CANNABIS GROUP SENDS LETTER TO MPS : ‘PIPE BANS DON ’T WORK - PM AGREES.’

NORML NZ has sent a letter to every MP urging them to vote ‘no’ on an amendment bill outlawing pipes, pipe parts, and vapourisers.

The letter points out that the Prime Minister has publicly acknowledged how the proposed ban on smoking paraphernalia would be counter-productive and harmful to health:

"While people use those implements for the consumption of illegal drugs, they're also used actually for genuine and practical reasons by other users, who are other people. So it's a question of whether that would practically work and even if you outlawed those whether they could use some makeshift home developed implement, so as a general rule no, my experience is they haven't worked very well." **

In the letter, NORML recommends that Parliament either delete the amendment to Clause 4 in the Misuse of Drugs Act Amendment Bill 2010 prohibiting the import and supply of smoking paraphernalia, or amend the bill by substituting the text in the current clause with regulations to control the sale of cannabis utensils.

“NORML NZ endorses a draft notice that has been circulated by the Campaign for Safer Smoking entitled the ‘Misuse of Drugs (Regulation of Cannabis Utensils) Notice 2011’,” said the organisation’s president Stephen McIntyre.

“The regulations in this notice would limit the availability of cannabis utensils to those aged over 18, and compel retailers to provide official information on the health risks of using cannabis to their customers.”

** John Key, Radio NZ, 1 December 2010 .

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[Attached: MP’s letter, dated 8 Dec, 2010 ]

8 December 2010
Member of Parliament
Parliament Buildings
WELLINGTON

Re: Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill 2010

Dear Sir/Madam,

Have you heard Prime Minister John Key’s opinion of this Bill’s unpopular attempt to ban the importation and sale of smoking pipes and parts?

"While people use those implements for the consumption of illegal drugs, they're also used actually for genuine and practical reasons by other users, who are other people. So it's a question of whether that would practically work and even if you outlawed those whether they could use some makeshift home developed implement, so as a general rule no, my experience is they haven't worked very well." [1]

Clause 4 of the Bill attempts to prohibit the sale, and importation of, a wide variety of popularly-used harm-reduction devices including glass and metal tobacco smoking pipes, waterpipes (bongs), traditional Middle-Eastern nakhla waterpipes, as well as smokeless vapourisers.

As Prime Minster John Key has publicly acknowledged, this would be counter-productive and harmful to health:

1. It will hurt users of tobacco and legal herbs, in addition to New Zealand ’s 400,000 cannabis users.
2. It would force people – young people most likely of all – to resort to constructing more harmful ‘garden-shed’ implements. For example aluminum cans and plastic drink bottles can easily be turned into pipes, but come with the risk of inhaling burning paint or plastic.
3. It contradicts the National Drug Policy’s goal of harm minimisation and pre-empts developing government policy in this area, including, significantly, the Law Commission’s comprehensive review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, due to be released early next year.
Recommendations:

1. Delete Clause 4, leaving the existing situation unchanged: harm-reducing cannabis utensils are already prohibited but available to adults if sold as tobacco pipes.
2. Alternatively, if the current situation is considered untenable, amend the Bill by substituting the text in Clause 4 for regulations to control the sale of cannabis utensils. We understand a draft has been circulated by the Campaign for Safer Smoking. These regulations would limit the availability of cannabis utensils to those aged over 18, and compel retailers to provide official information on the health risks of using cannabis to their customers. A similar law has been in place in Western Australia for a number of years.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen McIntyre
on behalf of the Board of Directors

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