norml news autumn 2007

AUTUMN 2007 NORML NeWS 1

2 NORML NeWS AUTUMN 2007


NORML NeWS

The National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML NZ Inc) is a non-profit organisation that campaigns to end marijuana prohibition. We support the right of all adults to possess, use and grow their own marijuana. We recognise that a market for marijuana will always exist, and we call for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to look at how best to regulate and control that market. Our aims are to: reform New Zealand’s marijuana laws; provide information about cannabis; engage in political action appropriate to our aims; inform people of their rights; and give advice and support to victims of prohibition.

LegaL DiscLaimer: The views expressed in NORML News may or may not be the opinion of Norml News, NORML New Zealand Inc, our advertisers or printers. NORML News is provided ‘as is’, for your information only, with no warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. The publisher assumes no responsibility for and disclaims all liability for any inaccuracies, errors or omissions. Content within NORML NEWS is distributed without profit or payment for “fair use” non-profit research, review, education and information purposes. NORML News and our publisher are not responsible for the content of advertising contained within. Publication of an advertisement does not imply our endorsement of any particular product or claims made by any advertiser.

Vol 11 . 2

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FEATURESNORML’s Medical Marijuana Petition sign it now! 5J Day Saturday 5th May - roll up & bring your buddies... 7The new National Drug Policy By Will de Cleene 12The Party Pill Test by Richard Goode 14History of medical marijuana PtII by Jonathan Rennie 21Himilayan High by Julian Crawford 21Roadside drug testing by Jason Baker-Sherman 26

REGULARS10 ways you can help change the law 6Medical Marijuana news and research 9World News with Harry Cording 16Bush Doctor how to harvest & manicure correctly 31Legal news & your civil rights 34Tips for safer cannabis use - harm reduction advice 36NORML membership form Join our campaign! 37

Contents

Autumn 2007

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cover shot& this page:

Cottonbud by Mr Green, Bay of Plenty


Adults Only. Cannabis consumption is for adults only. It is irresponsible to provide cannabis to people aged under 18.

Safe Driving. The responsible cannabis consumer does not operate a motor vehicle or other heavy machinery while impaired by cannabis, nor (like other responsible citizens) impaired by any other substance or condition, including some pre-scription medicines or fatigue.

Set and Setting. The responsible cannabis user will carefully consider his/her mind-set and physical setting, and regulate use accordingly.

Resist Abuse. Use of cannabis, to the extent that it impairs health, personal development or achievement, is abuse, to be resisted by responsible cannabis users.

Respect the Rights of Others. The re-sponsible cannabis user does not violate the rights of others, observes accepted standards of courtesy, and respects the preferences of those who wish to avoid cannabis.

NORML’s Principles ofResponsible Marijuana Use

Heads up

This time of year is always an enjoyable one here at

NORML Headquarters, “high” in the Waitakere Ranges, as the tasty treats of the new harvest roll in and the recent desperate shortages of herb fade to a distant memory.

But times are not so pleasant for everyone. The police have renewed their War on Drugs with vigour, busting tinnie shop customers for the media, spraying poison from helicopters, and arresting pretty much anyone they can find.

Among them, as always, are the medical marijuana users who depend on the well-known healing properties of cannabis for their health and well-being.

Yo u c a n h e l p e n d t h i s madness:

Sign our medical petitionSee page 10. Get your family

and fr iends to sign. Send completed petitions to NORML, or direct to the Health Select Committee (freepost, Parliament, Wellington) asking that it be added to NORML’s medical marijuana petition.

Write to your MPIf you haven’t written to or

visited your MP, how will they know you support changing the law? And why should they do anything? MPs must hear our voices loud and strong. Don’t use paranoia as an excuse for apathy - do something today to help change the law.

Stop the drug war madness> SIGN NORML’s MEDICAL MARIJUANA PETITION

> WRITE TO YOUR MP & SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR LAW REFORM

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policies for sanecannabis lawsStop arresting cannabis users: the Government should immediately declare a moratorium on arresting those who use cannabis. Another twenty are arrested every day.

Decriminalisation: remove all penalties for the use, possession and growing of cannabis by adults and the non-profit transfer of small amounts. The draconian search provisions of the Misuse of Drugs Act should be removed and criminal records for cannabis offences wiped.

Regulation: a commercial market for marijuana will always exist. It is better to regulate that market than leave it to organised crime. We support the introduction of Dutch-style cannabis cafes. Overseas experience shows cannabis law changes have not been associated with changes in use.

