Shapelle Corby on LawFuel

This case exemplifies all that is wrong with the international drug covenants and conventions to which New Zealand is a signatory.

Recent hangings in South East Asia, firing squads in China, and most recently two Kiwi’s arrested (and presumed guilty) for 3.5oz of cannabis between them in India, (the home of Ganja, a plant named as sacred along with the river Ganges) all happen because we as a nation collectively give licence to kill and incarcerate cruelly and inhumanely.

Where is the legal profession on drug policy?

Or is the substantial legal aid grift and perpetual social mayhem an incentive for a silence closely resembling stupidity? NZ’s own National Drug Intelligence Bureau chief along with the BERL Drug Harm report (though much criticised) states that the revenue ‘churn’ through the legal system is a DRUG HARM.

The LEGAL profession are beneficiaries of the unintended consequences. So when are you collectively going to talk about that?

To the Law Commission? Yeah Right!

Curiously, in Christchurch’s sister city Seattle, it was the law profession that lead drug policy law reform. see King County Bar Association – http://www.kcba.org/druglaw/

“The principal objectives of this effort are: reductions in crime and public disorder; improvement of the public health; better protection of children; and wiser use of scarce public resources.”

sig Blair Anderson, Christchurch. 027 2657219
http://www.leap.cc http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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Law Enforcement Against Prohibition NZ Tour

Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies. Those policies have failed, and continue to fail, to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, especially the problems of juvenile drug use, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs.

SplashCast “Law Enforcement Against Prohibition” to your page

Blair Anderson
Judge Jerry Paradis New Zealand Tour 2008 facilitator.
phone 03 3894065, cell 027 265 7219

Related articles by Zemanta

• Milestones in Drug Policy, Homegrown Solutions Are Best.
• LEAP NZ Tour 2004

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Crime expert: Using drugs a human right

DRUGS should be legalised because there is a “human right” to use them, according to a new book by an Irish criminal law expert.

see Crime expert: Using drugs a human right / By Cormac O’Keeffe (Irish Examiner)

Paul O’Mahony also said the war on drugs had “failed catastrophically” in Ireland, and across the world.

The Trinity College psychologist and criminologist said it was a “scandal” that enormous resources were being used to enforce prohibition. He said this policy had not only failed to lower drug use, but may have contributed to its increase.

In his book, The Irish War on Drugs, the Seductive Folly of Prohibition, Mr O’Mahony said the campaign for abolition needed a clear, rallying idea, which would cut through complex arguments.

“What is required to achieve a tipping point, a revolution in thinking, is a bold, inspirational idea to which people can subscribe as a matter of self-evident principle.

“Only the concept of a human right to use drugs can fulfil this role of providing a meaningful, inspiring and unifying idea which can guide the transition to a fully non-prohibitionist system.”

He said there was a human right to use drugs, so long as it did not negatively impact on the rights of others.

He said such a right was consistent with legal and constitutional concepts of individual freedom and human rights.

“Recognition of the right to use drugs is warranted in moral and legal terms and is in accord with the scientific understanding of human nature.” He said the appetite for mood-altering substances and new experiences was “normal” from a physical, psychological and social point of view.

Mr O’Mahony said prohibition had failed to acknowledge the differences between less and more dangerous illegal drugs and the fundamental similarities between illegal drugs and legal drugs, such as alcohol and prescribed drugs.

Related articles

• Just how good would drug legalization be?
• Racial Disparities Persist as Drug Arrests Rise

I raised the HUMAN RIGHTS issue (and its international implications) at Beyond2008 in WGN. /Blair

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Cannabis – no threat. Very relevant to NZ Law Comm. review?

Small data set but very relevant to NZ Law Comm. drug policy review?

It complements the important sociology research paper presented by Geoff Noller at Otago University in early May.

STUDY SHOWS MARIHUANA USE NOT A THREAT

http://www.mapinc.org/norml/v08/n541/a11.htm

“I would argue that it is the prohibition of marihuana that actually leads to crime,” he said. “Not that there aren’t any cases where someone is inebriated and in such a state that they aren’t thinking clearly and do things that normally they wouldn’t do, but that is the same with alcohol. If you look at it, the drug that is most highly correlated with crime, particularly violent crime, is alcohol. And no one is calling for that to be criminalized.”

…. snip….

“Although these findings are not generalizable given the small sample size, if they are corroborated by further ethnographic research there may be a compelling reason to reconsider present laws that prohibit marihuana use and treat recreational marihuana users as criminals. These recreational marihuana users do not consider their marihuana use as a compulsive behaviour resulting from some form of pathology such as boredom, alienation or depression, as is often asserted by those who support the current drug laws. They are no more escaping reality through their use of marihuana than those people who are engrossed by novels, enthralled by television and movies, mesmerized by religious prayer and devotion, captivated by playing online role-playing games, thrilled by roller-coasters and theme-park rides, or engaged in any other mind- and mood-altering behaviour.”

