'IN NZ WE ARE KILLING OUR KIDS WITH CANNABIS'

Youth Drug Taking Is A Disaster In Which The Adult World In New Zealand Is
Complicit, Argues Bruce Logan.

The media's love affair with Nandor Tanczos is distracting. It's all shades
of green. Green thoughts in a green fog. Tanczos' efforts to decriminalise
cannabis must be a nightmare for thousands of parents of teenage children.
The routine availability of illegal substances is now a fact of life for
young people.

Drug taking by young people around the Western world, and that now includes
New Zealand, is the fastest growing part of the drug market. Keith
Hellawell, the British "drug tsar", has made this point, repeatedly. Trevor
Grice, of the Life Education Trust, also warns us, repeatedly.

Youth drug taking is a disaster in which the adult world in New Zealand is
utterly complicit. And it is complicit because that same adult world is
morally confused and intellectually befuddled. It is not convinced that
drug taking is a great evil at all. Sometimes parents who have first hand
experience of the consequences manage to convince us for a day or two.

The normalisation of illegality has crept up on us. It is this reality that
compromises action and gives drug taking its chic for rebellious and
experimental youth. They can no longer rebel over sex, which is now a
spectator sport, so drug culture is all that is left. Drugs are a source of
pleasure and in a world besotted by hedonism, they are attractive. Add the
youthful fantasy of its own invulnerability and the constant but inaccurate
comparison with alcohol, and the stage is set.

Nandor Tanczos exemplifies the confusion. We know he uses cannabis, kids
know he uses cannabis. He is a member of Parliament and the media's
darling. He has appeared on, or been discussed on, TV more than the new
Attorney-General. There have been, in the last two weeks, at least 13
newspaper items about him. It is doubtful if any new member of Parliament
with so destructive a message has ever been given so much attention. It
would seem that we are all drunk, not just those running the country.
Behind the scenes our libertine elites, who have been responsible for
creating so many of our social problems, reinforce the creation of another.

Some politicians, police officers, academics, journalists, and even one
cleric are flirting with decriminalisation. And flirting is the operative
word. A climate has been created that suggests that the smartest people
think decriminalisation or legalisation is the answer. The rest of us are
simply prejudiced.

Nandor Tanczos would be alarmed if he knew the identity of some of his
fellow protagonists; that he, too, is a pawn of the wealthy opportunists.
George Soros, the billionaire financier, has invested millions of dollars
in influential charities that are pushing legalisation. Mr Soros wants to
make most drugs legally available. He claims he would first destroy the
drug trade by keeping prices low and then would raise prices, like taxes on
cigarettes, making an exception for registered addicts, to discourage crime.

In 1998 an advertisement in the New York Times was signed by hundreds of
activists. They said that the global war on drugs was causing more harm
than drug abuse itself. They pretentiously and simplistically contrasted
"fear, prejudice, and punitive prohibitions" with "common sense, science,
public health" and of course, "human rights". This is the kind of thinking
that is shaping the arguments in New Zealand.

Public debate, when we nearly have it, is dominated by three fundamental
false assertions, all implicit in the mind of Mr Soros, and probably in the
mind of Mr Tanczos and the New York Times advertisement.

The first is that cannabis is a soft drug and therefore less harmful.
Cannabis stays in the blood for weeks, a pilot cannot fly a plane 24 hours
after a joint. In 1990 the Dutch Minister of Justice admitted that
cannabis-tolerant Holland had become the crime capital of Europe with a
dramatic rise in cocaine and other opiates. In Alaska, where cannabis has
been decriminalised for more than 10 years, use of hard drugs soared along
with crime. More than 2000 people were admitted to hospital with
cannabis-induced psychosis. New South Wales is on the same path.

The second falsehood is that the worst harm done by drugs is through the
crime associated with its supply. So take it off the statute books. This
argument completely misses the point. Drugs by their nature bring death,
destruction, and great suffering anyway. All these do not come about
because it is illegal to sell and take drugs.

Finally the idea has spread that it is possible to take drugs responsibly.
That there is a safe way of doing so. There is a place for a process in
harm reduction in helping addicts. There is no such thing as a harm-free
drug. Cannabis is addictive and its comparison to alcohol is disingenuous.

One joint every day causes permanent brain damage whereas one pint of beer
or a glass of wine every day does not. The problem is not the absence of
hard facts. We have plenty. The problem is our befuddled thinking when it
comes to pleasure and the power of money. What we need to understand in New
Zealand is that we are killing our kids. And that is a terrible guilt to
bear.