TAKING A DIFFERENT LOOK ON THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

In an ideal world all drugs would be legal, but no one would want to take
them, American drug reform advocate Clifford Thornton says.

Mr Thornton's comments were part of an address, For Better or For Worse?
The War on Drugs, given at the Terawhiti Arms on Monday night.

He heads Efficacy, a Connecticut-based organisation that believes the
American war on drugs has caused far more harm than good.

The address, hosted by the Libertarianz party offshoot the Institute for
Liberal Values attracted an audience of about 40 people from all political
hues including Libertarianz, Mild Greens, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
leader Michael Appleby and Act MP Heather Roy.

Mr Thornton says New Zealand should examine its drug policies before it is
too late, because the line the country is following does not have a good
track record in his country.

According to Mr Thornton the war on drugs fosters a black market, which in
turn spawns crime.

The cost of enforcement and growing prison populations are huge
contributing factors in the budget deficits faced by nearly all of the
states in the US.

Mr Thornton says the policies being advocated to combat methamphetamine use
would be a huge financial burden.

"You're building three new prisons, one on sacred Maori land."

He says a better way to approach drug control would be to decriminalise,
medicalise and legalise.

Cannabis would be legalised and taxed.

Tax revenue raised would be used for other drug and programmes.

Decriminalising and medicalising would mean medical professionals would
administer drugs.

People could get treatment for addiction without fear of legal ramifications.

"You would cripple the black market by controlling supply."

Once the profit goes out it so does the underworld's interest, Mr Thornton
says.

He advocates laws like those currently surrounding alcohol sales to control
consumption in pubic and driving or operating machinery while intoxicated.

Mr Thornton has a personal insight into the effects of drugs.

At 18 he had to identify his mother's body, after she died of a heroin
overdose.

That galvanised his belief that drugs needed to be combated.

He says initially he was a drug warrior, with a belief in prohibition and
enforcement.

Over time he has seen how these policies have made little or no dent in the
proliferation of drugs and says they are now more potent, readily available
and cheaper than ever before.

Mr Thornton says drug law enforcement policies are at best misguided and at
worst a means of maintaining white privilege at the expense of people of
colour.

"The drug war has absolutely nothing to do with drugs, it's about power,
it's about coercion, and it's about money."

African Americans and Latin Americans account for 23 percent of drug users
in the United States, yet they make up 90 percent of people sent to prison
for drug offences.

While white Americans are just as likely to be in possession of drugs they
are less likely to be searched by police and less likely to go before the
courts.

Since arriving in New Zealand in November Mr Thornton has lectured up and
down the country.

Mild Greens spokesperson Blair Anderson says after Mr Thornton spoke at a
parliamentary reception he was invited to give an address at an East Coast
marae by Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia.

His visit has been promoted in part by Labour MP Tim Barnett.