Reasonable restrictions: as with alcohol consumption, cannabis use should be limited to adults. Driving or operating heavy machinery while under the influence should remain prohibited. See our ‘Principles of Responsible Cannabis Use’.

Harm minimisation: all drugs, including cannabis, can be abused. Cannabis policies should discourage irresponsible use, including use by adolescents. Prevention efforts can only be effective where marijuana is viewed from a public health perspective, instead of a criminal justice perspective.


Sign the medical marijuana petitionShow your support & help make a change!

Of all the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition, none is as tragic as the denial of medicinal cannabis to the tens of

thousands of patients who could benefit from its therapeutic use.Based on Australian research figures, New Zealand could have

around 11,400 medical marijuana patients. Prohibition means they suffer additional harms from an unsafe hazardous supply and the risk of arrest and imprisonment.

The Green’s Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Marijuana) Amendment Bill will legalise the medicinal use of cannabis for patients who have the approval of their doctor. Patients will register with the Ministry of Health and will be able to use and grow their own medicinal cannabis. If they are unable to, they can assign growing rights to a friend or caregiver. Seeds will be supplied by the Police from confiscated stocks.

Canada, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany and 11 US States already allow medical marijuana. New Zealand now has an opportunity to also show compassion for sick people.

Organised by NORML NZ Inc PO Box 3307 Auckland. Send signed petitions to the Health Select Committee, Freepost, Parliament Buildings, Wellington, or ask your local MP to table it for you.

Name Electorate/Town/City Signature

MEDICAL MARIJUANA PETITION To the House of Representatives: We, the undersigned, request that parliament give urgent attention to changing the law to allow individuals to obtain, possess and use cannabis for treatment of serious medical conditions when this has been recommended or endorsed in writing by the individual’s registered medical practitioner.

LOOK WHAT CANNABIS IS GOOD FORModern research suggests that cannabis is a valuable aid in the treatment of a wide range of clinical applications::> Alzheimer’s Disease> Anti-tumour effects> Appetite stimulation, eg for AIDS wasting syndrome, anorexia or dementia> Arthritis> Asthma> Brain injury/Stroke> Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis> Depression> Eating disorders> Epilepsy> Fibromyalgia> Glaucoma> High blood pressure and Hypertension> Migraine> Movement disorders, eg Parkinson’s disease> Multiple Sclerosis

> Nail Patella Syndrome> Nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy or taking other medications> Neuroprotection, eg following a stroke> Pain - especially neuropathic pain> Phantom limb pain> Schizophrenia> Spinal cord injury> Tourette’s Syndrome

> The Medical Marijuana bill allows any other condition “where the use of cannabis may alleviate the pain and suffering associated with that condition or the treatment of that condition”.

www.norml.org.nz/emailMPemail your MP today!

see www.norml.org.nz/medical orgreens.org.nz/campaigns/cannabis

for more information


Satin-A, Auckland

1 Make a donation. We could do with a much-needed boost to our finances! Post your contribution, or make

a donation into our bank account: 12-3057-0594667-00. Maybe set up a regular automatic payment?

2 Sign our Medical Marijuana Petition! see back one page. Get your friends and family to sign. With the

level of support out there - see poll result below - there really is no need to worry about people’s reactions.

3 Medical users - share your experiences. Contact us or your local media. Write to the health committee

and your MP.

4 Write to or visit your MP. Letters to any MP c/- Parliament Buildings are freepost. The email format is

[email protected] or go to norml.org.nz/emailMP. Visiting MP’s in person is even better.

5 Write to newspapers & call talkback radio - a free way of promoting law reform to a diverse audience.

Keep it short and simple. Linking cannabis law reform to ‘hot’ local issues in local media helps broaden opposition to the criminalisaton of cannabis users.

6 Organise an anti-prohibition event in your town. Come to J Day on Saturday 5 May. Help out with J Day

or organise your own concert, rally, demonstration, movie screening or public debate.

7 Refuse to be searched. If you are busted, plead Not Guilty. This places a greater strain on an already

stressed ‘justice’ system. The police and courts couldn’t enforce prohibition if cannabis users didn’t plead guilty!

8 Distribute information: Contact us for leaflets or magazines to distribute round your town or local

networks. Let us know if there is a suitable store in your town who could take our magazines.

9 Check out www.NORML.org.nz for handy facts and figures related to cannabis and the law. Share ideas

and meet new friends in the forums.

10 Join NORML and get involved in local and national law reform activities. We need more committed

activists all over the country. Fill out and post us the membership application on page 37 now!

end cannabis prohibition!

