Milestones in Drug Policy, Homegrown Solutions Are Best.

Milestones in Drug Policy, Homegrown Solutions Are Best.

Thirty five years ago today, on July 1, 1973, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was established, based on an executive order signed by President Richard Nixon in March, 1973.

A pivotal part of Nixon’s War on Drugs, the DEA was formed by merging the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) and several other Federal offices. As a United States Department of Justice law enforcement agency, the DEA’s primary task was to combat drug smuggling and use within the United States, and coordinate and pursue US drug investigations abroad.

In 1973, the DEA employed 2775 people, 1470 of whom were special agents, and had an annual budget of $74.9 million. By 2005, the DEA boasted 10,894 employees, 5,296 special agents, and an annual budget of $2.141 billion. In 2007, the annual budget was increased again, by $71 million per year, making the total 34 times larger than the original budget, and the agency has expanded to 4 times the personnel.

However, the DEA’s expansion is not indicative of a successful War on Drugs. In fact, our current drug policies are a dismal failure. Drugs are more potent, less expensive, and more accessible than ever. In 2005, the DEA seized a reported US$477 million worth of drugs, but the total value of all drugs sold in the US was estimated at a minimum of US$64 billion by the ONDCP, making the DEA’s efforts to ebb the flow of drugs into and around the US less than 1% effective.

The recently released New Zealand Drug Harm Index maybe just a testimony to that failure. Fortunately, this year the NZ Law Commission has as a significant task before it. It is commencing a review of the law surrounding illegal drugs and, in respect to international drug policy it would be fair to say ‘historicaly’ examining the obligations under the UN unti-drug Treaty’s and Covenants. The United States and New Zealand share in common amongst the highest uptake of cannabis and a massively disproportionate allocation of interdiction resources.

The BERL Drug Harms report, commissioned by Police, was released quite purposely on International Day against Illegal Drugs and Trafficking.
[ Scoop: Enforcement Saves Billions In Reduced Drug Harm ]

So too was the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction report examining the scientific, political, legislative, commercial and social developments relating to cannabis. Its core audience thus comprises policymakers, sociologists, historians, journalists and those involved in enforcement. The second volume is targeted at drugs professionals working in the fields of treatment, prevention and health care. see: Report Clears the Air on European Marijuana Use The report also claims to debunk the belief that modern-day cannabis is much stronger now than in the past. The report said that is an “urban myth” based on flawed data. Further it determines the relative harms of cannabis to be less than alcohol describing claims of cannabis related harm to self and society as ‘weak’. This is in direct contrast to the BERL/POLICE assertions.

“As a result the public faces a daily flow of information on cannabis, some of it well-founded, but some of it militant and at times misleading.” A cannabis reader: global issues and local experiences

These tensions have not escaped the attention of the UN consultative organisation with the self descriptive name Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [http://leap.cc/]

LEAP knows the only way to decrease the instances of death, disease, crime, abuse and addiction is to legalize and regulate all drugs. By eliminating the black market drug trade, the multitude of harms caused by drugs would drastically reduce. Continuing the War on Drugs effectively continues the cycle of crime, drug abuse and addiction.

Executive Director of LEAP, Judge Jerry Paradis is visiting New Zealand following the highly successful tour by his Law Enforcement Against Prohibition compatriots, Judge Schockett, Detective Lieutenant Jack Cole and Det. Chief Superintendent Eddie Ellison in April 2004 (see link for tour summary of over 80 engagements, including 28 NZ Rotaries).

Judge Jerry Paradis brings a unique flavour to the vexing subject of drug policy that is highly relevant to New Zealand. He is from British Columbia, where cannabis is worth more than Forestry. His knowledge and expertise in Human Rights, Jurisprudence and the emerging international debate that now engaging all manner of Civil Society in the UN processes in Vienna this July. With both a South American insight and studied in the role of Media on Drug Policy his public talks promise to be as stimulating as likely, contentious.

