CLOSED MINDS ON CANNABIS REFORM

Under the leadership of former prime minister Sir Geoffrey
Palmer, the Law Commission is both busy and productive, intent on
making New Zealanders look closely at many of our laws with a view to
modernising, simplifying and improving them.

Its latest report, an issues paper on controlling and regulating
drugs, out last week, has a focus on the potential softening of drug
possession laws with a complementary shift towards more treatment of
chronic users.

These are ideas that merit study and debate. But Justice Minister
Simon Power isn't prepared to even wait for the submission period to
end before declaring his closed mind.

"There's not a single, solitary chance that as long as I'm the
minister of justice we'll be relaxing drug laws in New Zealand," he
said upon the paper's release.

Prime Minister John Key echoed him, without sounding quite so
dogmatic.

Beating about the bush somewhat, but eventually getting to the point,
he said: "No one is probably arguing necessarily that if someone uses
a small amount of marijuana that that is necessarily of itself the end
of the world.

"But ... what's the message we want to send youngsters? And the
message is, don't engage with drugs."

As a message, it's difficult to dismiss. But the fact is that young
New Zealanders - and the middle-aged, and some of the elderly - do
engage with illegal drugs in large numbers.

So much so that the smoking of cannabis, if not its cultivation, has
already been decriminalised by default.

As Police Association president Greg O'Connor puts it, "Most police
are too busy to be looking for cannabis users."

Or how about the 2007 scandal at Nelson College, when 11 boarders were
caught for using cannabis and growing it on the Grampians?

The school wisely decided to treat the offending as "some very silly
decisions" by the boys, and offer counselling, while the police
adopted what they called "a more educative than punitive" response.
How sensible.

In recent times politicians of most parties have adopted a harder line
on crime, partly because it taps into public anxiety.

"Get tough and get votes" seems to be the formula.

But when it comes to cannabis and some other "soft" drugs, there are
other ways to address illegal practices that don't have to make
criminals out of users.

The Law Commission has listed some of them: a formal cautioning
scheme, an infringement notice regime, a greater use of diversion into
education and treatment.

Flexible approaches like this are likely to be more effective at
reducing the harm caused by drugs than simply punishing drug users, it
says, while allowing police to concentrate on more harmful drug activities.

Surely these are exactly the kind of ideas that any progressive,
responsible government would want to explore.

Drug abuse - like the much bigger New Zealand problem of alcohol abuse
- - is a health issue. Much of the associated crime is the result of
addiction.

Mr Power and Mr Key should take the blinkers off for long enough to at
least have their thinking challenged.