Let your MP know your views:www.norml.org.nz/emailMP

63%

Heads up

Ten things you can do to help

An estimated 11,000 seriously ill New Zealanders use cannabis for pain relief and other medical uses. While the Misuse of Drugs Act already allows the Minister of Health to approve this, not a single patient has been granted permission. Parliament’s Health Select Committee has previously noted that “cannabis has been shown to be effective in providing relief for some medical disorders ... the issue of medicinal use should be dealt with independently from the legislation regulating general use” (Cannabis inquiry report, 2003)Show some compassion - legalise the medicinal use of cannabis!

OF KIWISSUPPORT LEGALISING MEDICINAL CANNABISACCORDING TO A RECENT TV3/TNZ POLL


end cannabis prohibition!

OF KIWISSUPPORT LEGALISING MEDICINAL CANNABISACCORDING TO A RECENT TV3/TNZ POLL


medical news


Smoked cannabis resulted in a significant reduction in neuro-pathic pain for patients with HIV, in a clinical study conducted at the San Francisco General Hospital.

Fifty patients were randomly assigned to two groups to smoke either cannabis (3.56 per cent THC, about 25 mg THC) or identical placebo cigarettes without cannabinoids three times daily for 5 days. All participants had experience with the use of cannabis. 31 used other pain medications and continued to use them throughout the study at stable doses, among them opioids and gabapentin.

Cannabis reduced daily pain by 34 per cent (median reduction) compared to 17 per cent with placebo. Greater than 30 per cent reduc-tion in pain was reported by 52 per cent in the cannabis group and by 24 per cent in the placebo group. Cannabis also reduced pain in

two kinds of experimentally induced pain and was not effective in a third model. Side effects were more common in the cannabis group. No serious adverse events were reported and no patient withdrew from the study due to side effects. Researchers concluded that “cannabis was well tolerated and effectively relieved chronic neuropathic pain from HIV-associated sensory neuropathy. The findings are compara-ble to oral drugs used for chronic neuropathic pain.”

Neuropathic pain results from nerve damage. In this study the pain resulted from the HIV infection, from the drugs used to treat the infection or from both.

Source: Abrams DI, et al. Cannabis in pain-ful HIV-associated sensory neuropathy: A randomized placebo-controlled trial. Neurol-ogy 2007;68(7):515-21. Available at www.cannabis-med.org/studies/study.php

Cannabis effective for HIV nerve pain

Law denies fundamental right to use cannabis for medical purposesAn American federal court has denied the fundamental right to use cannabis for medical purposes.

Angel Raich has an inoperable brain tumour, but the Federal Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled she may not use cannabis to ease her pain even though California state law permits it.

The court’s decision said use of the drug for medical purposes was gaining support but federal law still banned it. “We agree that medical and conventional wisdom that recognises the use of marijuana for medical purposes is gaining traction in the law as well,” the decision said.

“For now, federal law is blind to the wisdom of a future day when the right to use medical marijuana to alleviate excruciating pain may be deemed fundamental.”

Source: Reuters 14 March 2007

WHO expert committee recommends reclassifying THCThe World Health Organisation Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) has recommended THC (dronabinol) be moved from Schedule II to the less restrictive Schedule III of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

The recommendation is made to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which may accept or reject the recommendation.

THC, responsible for most of the therapeutic effects of the cannabis plant, was first included in Schedule I of the 1971 Convention. It was rescheduled to Schedule II in 1991.

According to the ECDD the abuse of dronabinol - the international non-proprietary name for THC - is rare and there have been very few reports of its occurrence. Dronabinol preparations are used in several countries for the treatment of nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy and in the treatment of weight loss in patients with HIV or AIDS. It has also been used in the treatment of chronic pain and neurological disorders.

The ECDD report is available at www.who.int/entity/medicines/areas/quality_safety/

New Mexico becomes the twelfth US state to legalise the medical use of cannabisThe state of New Mexico has passed a bill that will legalise the use of cannabis for medical purposes

The new law will allow patients to use cannabis to alleviate the symptoms of several debilitating medical conditions approved by the state Department of Health. The department will be required to create a system for distributing medical cannabis to patients by 1 October 2007. It will issue identification cards to patients and caregivers, and license producers to grow cannabis.

The bill passed the House of Representatives by a 36-31 vote. The Senate, which has already approved the bill, accepted a small change by the House that would forbid the distribution of cannabis within 300 feet (about 100 meters) of any church, school or day-care center.

“This bill will provide much-needed relief for New Mexicans suffering from debilitating diseases while including the proper safeguards to prevent abuse,” Governor Bill Richardson said in a written statement.