However one feels about drug policy, its success or failures, it is rare to hear someone from ‘the bench’ with such eminent standing even discuss this subject. This is your opportunity to have Judge Jerry engage with your community. There is no ‘drug harm’ in listening or asking questions. Is your organisation, community or club interested?

dates available

20th-31st Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Wellington districts.
1st-7th Sept. Christchurch and districts
Other regional venues including Dunedin, Invercargill, by arrangement

For More Information Contact:

Mike Smithson, LEAP Operations Director

mailto:speakers@leap.cc

Blair Anderson, LEAP 2008 tour facilitator

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219
mailto:blair_anderson@bigfoot.com

ref: 2004 New Zealand LEAP Tour
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Content&pid=10

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

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

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

Pot Shrinks Brain but subclinical effect!

Chronic Cannabis Use May Affect Brain Structures, Memory and Mental Health (Interview with Murat Yücel, PhD)

Long-term, heavy cannabis use ‘alters brain’ – InTheNews.co.uk – Long-term, heavy cannabis use ‘alters brain’ InTheNews.co.uk, UK – 11 minutes ago Full Story Long-term, heavy cannabis use could result in structural abnormalities in areas of the br…
Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts: study – U.S. Daily – Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts: study U.S. Daily, ca – 14 minutes ago The study, published in the American Medical Association’s journal Archives of General Psychiatry, also fo…
Cannabis may shrink brain, scientists report – guardian.co.uk – Cannabis may shrink brain, scientists report guardian.co.uk, UK – 19 minutes ago Smoking cannabis for long periods of time may shrink parts of the brain that govern memory, emotion and aggr…

oh dear….

But consider… BRITAIN’S new drug Czar wants to DOWNGRADE mind-bending ecstasy and LSD. Professor David Nutt, [Experts to debate New Zealand drug laws – 15 February 2008, : NZ Drug Foundation ] who was appointed last month says they should no longer be class A because it does not deter people from taking them. Should we be surprised that he also said moving Cannabis to Class B was “naive”

We live in interesting times

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

Cannabis: The Public Health Issues 1995-1996

“It is therefore recommended that an intersectoral policy to improve health by reducing cannabis related harm should be developed as part of a comprehensive national policy on tobacco, alcohol and other drugs.” (notably a health primitive completely at odds with the terms of reference of the Law Commission, though remarkably like Class D)

Monitoring and evaluation
Policy should be continually monitored and evaluated to ensure that it is meeting its objectives and is in line with the latest evidence. Because of their integral nature, monitoring and evaluation should be built into the policy development process itself. (Yeah Right!)

Outcome targets
• To reduce the prevalence of current marijuana use (used in the last 12
months and not stopped using) from 12 percent of persons aged 15 to 45
years in 1990, to 8 percent or less by the year 2005 [baseline, Black and
Casswell 1993].
• To reduce the prevalence of frequent marijuana use (used 10 or more times
in the last 30 days) from 2.4 percent of persons aged 15 to 45 years in 1990,
to 1.5 percent or less by the year 2005 [baseline, Black and Casswell 1993].
(ROTFL)

URL: http://www.ndp.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagescm/1044/$File/cannabispublichealthissues.pdf
Linked from: http://www.ndp.govt.nz/moh.nsf/UnidPrint/CM1044?OpenDocument

Cannabis: The Public Health Issues 1995-1996 (PDF, 335 KB)
cannabispublichealthissues.pdf

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

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

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

Here is how to talk about drugs! [British Medical Association]

Boosting your brainpower:

Ethical aspects of cognitive enhancements

There may be a few readers of this blog who will remember the 2000 MildGreen Millennium Initiative for Cognitive Liberty.

There has been a maturation in the global dialogue about ethnobotanicals, entheogens, off-label pharmaceuticals and emerging new psycho stimulants.

This highlights the ethical inadequacy of and corresponding marginalisation of Kiwi Drug Czar and MP (Wigram) Hon Jim Anderton’s propaganda machine along with his Ministry of Health’s parlous 2006 drug policy’ consultation.

