COALITION FOR CANNABIS LAW REFORM LAUNCHED

The acceptable face of cannabis showed itself at the launch of the high-powered Coalition for Cannabis Law Reform in Wellington on Sunday, as MPs, Maori leadership and academia combined to push for decriminalisation.

The Government is expected to announce the shape on its cannabis law reform inquiry in the coming week, after a political battle over whether it would be conducted by the justice select committee, the health select committee, or an external body such as the Law Commission.

Justice and law reform select committee chairman Tim Barnett, speaking at the launch, said he was a "control freak" who had never tried cannabis and had never wanted to ­ but he believed strongly that the regime of prohibition was unjust and unhealthy.

Mr Barnett acknowledged that cannabis law reform was usually driven by cannabis users.

"That's been the history of it because the people who were most concerned about it were the people who were threatened by criminalisation."

The MP compared the difficulties of lobbying for cannabis decriminalisation to those faced by homosexual law reformers in the 1980s.

"I am someone who came into politics because I've seen injustice and I want to fight it," he said. "I believe that cannabis policy should be about harm reduction, like most of the rest of our policy."

Joining him in signing a Cannabis Law Reform and Education Accord were Green MP Nandor Tanczos, former Youth Affairs Minister Deborah Morris, Auckland University of Technology dean of health studies Max Abbott, Wellington Tenths Trust spokesman and former Maori health adviser Peter Love, and the leaders of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, the Drug Policy Forum and NORML.

The accord says the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on enforcing cannabis prohibition has made criminals of an estimated 200,000 otherwise law-abiding New Zealanders.

"Most people who use cannabis do so moderately and responsibly, and rather than helping those people who need it, prohibition actually discourages those users who need help from seeking it, due to fear of arrest and incarceration," it says.

Dr Abbott said surveys showed that more than half the adult population had tried marijuana, and called for an immediate law change making it legal to have small amounts of cannabis for personal use.

"Relative to other known drugs including gambling that have moderate health costs, cannabis has very few health costs," he said. "I believe that the criminal justice response to cannabis use is probably more of a public health hazard than the drug itself."

Mr Love said cannabis prohibition was a racist law.

"It is racist because Maori people are five times more likely to be caught under this law, and 20 times more likely to be in custody because of the use of this drug."

Coalition for Cannabis Reform spokesman Les Gray, raided by police and convicted of cannabis possession after publicly supporting decriminalisation in 1989, said the launch was an important public step.

"It is my wish that more people with professional and academic standing will feel safe enough to declare their interest in cannabis law reform," he said. "There are too many people who are too afraid to be visible."