Another compelling drug report that shows our war on drugs is an enormous social policy failure…
A comprehensive new report says New Zealand’s 50-year-old drug law is a “colossal failure” and has poured fuel on the fire of drug-related harms: addiction, overdoses, deaths and criminalisation.
Safer drug laws for Aotearoa New Zealand, released today by the NZ Drug Foundation to mark 50 years of the Misuse of Drugs Act (MODA), instead argues for decriminalisation of drug use, pouring resources into health services and creating a new health agency to translate the latest evidence into health-focused intervention.
The report’s recommendations follow consideration of 34 countries and 36 sub-national jurisdictions where cannabis is legal or decriminalised, and 22 countries where all substances are decriminalised.
It also includes the results from a new survey of 500 New Zealanders about their experience with drug-related harm, which found that the stigma from drugs being illegal often deterred drug users from asking for help (or a service from providing it).
This means addiction, overdose and drug-related deaths that might have been prevented or minimised end up falling through the cracks.
…another Drug report not one will do a fucking thing about.
Our refusal to follow actual science and focus purely on punishment is necessary for Capitalism.
If you are too focused on having deep spiritual drug experiences, you won’t work.
Addiction is the by-product of heavy handed policing that never works.
What should we do?
Legalise weed and build a specific taxation system around it.
If cannabis were legalised, the New Zealand industry could employ about 5000 people and reap almost $1.1 billion in taxes a year, two in-depth reports by Business and Economic Research Ltd have shown.
That’s the reality of our drug laws…
Police bias questions with more Māori charged with cannabis-related crimes than Pākehā
…it’s class oppression aimed at punishing you for not being a productive unit of capitalism if you are too poor to fight the charges, if you have the money, leniency always happens.
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Don’t deliberately create a society in which people are miserable, they won’t use drugs, simple as.
Any drug sentence for anyone born after 1989 should be served not by the ‘perpetrator’ but the architect of their misery, Roger Douglas.
I’ll have it if she doesn’t want it. The biggest problem with chemical drugs is that more often that not users have no idea what they’re getting/taking. Pot on the other hand is fine so long as you grow it yourself. ( Because weed spray drifting, chemical fertilisers etc.
There is this other drug out there, however, that’s dangerous. It’s lethal in higher doses, highly addictive, expensive, and the fleeting effects are followed by hours of suffering. It’s called alcohol and you can buy it in supermarkets. Except Southland. There, you have to go to specialised dealers.
@ roger douglas. He should be in jail.
On the one hand this blog backs weed but is against tobacco and legal booze .Weed causes cancer with one joint the equivalent of 20 smokes.It causes paranoia and anxiety. We have enough me tal illness without adding to it
THC is prescribed as a medication for anxiety trevor. And you have to use a ridiculous amount of weed to get paranoia from it. Furthermore I would like to know where you got your information from, regarding cancer links, perhaps you could provide a link to the studies you have read that provide this information?
Who’s the space tart and from which planet?
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