Read on, but be aware, this is both a precursor blog entry and a weapon of mass emancipation. Enjoy. The underlines are courtesy of your blogmiester, /Blair)

The key aim of this paper is to facilitate informed debate amongst doctors, scientists, policy-makers, and members of the public about the future development and use of cognitive enhancements. Providing the facts, information and some of the arguments it signals the beginning of a debate about how, as a society, we should consider and respond to the opportunities and challenges presented by cognitive enhancements. A discussion paper from the *BMA / November 2007

Executive summary

• People have long been interested in improving their brainpower. Developments in medicine and pharmacy could provide new ways of doing that but because they raise ethical issues that have not been widely discussed, there is a need for public debate about them. In Part One, this paper sets out some definitions and a framework for debate.
• Drugs and medical interventions designed as therapy for people with diagnosed problems are likely to be sought in future by healthy people to “improve” on nature. It is important to distinguish, however, between what is possible now or will be in the near future and more abstract speculation about longer-term developments. In Part Two, the document examines the evidence (or lack of it) for different methods of enhancement, including nutritional supplements, pharmaceuticals and surgery.
• People may not only want to choose enhancement for themselves but also for their children. The possibilities and limitations of genetic manipulation and selection as a means of enhancing future people are also covered in Part Two.
• Individuals have always been able to try and improve their own or their children’s intellectual abilities through study and effort. The possibility of shortcutting that process and lessening the effort required by using nutrition, drugs or medical techniques is more controversial. Part Three considers why this might be.
• It looks at the speculation about how the new technologies might bring about either positive or negative social and cultural changes, affecting not only individuals but the fabric of society. Arguments that have been put forward by those for and against such a change are briefly summarised.
• One of the main arguments concerns interconnectedness. For the purposes of discussion, the paper looks at cognitive functioning as if it could be isolated from other parts of a person’s life. In reality the potential risks or benefits of cognitive enhancement for other aspects of individuals’ personality, such as emotional stability and creativity, cannot be isolated. People are also interconnected in a social sense, so that choices made by some are likely to impact on others and possibly on society at large. This is highlighted throughout the paper and discussed in detail in Part Three where some suggestions are considered about how a balance might be attained between personal liberty and responsibility to the community.
• Why we may have quite different moral views about different methods, even though they all have the same goal, is also discussed in Part Three.
• Almost anything we try may have some unforeseen side-effects or carry some risks. In order to decide whether change should be regulated, the scope and limits of what individuals should be able to choose for themselves or for other people also need to be discussed. Part Four sets out the arguments for and against limiting choice and considers how regulation, if needed, might be implemented.
• The main questions arising from the paper are summarised in Part Five. The BMA does not have policy or recommendations to put forward on these issues but would welcome informed public debate about how, as a society, we should respond to these developments .

* The British Medical Association – the professional association for doctors. With over 139,000 members, representing practising doctors in the UK and overseas and medical students, the BMA is the voice of the profession and students.
—
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

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

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

Russell Brown sells ‘Anti Violence’ campaign?

From: Kevin O’Connell

I am not sure that Russell Brown has done much for his credibility by being the first guy lining up earnestly on the family commission’s new tv commercials preaching (along with people like radio personality Phil Gifford and half a dozen other ordinary Kiwis) that ‘family violence is not ok’

…the target audience is alienated by government and its do-gooder sycophants and agencies. Russell, how much did they pay you and do you really believe the campaign (telling people to tell on their neighbours) is going to work? ( narc’ing up / blair)

Also you are lining up with government’s feeble and scientifically invalid ‘separate issue’ mentality where NZ social problems are all separate and can be alleviated by funding the various community programmes and government agencies and early intervention initiatives. (which co-incidently is good for the economy, but i digress…)

Labour seem to genuinely believe or are at least implying that family violence

• has nothing to do with ‘youth crime’
• has nothing to do with ‘binge drinking culture’
• has nothing to do with ‘criminality in general’
• has nothing to do with ‘drunk driving’
• has nothing to do with ‘gambling addiction’
• has nothing to do with ‘police corruption’
• has nothing to do with ‘kiwi underclass’
• has nothing to do with ‘drug harm prevention’,
• has nothing to do with ‘matrix of dysfunction’
• has nothing to do with ‘closing the gaps’…

If you get my drift: the problems in NZ are intrinsic and the family commission is looking at things ‘peicemeal’ IE THEY’VE GOT IT WRONG, and the adds cost heaps but aint worth shit.

