RASTA MAN

Self-confessed cannabis user Nandor Tanczos agrees the drug is
harmful, but believes the evils are exaggerated and the law needs
changing.

Little has changed at home for dreadlocks-wreathed Nandor Tanczos
since he appeared with his triumphant Green colleagues as an MP in
Wellington. Saturday mornings - his Rastafarian sabbath - he is
usually doing yoga, a bit of drumming, and some meditation in his
rundown student flat in Kingsland, Auckland.

He hangs out with friends, goes rock climbing, and studies
scripture.

And he sometimes smokes pot - "You could compare it with the way a
Christian uses wine in their service."

"I only use it in small amounts. Not very often at all. Maybe once a
month.

"People are saying I'm a big pot head.

"I only use it as part of my faith as a Rasta. I don't use it
recreationally. I don't go to parties and have a smoke."

Parliament's only open dope smoker, outspoken, and prone to sometimes
ill-considered outbursts as New Zealand's first Rastafarian member of
Parliament, Mr Tanczos was always going to attract tidal waves of attention.

A palpable thrill ran around the Debating Chamber when he rolled forth
his maiden speech: "Greetings in the name of the most high, Ras Tafari."

There was the time he thundered about politicians drunk in charge of a
country.

Mr Tanzcos's Wild Greens webpage was discovered to contain a link to
an eco-terrorists' handbook teaching how to blow up cars and sink
ships, although it later turned out the link was put in by an
over-enthusiastic helper.

He continues to neither confirm nor deny involvement in the Wild
Greens raid on an experimental potato crop in Canterbury.

The publicity can work in his favour. He brought in more party votes
in his Auckland Central electorate than any other candidate.

The crown of dreadlocks that sets him on the throne of political cool
also makes him a role model. He has been banned from schools, has
become a target for Opposition attacks, and provokes controversy when
he appears on campus, and in Parliament.

The bete noir and guardian angel of the cannabis debate is a slight,
mild-mannered, serene chap, mostly dressed in baggy sweatshirt, hemp
jeans, and old trainers. He is a man of simple tastes, and an English
accent of the type that drops the end consonant off words.

His soft conversation is sprinkled with "man" and "you
know".

From the age of 16 he has been a fighter for the underprivileged. He
supported North Yorkshire miners in 1983, was a peace camper at the
RAF Molesworth cruise missile base in 1984, and was a beneficiaries'
campaigner in Hamilton in 1989.

On his sabbath, he doesn't even think about politics.

"It's a day for not doing work. Even if I start to think about
politics, then I think 'Uh uh, stop that'."

His celebrity, which even within his own party means he is given
pop-star one-name status and called simply Nandor in schedules listing
speakers, means he is battered by endless recognition.

Like it or not, Nandor Tanczos has become the face of the Green
Party's drugs policy.

"I don't really want to go into when I started smoking. I've said I do
use it, and I'm being honest. If I start talking about it in any
detail you get focused on it.

"I could make a big deal about it for my human rights. The issue is
not about why or when I use it. It's about the right of all adults to
choose, based on informed choice.

"We need to treat adults like adults."

Green policy proposes that police would not prosecute those caught
with less than an ounce of dried material.

People over 18 should be able to grow and smoke five plants a year:
"It would depend on how good a gardener you are as to how much you
get," says Mr Tanczos.

Young people would be sent the message to defer the decision to use
cannabis or other drugs until at least 18.

Mr Tanczos says people are more likely to develop drug habits the
younger they start using.

Some of the money saved from prosecuting adults would be ring-fenced
and spent on drug education and rehabilitation.

The Greens advocate a drug-free lifestyle as the healthiest.
"Obviously people who are ill would take it for medicine," says Mr
Tanczos.

Instant fines are not on the agenda. They land young people in court
with huge debts, make police more likely to pounce instead of just
issuing a warning, and do nothing to combat the black market for drugs.

Nandor Tanczos agrees cannabis is harmful. For heavy users, it causes
cognitive impairment.

Cannabis can trigger, "in the same way as stress or alcohol", some
types of mental illness in people who are already predisposed to that
type of illness.

It causes lung damage from heat and tars, he says. There is also
evidence it may contain more tars than tobacco.

"I don't know many people who say cannabis is harmless."

On the other hand, he says, many of the evils of cannabis are
exaggerated. A major flaw in the lung damage argument is that
researchers treat cannabis on the same basis as tobacco.

But where tobacco smokers might go through 20 cigarettes a day,
cannabis smokers might have two joints a week.

The biggest problem with cannabis is the law, he says. The June 30 ban
on selling pipes blocks an avenue for people who try to cut down their
lung damage by using water pipes.

Those with problems are too afraid of getting arrested to seek help,
he says: "We're not saying everyone should smoke. We saying please
stop arresting adults. Please provide drug education and
rehabilitation."