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington have already legalized the medical use of cannabis.

A bill was introduced to the Minnesota House of Representatives on 5 February that would legalise the medical use of cannabis. A similar bill was recently introduced in the Senate. The House bill would allow “qualified” patients with a “registry identification card” to possess an “allowable” amount of medicinal cannabis for which they could not be arrested, prosecuted or penalized.

On 9 February a bill was introduced to the Illinois Senate that would remove criminal penalties for the medical use of cannabis with a physician’s recommendation.www.cannabis-med.org

for the latest medical marijuana research go to

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GREENCROSS

www.greencross.org.nzGreen Cross Medicinal Cannabis Support Group of NZ (Inc) Billy McKee Ph 06 368 8181 or email [email protected]

Con visits her MP - so should you!By IRINKA BRITNELL

Con has muscular dystrophy and visited her local MP Gerry Brownlee to tell him how THC helps her manage her condition and to ask him to support the medical marijuana bill. Reverend Derek

McCullough from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Christchurch came to support her and to assist her read her statement. Reading has become a problem as part of her deterioration from this debilitating disease.Con prefers THC to alleviate her discomforts and pain,

rather than taking chemical drugs from the doctor, which she says make her sluggish, sick, suffer a loss of appetite and general lack of energy and interest in life.While Con didn’t think Gerry Brownlee was very keen,

Derek noted that he was made the distinction between medicinal and recreational use. He did not know much about the bill and said he would find out more. The following Friday Con had a meeting with Green

MP Metiria Turei to find out more about the Bill. To her surprise, Metiria said Gerry Brownlee had been to see her in the last few days in Wellington to ask her about the Medical Marijuana Bill. This was a fantastic chain reaction from Con’s

initiative to visit her MP. It also alerted us that not all MP’s are properly informed about the bill. The message from Con is that more people who use medicinal cannabis and want legitimate access need to go and see their MP.

YOU CAN HELP!> Write to your MP and ask them to support the Medical Marijuana bill.> Write to the Health Select Committee and tell them you support NORML’s medical marijuana petition.> If you are a medical user contact us for advice or to let us know if you can help with our campaign.


BY HARRY CORDING

In 2006 police raided large scale grow-ops all over the UK, which created a sudden shortage in the lucrative black market. However, the shortage was soon filled by seemingly high quality bud that was thought to contain some form of grit or sand.

At first the contamination was thought to be something inert added simply to increase the weight of the deal. However, it soon became clear there was a potential danger to the health of pot smokers.

Lab analysis found it was small glass beads 50 to 120 microns in diameter. Sources suggest that this contaminant is industrial etching spray used for glass frosting, a high pressure aerosol which also contains propellant, lubricant and silicate abrasives. The beads were

Health warning over contaminated British buds

research

Lung cancer link more media hype

www.cannabis-med.orgfor the latest medical marijuana

research go to

present inside even tight buds all the way to the stems.

If contaminated buds are smoked in a joint or pipe with no filter, these glass beads will be drawn into the lungs with possibly devastating results. It’s doubtful that using a pipe with a gauze will prevent this happening either.

Affected smokers have suffered from mouth ulcers, sore throats and bad coughs which they never experienced when smoking normal buds.

This contamination graphically illustrates how prohibition not only increases the dangers associated with illegal drugs, but also creates dangers of its own.

Derek Williams of British

law reform group Cannaprag said “What has become clear is that the government has no method of warning illegal drug users of dangers such as this and seemingly has no desire to do so.

“Government policy towards illegal drugs should not act in such a way as to increase the danger of using them by adding unknown risks. However, contamination of supplies is used as a measure of ‘success’ of the prohibitionist drugs policy. A public health warning is urgently needed to inform users that they should not smoke this contaminated cannabis and dealers should not sell it”.

Source: www.cannaprag.net

When comparisons are made between cannabis

and tobacco smoking it is perhaps intuitive to think that heavy long-term pot smoking can cause lung cancer. This has simply been assumed in some quarters as we see in many drug “education” pamphlets.

It was remarkable then that last year, Donald Tashkin, the world leading guru on lung health and cannabis, reported at the US Thoracic society conference and subsequently in the Washington Post that his team thought there would be “a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”

In coming to this conclusion, Tashkin had studied over 1000

lung cancer victims. Later last year,

Professor Beasley of the NZ Medical Research Institute in Wellington released a review paper on cannabis and lung health as evidence to a coroner’s hearing, unrelated to cannabis. Unfortunately this review made no reference to and was apparently unaware of Tashkin’s landmark study released earlier in the year.

