Questions to the Ministers.
Questions left unanswered by Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy (and unasked by media and opposition MP's) in relation to the cannabis harm minimisation issue and inquiry 1999-2002
Initially sent to Hon. Leanne Dalziel as MP for Christchurch East and MCDP member.
The minister has been on the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy, presumably well informed. Did government deliberately stall the now lapsed inquiry into cannabis health promotion strategies?
In 1994 Helen Clark critisised existing cannabis policy (during a "great marijauan debate") as "poor public health policy" - why has Government not followed her logic?
In 1998 Labour passed a resolution on holding a commission of Inquiry into cannabis laws. Why the delay in getting answers and delivering on the inevitable legislative implication??
In 1998 the Health Select Inquiry slammed existing policy recommending its review and reconsideration of the legal status? Why has this not been prioritised?
Why havn't government lead a debate on improved, effective drug policy?
Are labour pro or anti reform.? Do labour practice harm minimisation, or pay lip service to the rationale?
Does labour think cannabis users deserve to be punished?
Did you and your collegues notice the dramitic swing in votes last election, when National lost credibility on cannabis?
Does government understand principles underpinning Harm Minimisation drug policy?
1. Efficiency- including cost-effectiveness
2. Equity
3. Harm Reduction as well as Harm Prevention
4. Upholding individual rights where these do not unreasonabley impinge on others
5. Particularly including Maori in decisions affecting them
Does the government understand that there is evidently an extreme case of social inequity in the defining of (otherwise law-abiding) cannabis users as criminal?
Status quo remains after nearly 3 years of "progressive" government. What has the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy been doing?
Given the inextricable linkages between criminalisation and crime, why has widespread use of cannabis by hundreds of thousands of Nzers not been decriminalised - or even debated?
What kind of values are imparted to young people when alcohol dealers are the richest families in the country, and marijuana dealers are sent to jail?
Why are the police being funded without accounting for the overall efficiency of their "crime prevention" work? - ie black markets arising from inefficient prohibitions.
In 2000, Parliament legislated the power to alter the legal classification of drugs by Order in Council if deemed necssary. Is this the likely course for cannabis?
Has the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs looked at the fundamental cannabis legal status issue, if not why not?
Is not cannabis an infinitely more serious issue in NZ than 14B?
If Labour needs the Greens to govern, and assuming the GE impasse can be resolved, will Government do justice to cannabis users as part of a coalition arrangement?
sigs. Blair Anderson Kevin O'Connell

PCP Coalition - Mild Greens - Wigram Candidate
Mild Green Initiatives phone ++64 3 389-4065
Web site http://www.mildgreens.com
News forum news://www.reddfish.co.nz/alcp
"Blairs Brain on Cannabis" PlainsFM 96.9 every Wed 10:00pm

© Scoop Media