I guess Russel’s ‘getting older’ and becoming more and more a ‘safe pair of hands’ for authorised media (eg Radio NZ) to get opinions from. How about focusing on the inequity and alienating factor of NZ’s drug laws Russell – you know there’s a lot of bullshit and injustice and hypocrisy goin on in this particular area of the kiwi experience. (i know because i’ve posted your insights to this forum (cclr-public), many a time)

(i do not have Russel’s email so if someone can foward this to him…)

Regards
Kevin O’Connell

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

On graffiti, pride and due process

re: “If citizens took pride in their surroundings and painted over tags immediately,it would disappear.” / (as seen on the Canterbury Issues Forum here)

At the root of the ‘problem’ of graffiti is a culture. It cannot be painted over.

A culture poorly understood by administrators, politicians and media commentators.

The question one needs to ask to have insight into graffiti, is why, what engenders this response?
Painting it out is, as many will attest, simply preparing a blank canvas for the next graffiti. It is, as it were, solving a territorial problem for whom ever wishes to either claim or reclaim that space. Just as advertising hoardings have a commercial value associated with mind share, so to does graffiti have a social value. It is an indicator, a signal, and it is yelling out ‘we reject your value system’.

Ratepayers are forking out big time yet we choose to know nothing and there is the first clue. The community wrongly characterises the problem domain clouding and obsfucating it with prejudices before principles.

Youth, at least those within the domain of this subject, are alienated from rule of law. And for that WE as a community have a lot to answer for. We are collectively, the architects of this prejudice.

It is not a simple matter, and it wont be solved by just this community, for is the solution space is hampered by an entrenched culture of ‘us vs them’, corporate and societal failure to value youth on a global scale, and, at the risk of alienating every adult reader of this blog… entrenched ‘white privilege.’

That all said, it behooves me to say, just because the problem is bigger than us.. (the few readers here) and bigger the civic domain of ‘canterbury’ that is not an excuse for not have the required conversations.

Make no mistake, that having read on the subject for thirty odd years, the single biggest impediment to the required biopsychosocial change is to be found in drug policy.

‘bling bling… ‘ – ring any bells anyone.

Graffiti, like Gangsta Rap is (just another) product of the matrix of drug policy dysfunction rendered upon all of us… one cannot discuss youth, gang violence and a myriad of other ‘impediments to health promotion’ without meeting a wall of resistance centered around this vexing subject, but until we are prepared to collectively trumpet at these walls they will not crumble.

I have repeatedly asked Garry Moore to explore this core community issue via ‘time to talk’, If he (and his replacement) prefer to sit at the head of the table of ‘Healthy Christchurch’ and fail to have this conversation, then we are destined to endlessly paint over the mistakes of the past. The mess, and its not limited to just graffiti, is occurring on the current administrations watch.

(note: Garry shut down any discussion centred around alternative solution options at the forum, stating to the Chair “we don’t need to hear from him!”…. Further I was prohibited from asking ANY question at the subsequent media conference. Ironically it was the PRESS who suggested I ‘be there’, but city admin staff tried to have me ‘ejected’ (on whose bl#@* authority?) meanwhile tagging remains the evidence of failure. Does this signal the continuing failure of citizen participation and due process, or is it just more of that all to familiar expedient agenda based politics? Every Mayor attending saw this behaviour and by their collective silence perpetuate failure.

Reform of our community’s duty of care demands appropriate due process, the required ‘all voices at the table’.

While this issue may well be a bridge to far for the so called ‘mayors forum’, it is certainly one that should have status in the mayoral debates.

For those who think drug policy is a central government issue, think alcohol licences, tobacco outlets. Who administers these?
We have to get our collective heads out of our proverbials and ENABLE the conversations.