The NZ media predictably announced that Prof Beasely’s paper was evidence of a cannabis-cancer link. Beasley was actually announcing that the MRI was intending to do some research in the area, but the media took that to mean the research had already been done and the conclusions known and, again, no mention of Tashkin was made.

The Institute has now done its

study with the results presented by Dr Sarah Aldington to NZ’s Thoracic society conference late in March. Our requests to see this conference paper have been declined, but copies are promised once it has been published. However this delay doesn’t seem to apply to the media, with the NZ Herald publishing a summary the day after the conference. From the Herald report it seems Dr Aldington questioned 60 lung cancer victims about their history and then from subsequent analysis and extrapolation declared “Approximately 5 per cent

of lung cancer cases in those aged 55 and under may be attributable to cannabis...”

Dr Aldington acknowledged that this was in contrast to Tashkin’s findings. Naturally we are keen to hear more of this study, which has been labeled “pilot” in some quarters.

Whether cannabis increases the cancer risk or not, damage to the lungs from heavy use of smoked cannabis has long been accepted as a key downside by users, but the media, with its poor ability to understand science and research, only seems willing to muddy the waters.

BY BRANDON HUTCHISON

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Study shows the high cost of prohibitionThe University of Hawaii has published a study which found regulating marijuana in the same way as alcohol would lead to as much as $US33 million in savings and new revenues for the state annually.

Economist Lawrence Boyd added up the costs of police, courts and prison for marijuana users and distributors, and extrapolated potential revenues from taxation to arrive at his estimate.

The study says the $US10 million spent every year enforcing the law has failed to reduce the supply of marijuana. In fact, between 1994 and 2003 the price of an ounce dropped by 12%.

Currently in Hawaii the chance of a marijuana user being arrested and convicted is approximately 0.4%. In other words, you would have to be incredibly unlucky.

There are approximately 58,000 adult marijuana users in Hawaii, according to the study. Given the current usage levels, the low risk of arrest, and further risk of punishment, it’s obvious the law is not deterring marijuana use.

E v i d e n c e s u g g e s t s decriminalization would not lead to an increase in marijuana use.

Boyd estimated that legalisation could collect between $US4 and $US23 million, depending on the tax regime adopted.

The study concludes, “Given the limited prosecution and penalties associated with marijuana possession in Hawaii, it is doubtful that decriminalization would have much effect on marijuana use.”

New Zealand spends over $55 million annually pursuing failed prohibition policies, according to a 2001 report by the Parliamentary Library.


NZ NEWS

The National Drug Policy 2007 – 2012:

Jim’s Great Leap Backwards

The latest National Drug Policy (NDP) is the second

such policy initiative. The first NDP 1998 – 2003 provided a holistic and coherent policy framework for government and non-government organisations (NGOs) on the spectrum of legal and not-so-legal drugs. It was presented in two parts. Part One dealt with the two most harmful drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and Part Two focused on illicit and other drugs.

Both parts were threaded with a common theme; harm minimisation. “The National Drug Policy’s overall goal, as far as possible within available resources, is to minimise harm caused by tobacco, alcohol, illicit and other drug use to both individuals and the community.” It was governed by a set of five principles:• efficiency• equity• use of both harm prevention and harm reduction strategies• upholding of individual rights where these do not unreasonably impinge on the rights of others• ensuring the needs of Maori are addressed by enabling development of specific strategies acceptable to Maori.

The NDP set out three priorities or prongs which can be summarised, in order of priority, as: harm minimisation, demand reduction and supply control. Implicit in the overall goal was a cost-benefit analysis of these prongs and principles.

The policy defined harm minimisation as “an approach that aims to minimise the adverse health, social and economic consequences of drug use, without necessarily

ending such use... The primary goal of this approach is a net reduction in drug-related harm rather than becoming drug-free overnight... Another well-established example of harm minimisation is the needle and syringe exchange programme for injecting drug users, which attempts to prevent the use of ‘dirty’ needles and needle-sharing, which can pose a risk of the transmission of blood-borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis.”

It was received with warm responses from a wide range of groups. The New Zealand Drug Foundation called it “a good first step based on sound research rather than prejudice.” The Salvation Army hailed it as “a significantly new and clear direction, that of harm minimisation, which has not always been acceptable to a large sector of society.” Commissioner for Children Roger McClay called it “an exciting advance towards a healthier future.” Mental Health Services said that the NDP “supports better treatment services, especially for those who suffer both drug use problems and mental illness.”

