Damien Grant: Government’s war on drugs has been a failure – Stuff.co.nz

DAMIEN GRANT

Last updated05:00, July 30 2017

ANDY JACKSON/STUFF

Recent deaths from the use of synthetic cannabis are proof of the dangers of taking manufacturing from legitimate business to criminals, writes Damien Grant.

OPINION: The Coroner and police recently alerted the public to eight deaths from the consumption of illegally manufactured synthetic cannabis. The Prime Minister's response is to emphasise personal responsibility, which is odd.

We do not expect the public to take personal responsibility for financing their own healthcare, their children's education or even their own accommodation in the case of the 180,000 people living in state housing.

We regulate our food, house construction, types of petrol and even the effectiveness of sunscreen. But when it comes to young people wanting to get high we demand a level of personal responsibility that we do not expect from the rest of society and leave them exposed to the vicissitudes of a black market stripped from the normal restraints and transparency imposed by commerce.

DAVID WHITE/STUFF

Given Bill English is keen on personal responsibility, perhaps he'd like to accept some for his part in devising a broken system, writes Damien Grant.

One of the few recent parliamentary achievements has been the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 that, in theory, outlines a pathway for hallucinations to be legally manufactured. In the interim, a small number of existing products were permitted. There were 41 in total.

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Tragically, politics intervened. In April 2014, in reaction to a moral panic in the media and Labour leader David Cunliffe's pending announcement that he wanted to remove those 41 products, Peter Dunne and the Government panicked. All psychoactive substances were banned until they had been through the Act's now impossibly onerous testing regime.

Cunliffe claimed success:"I'd call this a victory for the Opposition, rolling the Government on a situation that was doing immeasurable harm to young New Zealanders".

What the Government was doing was something politically courageous and exactly in-tune with standard left-liberal thinking, but Cunliffe saw a short-term political advantage and could not help himself.

In response to a media beat-up to some people getting sick by taking a commercially manufactured product, the public demanded government action. What the public needed, however, was leadership.

The Government knew, as did the Opposition, that banning these products would not stop people seeking them, nor stop their production. The recent fatalities are a direct consequence of moving their manufacture from the commercial hands of legitimate business people to those prepared to risk decades in jail for a quick buck.

The lesson should be that prohibition leads to the unintended consequences of unsafe products being sold to the vulnerable. What we will get is the police, media and public demanding more aggressive policing and harsher sentences. We will get our wish.

Given Bill English is keen on personal responsibility, perhaps he'd like to accept some for his part in devising a broken system and make amends by providing leadership and tell the public the painful truth: the criminalisation of narcotics has been a failure.

-Sunday Star Times

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