Hard News by Russell Brown

Jackson Wood has an explanation of the Wellington draft LAPP and the option he favours.

There's a lot of good general information on what the LAPPs do -- clearing up a few misconceptions.

Thanks for the link, Russell. Great story too. I think the thing for me is the massive disconnect between what the law does and what the public thought it would do. The job of communicating what it did kind of fell into a gap for an issue that had attracted such widespread public interest. Compare and contrast that to Uruguay's public education campaign while they were debating cannabis legalisation and we come up short.

The obsfucation surrounding drug policy development has a legacy. It has not been an earnest harm minimization strategy , as would be proscribed under the aegis of the National Drug Policy Statement or its founding principles and formulation advice. What was innovative (the Restricted Substances Regulations 2008) was gutted by Dunne after it passed muster (Order in Council) and became law - but was never again talked about despite no advice on its failure. That is a travesty that should be sheeted home upon Dunne et al. AS WELL AS the Star Trust (who saw it as not protecting its industry exclusivity) and I would argue disappointingly examined by the Drug Foundation.

Jackson in that regard, is on the button. Paucity of reality.....

If you give New Zealanders an approved, legal substance, they’ll go for it.

This should be the guiding principal of out drug policies.
Keep the sale of unregulated drugs outlawed but give us some good quality legal options and don’t prosecute users of anything that is for personal use. Most people don’t want to do nasty stuff but ultimately it should be personal choice.

Thanks for a great article clarifying a poorly communicated policy Russell.

For those not in the know Auckland, and other local councils, are writing their policy on where new Paychoactive Substance stores can be located. This of course assumes producers of products will eventually find a way to test them that meet requirements. The council is aiming to limit store density, particularly in areas of socio economic deprivation. The council has no ability to dictate hours of operation, what can be in the stores or wether 'legal highs' should be available at all.
If you want to have your say on that, visit shapeauckland.co.nz and you'll see a simple submission form.

Very interesting article, although I'll repeat what I said on Twitter and say I feel this isn't quite the shooting gun I'd expect it to be. With Auckland Council having had over 700 submissions as of Monday, before they sent out their press release informing everyone that it's the last week for submissions. After doing a little bit of digging myself I think the bigger concern is that should there be an alternative to animal testing, the amount of research required by importers compared the amount of research by manufacturers is highly alarming, as the manufacturers have their code to follow.

After doing a little bit of digging myself I think the bigger concern is that should there be an alternative to animal testing, the amount of research required by importers compared the amount of research by manufacturers is highly alarming, as the manufacturers have their code to follow.

You're saying the product approval process is significantly different for importers as opposed to manufacturers? No one raised that with me. Can you elucidate?

And how's it working it? Today's Manawatu Standard headline is Meth use on rise after legal high ban.

What a tremendous public health success.

Cannabis law reform is and remains the core issue for which the failure to resolve the tensions rests on the (respective) Ministers of Health under whose watch and WARRANT all drug policy is exacted. The Expert Advisory Committee (EACD) should have undertaken its responsibility to priotise an evidence based review of NZ’s favorite illicit substance according to the ALL DRUG harm reduction philosophy that underpins our National Drug Policy.

The Law Commission was disabled politically due to the change in the terms of reference (dirty politics). International conventions should be informed by evidence not vice versa.

BZP, Synthetics, Meth and Alcohol related harms would have thus reduced and substantial unwarranted criminalisation would have ceased to exist.
( Google “Pokolo and Ice” Prof..Econ. James Roumasette)

Importantly Len Snee and Gage the dog would still be alive.

My thinking on this is that the legal high industrie didn’t address the underlying public health proplems any better than the local mongrel mob did.

Not sure about that. People have actually died from bad illegal drugs sourced in that way. Nothing was ever offered as a legal high that had the strength of crystal meth or the lethality of heroin. The dope trade is pretty benign, sure, since it's a highly recognizable plant in the first place, but various powders and pills made by people who might have no real knowledge of chemistry, and for whom the supply of the base materials is highly uncertain, purchased in illegal and highly paranoia inducing ways, backed up by actual gangsters, is quite a different level of unhealthy.

I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the legal high industrie wasn’t financially responsible for rehabilitation costs, for people who became addicted to the product.

It was far from perfect. But such changes were at least possible in a framework of legality.