Allen & Clarke Policy and Regulatory Specialists

provided a qualitative review of the policy in 2004. It questioned forty stakeholders, including NORML as well as a range of government and NGOs, on the effectiveness of the inaugural policy. They also conducted a literature review on what was happening in other countries, in order to contrast and compare differing approaches elsewhere.

The stakeholder review found

that the NDP lacked leadership, which needed to be stronger and more coherent. The National Drug Policy lacked visibility, especially in non-government sectors. And, perhaps most importantly, the implementation of the policy needed to be specifically resourced. Without a budget of its own, the NDP was reliant on a hodgepodge of inter-governmental donations.

The literature review found

there were two main approaches to drugs. The European model favoured a harm minimisation approach, which was also used in Australia and Canada. This policy appreciated that drug use cannot always be eliminated and that sometimes compassion is the better part of valour. Then there was the US model of prohibition, favoured by the Scandinavian countries as well as Singapore and Thailand.

War on Drugs continues...IN SPITE of the National Drug Policy’s harm minimisation rhetoric, it seems this year police have escalated their annual crackdown on the cannabis community. In just one instance near Thames, a squad of 10 armed police, cameras, sniffer dogs and a police helicopter spent four hours raiding the home of a an 80 year old and other retired people in order to confiscate 8 grams of bud, 3 grams of cabbage and two plants. Armed police roamed Great Barrier Island with dogs and copters, conducting fishing expeditions on properties of suspected hippies. Around Wanaka and Otago, armed men in camouflage gear were running through the bush and turning up in people’s gardens. All around the country, police helicopters have been spraying blue pesticide on any cannabis plants they see. Some of the poisoned crop will make its way onto the market, but according to the police, that’s harm minimisation for you…

Manukau police have been staking out tinnie houses in Otara and arresting customers for the invited media. Operation Beware has so far netted over 40 arrests, including a painter, electrician, nurse, landscaper, labourer, plumber, mechanic, mortgage broker, train driver, legal secretary as well as students. Police are ‘shocked’ to discover that normal people in paid employment use cannabis. They are so shocked, they want to tell the arrested citizens’ employers and get them fired. Must be their version of harm minimisation again. > Send tales of Drug War stupidity to [email protected]

Associate Minister of Health and Chairman of the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy, Jim Anderton, recently launched the National Drug Policy 2007 – 2012. The document represents a sea change, from a previous credo of harm minimisation to a new but familiar mantra of Prohibit and Be Damned, writes WILL DE CLEENE.

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This policy focused on demand reduction (usually through abstinence programs) and supply control (backed by the brute force of the state).

The 65-page report concluded that the National Drug Policy was a living document and needed to continue. Harm minimisation should be retained as the key underlying philosophy, although debate should ensue on what harm minimisation meant and whether the three prongs were in the right order.

Jim Anderton’s 2007 – 2012 NDP stands in stark contrast

to all that has gone before. The over arching goal is no longer empowerment of individuals over their circumstances, but “to prevent and reduce the health, social and economic harms that are linked to tobacco, alcohol, illegal and other drug use.” There is no admission of limited resources. It presumes that prevention, a code word for prohibition, is achievable. The prongs have been rearranged, prioritising them as supply control, demand reduction and problem limitation, which is the new name for the old harm minimisation. The term ‘harm minimisation’ has been hijacked to now mean an improvement in “social, economic and health outcomes”. The priority has changed from health to socioeconomic outcomes.

The observance of individual rights has disappeared completely. Efficiency is likewise omitted. The checks and balances that once gave the NDP credibility have gone. What was based on the European harm minimisation model has been reduced to an unimaginative retreat to the US prohibition one. There have been no glowing comments from the Sallies, NZDF or health workers on this NDP.

The 2007 – 2012 NDP has not corrected the errors of the first one that Allen & Clarke’s review pointed out. A failure of leadership from the Ministry of Health has led to them losing the turf war to police and customs, who have very clear ideas on how they can improve

their arrest rates and revenue (see box this page and “Asset seizure proposed” on p34).

The lack of independent funding leaves the NDP fiscally and developmentally castrated. For example, the National Drug Policy Discretionary Grant Fund is dished out by a panel consisting of two super-quangos; the Inter-Agency Committee on Drugs and the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy. This year, invitations for funding have been offered in very specific areas. “Research can be conducted with the rationale that prevalence of (unclassified psychoactive plants such as salvia divinorum, Kratom, morning glory seeds etc.) may be increasing and if a classification of BZP and related substances goes ahead, these products could become the main business of party pill shops. Research should focus on any of the following; toxicity, prevalence of use and associated harms.”