– Professor Osborne (Sociology) http://www.augustana.ab.ca/programs/socialsciences/sociology/faculty.html

(my highlighting)
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com/
http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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Cannabis a Political Football

“The problem is that education costs money, switching the classification doesn’t.” – Professor Robin Murray

Drugs policy has become a ‘political football’, threatening public confidence in politicians, a former government adviser on drugs warned today.
(and for New Zealand, damn important that the Law Commission revue of Drugs be unfettered, Open Strategies ™ are required../Blair)

Roger Howard, chief executive of the independent UK Drugs Policy Commission, is calling for a major overhaul of drug classifications that could see ecstasy downgraded. He said it was time to take decisions about how illegal substances were classified out of the hands of ministers and base them on science, rather than political and public opinion.

The former Home Secretary Charles Clarke is understood to support such a shake-up, while Professor Sir Michael Rawlins – outgoing chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Home Office’s advisory body – is also said to be concerned about the way political and media pressure has clouded the debate over cannabis.

Rawlins will deliver a report to ministers tomorrow, which is expected to defy Gordon Brown by dismissing the Prime Minister’s calls to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug with tougher penalties. It is the third time in five years the advisory council has been asked to review cannabis and the third time it has concluded that the risk to mental health is unproven.

The Home Office said the cannabis review, and the government’s response, would not be released until after Thursday’s local elections.

Also See

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will set itself on a collision course with the Government tomorrow when it seeks to persuade the Home Secretary that cannabis should remain at its current status as a class C drug.
…..
Pressure on the Prime Minister to take decisive action and override the wishes of the ACMD is growing. Professor Robin Murray, one of Britain’s top experts on schizophrenia and cannabis, will warn MPs of what he says are the real dangers of the drug at a meeting tomorrow of the All Party Parliamentary Committee on Cannabis and Children. “Education is much more important than classification,” he said. “The problem is that education costs money, switching the classification doesn’t.”

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Misuse of Drugs Act Review – terms of reference

Misuse of Drugs Act Review

Terms of Reference (hot link to LawCOM site)

The Commission will review the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and make proposals for a new legislative regime consistent with New Zealand’s international obligations concerning illegal and other drugs. The issues to be considered by the Commission will include:

• (a) Whether the legislative regime should reflect the principle of harm minimisation underpinning the National Drug Policy;
• (b) What is the most suitable model or models for the control of drugs;
• (c) Which substances the statutory regime should cover;
• (d) How should new psychoactive substances be treated;
• (e) Whether drugs should continue to be subject to the current classification system or should be categorised by some alternative process or mechanism;
• (f) If a classification system for categorising drugs is retained, is the current placement of substances appropriate;
• (g) The appropriate offence and penalty structure;
• (h) Whether the existing statutory dealing presumption should continue to apply in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hansen case;
• (i) Whether the enforcement powers proposed by the Commission in its report on Search and Surveillance Powers are adequate to investigate drug offences;
• (j) What legislative framework provides the most suitable structure to reflect the linkages between drugs and other similar substances;
• (k) Which agency or agencies should be responsible for the administration of the legislative regime.

It is not intended that the Commission will make recommendations with respect to the regulation of alcohol or tobacco in undertaking this review.

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Flip-side to ban outlined

Drug law crusader Blair Anderson’s approach to lessening the harm of drugs, runs contrary to the mainstream.

Local News – The Timaru Herald – Printable

On Thursday afternoon a brief soap-box sermon in Stafford Street espoused less focus on drug prohibition and more on education and harm minimisation.

Putting benzylpiperazine (BZP) party pills in the same category as marijuana was the way to create a drug problem, he said.

The former Christchurch mayoral candidate is on a soap-box tour of the South Island, but Timaru citizens did not linger to get his message; they went heads-down about their business.

Mr Anderson’s campaign arose after party pill laws were to be in a new Class D, a controlled and legally regulated drug, this option was not taken.

He said this R18 approach was the best way to minimise harm.

Banning BZP would create more problems with fewer safety controls, greater illicit profits, more health issues and markets for dangerous alternatives.

He said cannabis prohibition in a country which smokes as much weed per capita as Jamaica was waste of time and money.

But even the offer of free copies of the latest NORMAL magazine with an article on drug laws was not taken up.

In fact the magazine offer increased pedestrians walking speed.

“BZP was not a good drug, but then nor is alcohol, but until we have the required conversation and civil society addresses itself to this issue we will continue to talk round in circles and fix diddly.”

Mr Anderson, a self-employed computer specialist, has taken it on himself to raise the issue of drug law because the Law Commission is to look at it.

“The first thing to understand is this methamphetamine, alcohol and BZP prevalence in New Zealand is a product of poor drug policy. This is true at both ends of the harms scale and for all points in between. We are, in our legislative response to drugs, our own worst enemy.”

Mr Anderson accepts his views have little public support and politicians see a clear line with drugs and crime as most popular.

When the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Act was passed last week it was supported 109 to 11. However, the Green, Maori and Act parties opposed it.

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Prohibition is deviancy amplifying behavior. LTE, Scotland on Sunday

The Editor, Scotland on Sunday,
108 Holyrood Road,
Edinburgh, EH8 8AS,
mailto:letters_sos@scotlandonsunday.com.

