CLARK BACKS BLAIR'S SINCERITY OVER RUN-UP TO WAR WITH IRAQ

Prime Minister Helen Clark is supporting her British counterpart, Tony
Blair, in his credibility battle over the failure to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq.

In an off-the-cuff interview on BBC radio's Talking Point show, Helen Clark
said she believed Blair was sincere in the run-up to the war.

In London for a gathering of world leaders of centre-left parties, she
responded to questions phoned in and emailed from around the world.

[snip]

On prostitution

New Zealand's progressive social legislation was a hot topic, with Helen
Clark defending prostitution law reform, and pointing to further debate
over gay "marriages", cannabis and euthanasia.

"I personally find prostitution quite abhorrent," she said, but "it's
better to be honest about the fact that your society has prostitution".

The Prime Minister said her Government was going through all laws,
practices and conventions to find anything that did not measure up to
international human rights standards.

"We have work going on for what we're calling a civil union legislation,
which will enable homosexual couples to legalise relationships."

The Civil Union Bill has been put forward by Napier MP Russell Fairbrother.

On cannabis

On marijuana law reform, Helen Clark said the drug's use was "plain dopey"
but she would vote for any private member's bill on the issue to go to
select committee.

Telling young people not to use cannabis was "almost an invitation to do
it", she said.

"In a sense you have to come in from the shadows, in a way as I've
described with prostitution, to deal with the health issues.

"I'm not persuaded that a drug like cannabis needs to be a heavy criminal
activity in the eyes of the law."

* Helen Clark will face pressure to back Western intervention in rogue
nations such as Iraq, reports from Britain said yesterday.