So be warned. This drug policy is not interested in minimising harm or asking questions. It is determined to justify its answer of increasing prohibition. In spite of the 1972-3 Blake-Palmer Report that recommended prohibition be continued “only so long as it was seen to be largely effective,” the 1998 Health Select Committee Inquiry that unanimously recommended “the Government review the appropriateness of existing policy on cannabis and its use and reconsider the legal status of cannabis,” and the 2003 Health Select Committee Inquiry that concluded that “the current prohibition regime is not effective in limiting cannabis use,” Jim Anderton stands resolute as King Canute.

If there is one silver lining on the dark cloud of the new National Drug Policy, it is that it may provide the seed for a suitable public backlash to promote what should have been done long ago; completely re-write the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Will de Cleene is a NORML Board member and media commentator at http://goNZoFreak-power.blogspot.com


BY RICHARD GOODE

Y2K was a watershed in the history of New Zealand’s drug policy. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 2000 established a new basis for classifying controlled drugs. New Zealand’s drug policy today is - or is meant to be - evidence-based, meaning that the classification of drugs is based on the risk of harm that the drug poses to individuals or society.

It was also the year BZP-based party pills were first sold in New Zealand.

To assess the risk of harm, the Misuse of Drugs Amendment

Act 2000 established the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs (EACD) to examine the evidence and provide expert advice to the Minister of Health as new substances are considered for classification.

Drugs posing a “very high” risk of harm should be scheduled as “Class A”, drugs posing a “high” risk of harm should be scheduled as “Class B” and drugs posing a “moderate” risk of harm should be scheduled as “Class C”.

Prior to 2000, the classification of controlled drugs was not evidence-based but depended on historical factors, international treaties (for example, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs), perceived degree of harmfulness and, of course, moral panic and media-driven hysteria.

That’s how we ended up with thalidomide - a drug notorious for causing terrible birth defects in the children of women who were prescribed it, but with no recreational use - classified as Class A, along with heroin, LSD and PCP.

It’s how we ended up with perhaps the most vile amendment of all to the Misuse of Drugs Act - the 1987 “analogues” amendment, which classified as Class C any substance “that has a structure substantially similar to that of any controlled drug”. In one fell swoop, huge numbers of drugs - including drugs with no psychoactive effects, and drugs that did not even exist at the time - were criminalised.

Does the new system mean we can look forward to the availability of safe, legal drugs alongside the dangerous, illegal ones? Or is the new system

just a facade, with drugs being classified the way they always were - if they get you high, you’re not allowed to take them?

Party pills passed an initial evaluation in 2004, when

the EACD found that there was insufficient information available on which to base a classification. A new “Class D” was created, and BZP became the first and (so far) only Class D drug, restricted

but not illegal. BZP was given minimal regulations - an R18 age restriction, an advertising ban and a mandatory warning label - while Jim Anderton commissioned several studies into the potential harms of party pills.

The research had to be commissioned here, because next to no research had been done anywhere else in the world.

If it weren’t for the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 2000, we might have followed the lead of the United States, who

in 2002 placed BZP and TFMPP in Schedule 1 (the equivalent of Class A) on the basis of the same (lack of) information. (In fact, the scheduling of BZP in the United States may have been the result of a typo. The US Drug Enforcement Administration declared, “BZP is about 20 times more potent than amphetamine” but later acknowledged that they meant to say “20 times less potent”.)

The results of the research started to come in and the EACD issued a report just before Christmas. It found that BZP poses a moderate risk of harm and, accordingly, Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton announced an impending ban on BZP and piperazine-based party pills. In line with the procedure laid down by the 2000 amendment, he announced he would be seeking the views of “interested stakeholders” before making a final recommendation

to Parliament. Anderton hopes to use the

“ a f f i r m a t i v e r e s o l u t i o n ” procedure that was created by a 2005 amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act, which reduces parliamentary input to a single vote on an “Order in Council”. Unlike regular law changes there is no automatic right for the public to make submissions. This 28-day fast-track was intended by parliament to be used for newly emerging drug treats, but with industry reports of 24 million pills sold over the past six years and 50,000 people using them in any given week, it would be hard to argue that BZP is such a case.

Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee criticised the affirmative resolution procedure in 2004, saying that while the short time frame (28 days) “may be adequate for non-contentious issues..., [it] may not be adequate for contentious classifications or reclassifications, for example, if the classification of cannabis was to change”.

The advent of piperazine-based party pills has put the

system to the test. And the system looks to be headed towards a “not achieved”.

