”

Hypocrisy, no?

BB can provide some very constructive input when he decides to put his mature cap on. But such unwarranted personal attacks and labels he puts on people whom he disagrees with are totally inappropriate and unacceptable.

Please keep your language civil. It is not nice to read such personal attacks such as you said to Toad “Your naivety is breathtaking…. And to Stuey: You are seriously deluded….

Everyone has the right to express an opinion without such “flaming� just because you do not agree with them!

http://www.greens.org.nz/docs/policy/

well actually BB, since only 5% of people voted green, and lets say a third of NZers support legalisation, that would mean that rather than seeing our vote share drop, it should actually rise if people’s voting was decided on the single issue of cannabis law reform.

Fair enough….make it a BIG part of the next election campaign then…hell, it would be nice to see at least one policy in detail.

A pre-election poll in the Sunday Star-Times on September 4th, 2005 showed 37% support for “decriminalisation” of cannabis, and 55% opposition. Among the new generation of Kiwis - voters aged under 30 - support was at 45%.

A UMR Insight poll of 750 people aged over 18 published in The Dominion in August 2000 found sixty per cent of New Zealanders favour law reform. 41 per cent want to stop criminalising cannabis users, and an additional 19 per cent want cannabis legalised.

A One News/Colmar Brunton poll in April 2000 also found support for decriminalising cannabis had grown since their last poll. Of those surveyed 55% approved law changes, while 40% were opposed.

A TV3/CM Research poll in 1996 found that 88% favoured introducing instant fines for small-scale cannabis use, 65% favoured “decriminalisation” and 35% supported “legalisation”.