Kerre Woodham: Revisiting drug laws

New Zealand's drug laws are in the spotlight again and with good reason. Despite record police busts, we're still seeing record methamphetamine use, we're seeing increasingly dangerous street drugs, and rising overdose deaths, three a week from drug overdoses.

There have been calls to overhaul the 50-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act and the call comes from a number of different organisations. The Drug Foundation wants drug use decriminalised and the law rewritten to make it a health issue, not a criminal issue, and they have been very consistent in their approach on this.

Also this week we had a survey from the Helen Clark Foundation conducted by the University a University of Otago researcher, Rose Crossin. And that found that half of New Zealanders support shifting investment from policing to health. Rose Crossin told the Elephant News show right now two-thirds of what we spend on drugs goes to law enforcement. And the people surveyed would prefer that money to go on to prevention, treatment and harm reduction. The report shows that just 1.4% of the annual drug budget is for harm reduction. 1.4%. That does rise to 30% when you look at treatment and prevention, but it's still when you see the vast majority going towards policing, surely it should be flipped on its head.

Green's co-leader Chloe Swarbrick also raised the issue, again, launching an online platform yesterday, which asked for public suggestions on better drug regulation, in particular cannabis, as a step towards legalisation.

Now, with the use of medicinal cannabis, we haven't seen a huge upswing in the numbers of people taking cannabis. I venture there are some of you who have used medicinal cannabis, found it works for you.

You've never used cannabis before, but when the opportunity came available for you to use it, you did so, and found it didn't turn you into a raging drug addict lifting your skirt on the streets to pay for your habit.

And in fact, helped you with pain, helped you with sleeplessness, whatever it is that medicinal cannabis is supposed to do. So certainly, there needs to be more opportunity for people to rehab, for those who've tried drugs, found it doesn't work for them and need to get off it.

There are clinics around the country, but hey, good luck getting into the taxpayer funded ones. Pretty much it seems you have to be court ordered before you can get into those rehab clinics. If you go private, prices start from around $17,000 for a couple of weeks to a month. Most 30-day residential rehabs charge more than $20,000. And you can have ones with all the bells and whistles and the nice sheets and the nice meals and the yoga instructor. 

But who the hell can pay for that? The trust fund babies, sure. Wealthy business people, sure. 
  
But where do you go if you're an average, ordinary, everyday Kiwi who tried drugs, be it meth or coke or booze, and thought you could handle it, and found that the monkey on your back was the one in charge, you need to get off. You have to. - you're going to lose your family, you're going to lose your soul. How do you step out of your life for a month? How do you find the 30-odd thousand for the month?  How do you re-enter your life and stay clean?

Policing plays an important role in thwarting people who make money from peddling misery. Having drugs criminalised stops some people from using them. I know that when I was growing up in the media,and I really was, 17,18, 19 years old, a big reason I didn't use drugs that were around, the cocaine and the cannabis, was that I would lose my job. If I was found in possession of any of these drugs, I would lose my job. I would have a criminal offence against my name, so the legalised drug, booze, became my drug of choice. So I understand how having drug use criminalised can be useful in stopping people starting. Bbt surely reducing demand is a really vital part of the process as well. People choosing not to use alcohol and other drugs will have a much bigger impact than the occasional high-profile bust.

And surely then making drugs just another product with all the health and safety regulations around the production of these drugs, having taxes applied at source, turning it into just another commodity would be the most effective of all at emasculating the gangs and the cartels? 

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.