Our sister city, Seattle has taken owndership of the issue at a community AND civic level and real results and meaningful discussions (and due process) are a result.

If I were Mayor.. I would start by inviting Seattle’s retired Chief of Police Norm Stamper and on e of the lead organisations behind the Seattle Initiative, the King County Bar Association, out here. I would give the required resources to the appropriate sister city commitee to lubricate the ‘conversation’. I have already confirmed they would be available. Airfares It would cost about 1% of what we currently spend on graffiti. Im confident the Canterbury Law Society would at least host one of them for a dinner. Rotaries may even help. (they certainly did for my last law men. We did 28 Rotaries in 10 business days) Their is no lack of will here, just no one piloting the ship and no baseline resources.

This is where we find the stuff of social capital.

BTW Sally and the tagbuster, I was in Lyttleton recently with my partner, she commented to me about the awful tagging prevalent where we walked, the general condition of the parking area (behind the supermarket) was disgusting. This is where the farmers market used to be. I now regret not taking a snapshot. Local businesses may need to take a bit more pride, and sure, the taggers didn’t help, but lets not get to down on them while the general environment looks so third world.

sig. Blair4Mayor.com ‹(•¿•)› Blair Anderson

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

Drug Policy Embarrasment – LTE NZH

Letter to the Editor,
New Zealand Herald

Drug Policy Embarrasment

NZHerald opened a Pandora’s box when it mistakenly characterised the recent RSA drugs report critiquing the ABC classification of drugs as just “moral panic” and asking for online feedback positing “Are Drugs Wrongly Demonised?”. [The influential study concluded Britain’s drug policy is “not fit for purpose and is failing to cut addiction or drug-related crime.” ]

Clearly the weight of opinion (about 25:1) from the NZH readership supports international calls for wholesale drug policy reform. Cogent and richly diverse insight demonstrates how gravely flawed NZ’s National Drug Policy [NDP], released in the same week, has become.

At last years Christchurch NDP consultation Ministry Officials heard the review process described by an addiction science Professor as “an embarrassment to the Ministry of Health”.

Come election time Hon’s Anderton and O’Conner will be applauding themselves as ‘tough on drugs’ albeit at our expense yet deliverable harm minimisation, the return on investment objectives of the NDP, is inconsequential. NZHerald’s readership is demonstrably smarter than the government sham for policy suggesting you and yours are seen as not part of the solution, rather as an expensive (diverting resources away from what’s broken) and crime creating, thus dangerous part of the problem.

200 words

ref:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1501154&objectid=10427939

http://www.tv3.co.nz/Portals/0/Admin/News/PDFs/rsa_drugs_report.pdf

Blair Anderson
50 Wainoni Road,
Christchurch
03 3894065 027 2657219

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion

National Drug Policy; A Crock of Shite

National Drug Policy; a Crock of Shite

Press release 15 March 2007 – MildGreens

“the number of convictions for cannabis offences per annum demonstrates considerable harm for cannabis users” – Major Issues, National Policy on Tobacco, Alcohol and Other Drugs- draft for public consultation, Nov, 1995 p10.

“PROBLEMS FOR THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY ALSO ARISE FROM THE EFFECTS OF CANNABIS CRIMINALISATION, AND THESE NEED TO BE PART OF THE EQUATION WHEN DETERMINING OPTIMUM PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY” – Cannabis Policy in Australia and NZ., Drug and Alcohol review (1997) 16,421-428, Sally Abel

What particular over-arching government policy has deliberately avoided evidence-based best practice at the core of its raison d’etre: ‘Harm Minimisation’???

As anticipated, the MildGreens expected today’s release of the 5-year review of government’s National Drug Policy (NDP) to gloss over its total failure to reduce drug demand and supply despite costly ‘whole of government’ and ‘intersectorial’ initiatives…

Self appointed expert on drugs and youth suicide (Jim Anderton) is telling criminalisation industry insiders and inadvertent drug promotion grifters (health promotion/counsellors etc) at today’s NDP relaunch, that the multi-pronged ‘balanced’ approach to combating drug abuse can only be effective “when communities take responsibility” (along with a host of other weasle words).

