Posts by Russell Brown
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Update.
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Hard News: What we learned yesterday…, in reply to Zach Bagnall,
Impairment while driving is in the news here in Colorado fairly regularly, usually whenever some new statistic is released. They’re still figuring it out. There isn’t a reliable roadside test and even a blood test doesn’t necessarily indicate impairment since frequent users become highly tolerant of it.
It's really hard. I talked to Washington State's pot czar Mark Kleiman three years ago when they were gearing up for legalisation:
“Nobody wants to say it out loud, but I think it probably needs a good leaving alone,” says Kleiman.
“Here’s the problem: it’s clear that being stoned decreases your executive function and multi-tasking ability. It renders many people inattentive.
“It’s also clear that knowing you’re stoned leads people to be cautious – the opposite of alcohol. The stereotypical stoned driver is driving 15 miles an hour in a 40 zone. He’s paranoid about how he’s driving.
“So that sounds like good news. The other thing that sounds like good news is, when you let an experienced pot smoker get as stoned as they want and put them ona simulator, their degradation is at about the level of .08 BAC. That’s just about the threshold of what’s considered impaired driving for alcohol.
“So all of that doesn’t sound like it adds up to extremely dangerous driving. Now the bad news – people are empirically impaired for several hours after they’re subjectively back to baseline. So the people who don’t think they’re stoned are the potentially dangerous drivers.
“THC is fat soluble, and unless you do very fancy stuff with metabolite ratios, you can’t tell whether somebody smoked two hours ago or three days ago. And so if you have a strict nanogram per millilitre rule, which is what’s in the Washington statutes, anybody who’s a regular pot smoker can never drive. That’s not workable.
“And the other bad news is that people don’t just use pot. So here’s a rule I would have. If you have cannabis on board, then your blood alcohol content limit is zero. You may not drive with both cannabis and alcohol in your system. And that’s an easy rule to observe. Your BAC will be zero n hours after your nth drink. So if you are going to be a smoker, you may not drive for as many hours as you’ve had drinks. Zero’s a good number.”
The lack of a non-invasive roadside test is a significant factor, he says.
“Unless there’s an accident and someone’s injured, I just don’t think anyone’s going to be caught for driving under the influence of cannabis.”
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Hard News: What we learned yesterday…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
If this Government actually believes it is time for drug law reform then they should sit the fuck down, thrash out legislation and put it on the order paper with a full debate at every stage and a robust select committee process with an extended public submission period and public hearings.
In the event of a positive referendum result, all those things will happen. And you'll probably see more cross-party buy-in. I'm just mindful of of the fact that we've had two select committee inquiries and a Law Commission review that have all come to roughly the same conclusion: cannabis law needs reforming. And because of the politics of drug reform, it never bloody happens.
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Hard News: What we learned yesterday…, in reply to Craig Young,
And then we should legislate for recreational cannabis use as a seperate issue on its own merits and evidence-based substantive risks.
To be fair, most of the complexity of medical cannabis regulation goes away if you have recreational sorted. You can focus on actual medical regulation without worrying whether you're doing de facto legalisation.
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Hard News: What we learned yesterday…, in reply to linger,
Why bother asking that question when we know the answer: they had to go into coalition with a partner that wants as much as possible done through referenda.
I think it's a little more nuanced than that. The proposal for a cannabis referendum struck a sweet spot because it had been (and possibly still is) NZ First policy. So it wasn't just "here's a referendum, you like those", it was "here's that cannabis referendum you've been calling for".
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Hard News: What we learned yesterday…, in reply to Luke Williamson,
Absolutely agree Rich. Forget about a referendum and just get on with some effective, evidence-based policy, and then own it at the next election. I think the debate about whether to is over, it’s about how to. Just get on with it and don’t waste the time/money on a referendum.
I'd prefer that too. But if it were that simple it would have happened already. There's a reason it took ballot initiatives for things to start moving in Colorado et al. Here, we have a centre-right party that set its face against any change and a centre-left party where there is still some deep resistance. If it takes a popular vote to focus minds, so be it.
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Hearing that final delegations of ministerial responsibilities have not been settled – and that as Associate Health minister Julie Anne Genter may not get drug policy as has been the case in governments stretching back to 1999.
That would be a mistake – not least for Labour.
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From tonight’s show: Rachel Stewart on the future of meat and milk and the implications for New Zealand.
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Newshub got the Greens' portfolios:
Climate change and associate finance are both expected to go to Greens leader James Shaw.
The Greens will also have conservation, women and land information portfolios, and associate roles in environment, transport and health.
They will fill a newly created undersecretary role, focused on sexual and domestic violence.
Good stuff.
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Hard News: All Change, in reply to ,
The Greens leader just said “it’s time to move to a regulated market”. That’s not good, if it’s anything like the current alcohol market, with its promotional marketing practices. Cannabis has a high dependency rate, and it fucks some people totally up.
I think everyone knows not to do it like alcohol. Officially the referendum is on making personal use legal, so there'll be a fair bit of room to move.
We'll take lessons from Colorado – where state authorities have been quite alert to their emerging market and prepared to adjust the rules as required – but likely follow Canada's cautious approach to legalisation and regulation.
