GREENS' CANNABIS POLICY UNCONVINCING

The Greens should not be so sure that the problem with their cannabis
policy at the election was that they failed to sell it, rather than the
policy itself, The Dominion Post says in an editorial.

The party is divided over whether the decriminalisation stance cost the
Greens votes at the election. MP Ian Ewen-Street argues that it did;
co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons agrees, but thinks that is because the party
didn't explain the policy properly and the Greens' adversaries
misrepresented it.

There would seem to be little evidence to support her view. The Aotearoa
Legalise Cannabis Party, whose very name is hard to misconstrue, reaped
0.64 per cent of the vote. There is little indication that a groundswell of
public support is building toward decriminalisation.

Before Parliament had even resumed, Prime Minister Helen Clark had agreed
that as part of Labour's deal with United Future, there would be no
Government legislation on cannabis during the new three-year term. There
was no sign of a public outcry.

However, Greens justice spokesman Nandor Tanczos says he will be putting up
a member's bill on decriminalisation. If it survives the ballot of members'
bills, it will become a conscience issue in the House. Before the election
it was unclear whether a majority would support decriminalisation. Looking
at the new intake of MPs, it seems unlikely the House is now more liberal.

It is hard to believe that in the current climate of concern about teen
delinquency, the Government's position of maintaining cannabis possession
as a criminal offence is anything other than the correct one. The Greens'
policy is decriminalisation of cannabis possession for those over 18. It
would no longer be a criminal offence for adults to grow and possess small
amounts of cannabis for personal use.

Mr Tanczos, who readily admits to cannabis use, argues that
decriminalisation would restrict young people's access to cannabis because
decriminalisation would help control the drug's availability. "The crims
don't care who they're selling to," he has said.

Sadly, "the crims" still wouldn't care who they were selling to if
decriminalisation occurred. In fact, it is arguable that with people
allowed to grow their own, those who have made a business out of cannabis
would be more than ever reliant on supplying it to the only people for whom
growing their own was still potentially an offence ? namely the young.

Society's laws must protect the vulnerable. There is ample anecdotal
evidence that cannabis use only enhances problems for those who are already
under-performing. The country is rightly concerned at present about what is
going wrong with so many young people.

It would be naive to suggest the problems are as simple as drugs, and it
would be equally naive to suggest that drugs are not a serious problem for
a hard core of young people and adults.

Mr Tanczos says money directed at enforcing drug laws could be spent
instead on drug education. Cannabis doesn't have to be decriminalised for
money to be spent on education. It simply needs to become a government
priority. The Greens might consider whether the policy cost them votes not
because the public didn't understand it, but because they understood it
perfectly well. And voted accordingly.