Big fat anti-drug NGO griftfest

The UN drug policy consultation in Wellington this week will be a big fat expert blowhard session say the ALCP, see http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE0802/S00059.htm. Notably it is expected rational observations - eg. that an ongoing cannabis ban is damaging, wrong, and in particular is counterproductive (it opened the gateway for NZ methamphetamine networks) - will be suppressed.

ALCP has little faith that the urgent stalled debate on cannabis will be brought out into the open. This was highlighted by the NZ Drug Foundation effort to promote debate last year, that went unheeded by both politicians and media.

This conference is all about confirming contacts and contracts first, with public good a very poor second. The UN and their band of grifters will ignore the elephant in the corner. By tackling only illicit drugs, minus any context with alcohol and tobacco, or rampant cannabis and BZP and other substance popularity, they will merely reinforce a dangerously unhealthy context of double standards.

Doubtless the failure of cannabis illegality may come up in the discussion but it will ultimately be omitted from the final report. This has happened many times before, eg. our National Drug Policy, and select committee Cannabis Law review.

The vast majority of normal pot-using Kiwis (an estimated half-million, based on the NZDF figure of 1 in 8 prevalence ) would be completely mystified at the concept of Drug Treatment Services for their use. They would laugh at it, and therein lies some insight that may benefit NGOs attending the consultation; the whole ridiculous policy is based on prohibition, double standards and vested interests. For those 5% who run into problems with their cannabis use, prohibition is no help whatsoever - in fact promoting furtive or paranoid behaviour. At every step prohibition is harm production, not harm reduction.

If our politicians want to look at a big fat ugly root cause of whats currently troubling NZ, it is a social policy mix underpinned by criminalisation and anti-cannabis prejudice. "The drug war is the single most destructive force loose in society" said ALCP deputy leader Mike Britnell. "Prohibition has not only failed but it is the lynchpin that is maintaining all this chaos, mayhem and murder."

In our Prime Minister's own words, it is 'poor public policy' (1994 Great Marijuana Debate). ALCP say an apology anytime soon would be good.

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