by frog
I have been somewhat remiss. In my enthusiasm over the consensus in the blogosphere for drug law reform, and my annoyance with Justice Minister Simon Power over his cursory dismissal of the Law Commission’s Issues Paper on the review of the Misuse of Drugs Act, I forgot one important detail.
The Law Commission’s paper isn’t just a set of recommendations – it is a discussion document that sets out several options on each of a number of issues related to drugs and seeks feedback through submissions on those options.
For example, on the issue of personal use of controlled drugs, the Law Commission asks:
What approach should be taken to personal use offences (including possession)? In particular, what alternatives (if any) to prosecution should be used?
If a personal use offence is prosecuted in the courts, what approach should be taken?
Should there continue to be a criminal offence for drug use or does it suffice to rely on the offence of possession for personal use?
Should the possession of utensils for the purpose of using drugs remain a criminal offence?
The feedback received will be taken into account in the preparation of a final set of recommendations. The closing date for submissions is Friday 30 April 2010.
Send your submission to:
Drugs Review Submissions
Law Commission
PO Box 2590
Wellington 6140
or email drugsreview@lawcom.govt.nz.
Published in Featured | Health & Wellbeing | Justice & Democracy by frog on Tue, February 23rd, 2010
Tags: drug law reform, Law Commission, Simon Power
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Naughty frog! Did Mistress Metiria give you a spanking for being so remiss?
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Getting the MODA running
The New Zealand Drug Foundation is producing some resources to help people get their heads around the 400 page MODA issues paper. The first are these 2 videos from an interview we did with the Law Commissioners (26 minutes on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/9643269 and 10 minutes on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/nzdrugfoundation).
In March we’ll produce a toolkit with our analysis of the options proposed by the Law Commission.
In the meantime, check out the MODA page on our website – it includes an interview with the commission, plus a feature article outlining the Australian experience with law reform: http://www.drugfoundation.org.nz/moda
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An interview with the law commission about this http://vimeo.com/9643269
It’s kind of long, so I haven’t watched all of it
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There’s a shorter version (10 minutes) here – didn’t realise frogs had such a short attention span! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBftlmQZjyo
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Haha, thanks Ross. A bit busy today!
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Simon Power is quite possibly the worst minister in government right now. Rejecting the sensible report on New Zealand’s neanderthal drug laws is only the latest in a long list of balls-ups that include deciding to send people to jail for “colluding” on prices (guess he’ll have to send every trade unionist in the country to jail while he’s at it).
New Zealand’s drug laws are incredibly unjust and like most laws in this country make life manifestly worse for those at the bottom of the heap (the young, the poor and the brown). Banning cannabis not only gives gangs huge power over the communities these vulnerable people live in (by handing distribution over to them), it also gives good people criminal records for smoking a recreational drug.
John Key said the measure of a country is how well it looks after its most vulnerable and by continuing to criminalise a non-criminal action and give unnecessary power to gang thugs his government has failed on that count.
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Why, oh why, did you choose a name that rhymes with ‘reefer’???
You comment is spot-on, Kleefer.
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