It is policy irony that zero tollerance of a consensual ‘sin’ delivers exactly what it set out to prevent and its stakeholders call this the triumph of good over evil. Wherever the rules are the same, the outcomes (or insert expletive of choice) are the same. Prohibition is just deviancy amplifying behavior.

I have observed this deficiency for thirty years or more. The imperfection of prohibition and its health, security, economic, racial, sexist and ageist failings disgrace us all.

All the more so that this is mostly about pot, a herb which the ‘harms are largely overstated’ and called ‘the safest therapeutic known to man’.

I, as a friend of the court have been witness to and aggrieved by Police ‘testilying’ to judges about the hazards of small time bonafide medical users grow ops. Police then lie to the public – linking pot to violence, organised crime and guns. They declare what they are doing is a net good, often inferring to a receptive, if deluded public it should be grateful and tolerant of any social injustice done to those ‘druggie types’. The law is the law and intolerance comes with the territory.

Prohibition is saving us from whom?

New Zealand’s “Law Commission” has the efficacy of our dominions drug policy and international obligations up for green-fields review. This is international drug history in the making. For the first time in about a hundred years our global drug conventions and covenants are being tested at law and effect. [http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/]

While God knows the world needs a New Holland, such an appraisal chaired by constitutional legal eagle, former Prime Minister and now Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer will in and of itself document the legacy of failure. Unlike at Vienna, UN Special Assembly or Office of Drug Control [UNASS/UNODC] the opportunity for the rest of the world to contribute is absolutely open. This is the international opportunity the 2002 Canadian Senate Inquiry saw as necessary to resolve the tensions.

New Zealand ‘banned the bomb’ when no one else could and honoured suffrage when no one else would. It punches above its weight in social welfare, peace policy and civil advocacy. (A legacy of never running away from a fight might stand it in good stead too.)

NZ recently hosted at Wellington’s Te Papa [“Our Place”] the final of 18 global ‘pre-Vienna’ Beyond 2008 NGO meetings. It was notable that the Ministry’s of JUSTICE and HEALTH were seen talking together AND in a forum where the Law Commission heard emphaticaly that ‘the whole world is watching’. NGO spokespeople including visiting UK Professor David Nutt acknowledged NZ’s history, leadership and success in harm minimisation needle exchange [NEP’s], youth court diversion and the innovative Class D ‘legally regulated’ drug classification.

Unlike the UN, the Law Commission is not reviewing where we have come, rather where we should be going. Uniquely, in the spirit of all voices at the table the Law Commission process allows the whole world to partake. To be a drug peace maker one needs to submit to be empowered. Restoration of civil society and its social capital on a global scale is rarely accomplished silently or alone but we now have a beginning..

Defacto reform falls way short of the required standard. Mediocre discussion equates to mediocre policy and unresolved tensions.

Again: [http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/]

Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
50 Wainoni Road, Christchurch, NZ 8061
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com
http://blairformayor.blogspot.com
http://blair4mayor.com

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Jim says… reclassification noted

“They expressed admiration for our evidence-based policies and for our reclassification processes.” – Jim Anderton commenting on his meetings with two of the distinguished keynote (2008 Parliamentary Drug Policy Roundtable) speakers: Professor David Nutt, [and] Associate Professor Alison Ritter.

Every one reports to Czar Jim ‘or else’.
No wonder Jim was uncomfortable knowing I might be there!

(caution: links to Anderton’s Progressive’s Press Release may cause temporary insanity)

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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When will it be New Zealand’s turn?

I recent Inquirer into Blair’s Brain had asked Google “can smoking marijuana slow down your immune system?”

It characterises many of the self directed searches that have stumbled upon the 600+ postings to Blair’s Brain. They arrive here and end looking at what could only be described as reform insight into what concerns them.

That’s a good thing. Because media is doing a very poor job on this one.

Current administrative thinking may well believe there is a good reason to keep prohibition on, but the wind is changing. For example, the Scottish ‘government’ is cottoning on to just what this is costing – they have ordered an independent commission to justify the public expenditure AND institutional effectiveness on delivering drug policy, from intervention to enforcement to education and treatment.

• In producing their independent report, Audit Scotland will set their own remit and objectives, and publish an authoritative, full and comprehensive study on the scale and effectiveness of spending on tackling drugs [Scottish Government, UK]. Scotland’s public spending watchdog is to investigate the effectiveness of current anti-drugs policies as ministers prepare to draw up a new strategy to tackle the problem [The Herald, Scotland, UK]. Tackling scourge of drugs A proper evaluation of the effectiveness of the £12m a year we are spending on methadone is needed urgently, but there must also be agreement on what a drugs policy should achieve [The Herald, Scotland, UK]

That’ s a pragmatic start. When will it be New Zealand’s turn?

The Minister of Health announces the social-economic outcomes and risks be in the Law Commision Review terms of reference? Yeah Right!

“there was an overwhelming public perception that our governments had all become, in varying degrees, arrogant, dishonest, distant, corrupt, venal and downright incompetent and, in politics, public perception translates into voter intent.” – Russell Cooper – Former Queensland Premier

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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