MEDIA STATEMENT 9 March 2009
National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Vienna Drug Warriors Resemble WW1 Generals

NORML responds to the government media release that Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne will represent New Zealand this week at the Vienna meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

“The Drug Warriors going to Vienna are like World War One generals, who claimed victory over gains of a few hundred yards without counting the horrendous cost in blood and treasure”, says NORML President Phil Saxby.

The USA alone spends around $40 billion per year trying to eliminate the supply of drugs, and locks up half a million of its citizens in pursuit of tough-on-drugs laws. In Mexico, more than 800 policemen and soldiers have been killed since December 2006. Far from reducing crime, ‘prohibition has fostered gangsterism on a scale that the world has never seen before’, says The Economist (5 March 2009).

United Nations bureaucrats like UNDOC boss Antonio Maria Costa (today’s General Haig) claim ‘the world is winning’ the war on drugs and call for more of the same. “These drug warriors need to abandon their fantasies that the present policies can ever succeed. They should take the advice of The Economist to stop making the ‘hugely irresponsible promise’ of a drug-free world”, says Saxby.

Phil Saxby points out that “The Economist” has been campaigning for the legalisation of drugs for twenty years, describing it as the “least bad solution”. It’s long past time Peter Dunne exercised common sense and started counting the true cost of current failed policies, he says. “Sadly, the original objective of improving public health has been overtaken by security issues and enforcement.”

“Peter Dunne should stop spouting the inanities of today’s drug warriors – that New Zealand should join others in ‘looking towards the goal of eliminating or significantly reducing the manufacture, marketing and supply of illegal drugs’. Instead, concludes Saxby, New Zealand deserves realistic, workable policies that achieve public health objectives at a reasonable cost.”

Ends

© Scoop Media