The MildGreens say this if further ‘evidence base’ Anderton is a particularly irresponsible and dangerous choice for drug minister because he represents FAILURE.

“We predicted the NDP would fail to notice the bullying, repressive double standards (licit and illicit drugs) and abuse of the public health and harm minimisation principles which was intended to underpin the policy.” (principles notably include: effectiveness including ‘cost-effectiveness’, equity, harm reduction and ‘upholding individual rights where these do not unreasonably impinge on others etc.)

“Symbolic of the lack of sincerity and rigor in the NDP’s strategy to combat drug abuse is the fact that the ‘5 year’ review comes 12 years after the policy was first drafted. The 7 years of ‘doing nothing’ is the tip of the iceberg in the NDP waste and fraud” says Blair Anderson of the MildGreens. “for example, how many innocent people – and medicinal users – have been vilified and prejudiced by lost employment and/or travel opportunities by the process of a prosecution for the non crime CANNABIS?”

The NDP’s first phase in the late 90’s was the dis-integrating of the initial comprehensive policy into licit and illicit policies. This split facilitated a 2 year delay in the illicit drug policy
component while a recommended and budgeted cannabis ‘cost-effectiveness’ investigation was swept out of sight – the ‘legislative implication’ which made first National, then Labour duck for cover.

Successive governments have avoided the cannabis cost benefit analysis because it is obvious the money invested in ‘enforcement’ is totally counter productive. On the one hand supply is incentivised and on the other demand is amplified (forbidden fruit is sweetest). Anderton’s relaunched policy fails to notice there are glaring anomalies in its ‘balanced’ implementation of ‘supply reduction’, ‘demand reduction’ and ‘problem limitation’, just as it fails to catalogue or quantify any harms relating to PROHIBITION.

Since the NDP was launched we have had a select committee inquiry highlighting the ‘double standards’ impediment to drug education (1998), legislation to ‘remove the politics’ from drug classification [MDA#4], a cannabis law review which carefully avoided reviewing the law (2000-2003) and introduction of the highly logical “class D” for drugs which really do not justify criminal prohibition. Class D, applauded by public health policy analysts in Great Britain is the obvious model for New Zealand’s cannabis, alcohol and tobacco say the MildGreens.

However in today’s NDP release no real reform has been advanced, instead the evidence base shows the 2002 and 2005 coalition support agreements with United Future have put reform totally off the agenda.

How much of the kiwi taxpayer’s dollars are going into NDP’s prohibition damage, and then milking the bad outcomes?

Officials on the EACD, IACD and MCDP need to look at the raison d’etre of the NDP and ask themselves why they are backing the counter-productive, invasive model of Prohibition, when legal regulation has a 31 year successful precedent (Netherlands).

It seems Helen Clark and her Government favour continued criminalisation policy because the ensuing black market dysfunction and alienation is great for the economic growth, providing thousands of jobs for middle NZ’ers in Justice, Corrections, Police, Social Work, health promotion, CYPS, bail/parole and psycho-social support industries.

“Cannabis Prohibition is so flawed, it was unsurprisingly described by Professor Fergusson at last nights Medical School lecture as inequitable inefficient ineffectual and discriminatory, that we can only conclude Government has a hidden agenda to promote and perpetuate drug uptake, misuse, and ‘related crime'” say the MildGreens.

“We don’t learn from our mistakes because we never ask if we’ve made a mistake”, [Prof Fergusson, The Press, 14March, re Social Policy public meeting, Christchurch School of Medicine]

So much for Labour’s evidence based ‘social justice’ aspirations…

see also ‘Britians drug policy not fit for purpose’ 8 March 2007 Daily Telegraph
– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/08/ndrug108.xml
– http://www.aphru.ac.nz/projects/Drugs/cannabis.htm
– http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/publications/msd/journal/issue10/spj10-cannabis-in-nz.doc

Another MildGreen Initiative
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/

http://mildgreens.com/
ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

Get Blairs Brain on Newsfeed…
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlairsBrain-CanvassingForOpinion