CANNABIS LAW REFORM PUSHED

Wellington: The acceptable face of cannabis showed itself at the launch of
the Coalition for Cannabis Law Reform in Wellington yesterday, as MPs,
Maori leaders and academics combined to push for decriminalisation.

The Government is expected to announce the shape of 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 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."

He 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 National Organisation for Reform of Marijuana Laws.

The accord says the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on enforcing
cannabis prohibition have 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 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.