For starters, BZP does not pose a moderate risk of harm to anyone. The evidence is clear that BZP is like peanut butter, in that a handful of people have extreme adverse reactions to the substance, while the rest of us can use the substance with relative impunity. Peanut butter does not pose a “moderate risk of harm”. To a tiny minority it poses an extreme risk of harm, and to the overwhelming majority it poses no great risk of harm at all. It’s

Class D

The Party Pill TestIM

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Problems with banning BZP include:> Criminalising an industry (with serious offences) that Parliament decided in 2005 should be regulated as a legal industry, affecting thousands of individuals with a large proportion aged under 25> The loss of BZP as a legal alternative to drugs such as methamphetamine , whose harmful effects are well proven and have a major impact upon our criminal justice system> The high likelihood that sale of BZP would continue as a criminal activity completely beyond the reach of sensible regulation, and that it could come under the control of gangs who already play a major role in the methamphetamine trade.

These concerns were acknowledged by the EACD in its advice to the Minister, which stated that it is possible that people who might otherwise use more harmful drugs were using BZP, and there is no guarantee that a ban will be effective. It also recognised that there are advantages in retaining BZP as a restricted substance.

Source: Social Tonics Association www.savethepills.com


the same with BZP. But the EACD saw fit to “average out” these risks and declare that BZP poses a moderate risk of harm - thus making it fit the criterion for classification as Class C.

Not only did the EACD recommend “ that BZP be classified under Schedule 3 Part 1 (Class C1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975,” but also “that the classification as a Class C1 drug covers all known analogues and derivatives of benzylpiperazine and phenylpiperazine that have no known therapeutic use”. Psychoactive analogues include not just TFMPP (the other active ingredient in many party pills) but also the more obscure PFPP, meOPP and mcPP. Does the EACD have any evidence at all of harms associated with these products? If not, then their proposal is totally contrary to the letter and spirit of the 2000 amendment.

By the way, the qualification that the piperazines to be banned must have “no known therapeutic use” is to avoid criminalising piperazine derivatives such as motion sickness pills (cyclizine and meclizine) and a drug whose use is especially prevalent among males in Jim Anderton’s age group - sildenafil, otherwise known as Viagra.

It’s interesting how often it’s pointed out, by those who

would like BZP banned, that BZP is illegal in the U.S. It’s always struck me as odd that we would look to the U.S. as a model of our drug policy (the so-called land of the free has the highest incarceration in the Western world) yet we look elsewhere for our foreign policy.

But what will be really odd is if the government decides to ban TFMPP (the “trippy” ingredient in party pills) as well as BZP (the “speedy” ingredient). Odd, because TFMPP is legal in the U.S. Not just legal, it’s only the second drug ever to have been legalised in the U.S. (the first drug was alcohol, when the Americans realised that Prohibition was a really, really bad idea). And here we are, thinking of banning it.

What about the quality of the research that the EACD cited in support of its recommendation? Only two studies had been published and peer-reviewed. The EACD based its report, in part, merely on summaries of preliminary findings provided by researchers. Furthermore, some of the research relies on self-reports (notoriously unreliable) of the number of party pills taken with no actual measurements of the amounts of BZP and TFMPP, or indeed, any distinction made between the two substances. As Dr. Paul Gee, author of the study with the most damning results, acknowledges, “patients with adverse effects took an average of 4.5 tablets/capsules,” but this “bears no relation to actual dose taken.” Some studies were not able to distinguish between party pill only cases and cases where pills were taken with alcohol or other drugs. Other research on which the EACD recommendation is based is not finished, not published and/or not peer-reviewed. Therefore, it is bad science and any decision based on it is bad policy making.

Dr. Richard Goode is the Spokes-man on Drugs for the Libertarianz Party.


woRLD NEWSWITH HARRY CORDING

UK report urges radical new approach to drugsCurrent British drug

policies are failing, and alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than many illegal drugs. These are some of the conclusions in a report released by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce.

E n t i t l e d I l l e g a l D r u g s , Communities and Public Policy, Drugs - Facing Facts, the report proposes a radical rethink in drugs policy ahead of a major government review of the National Drug Strategy in 2008.

It recommends policies with more emphasis on reducing harm and based on facts rather than moral panics.

The two year study by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, or RSA argued that “whether we like it or not, drugs are and will remain a fact of life. On that basis, the aim of the law should be to reduce the amounts of harms caused to individuals, their friends and families, their children and their communities.”

“The use of illegal drugs is by no means always harmful, any

more than alcohol use is always harmful,” said Professor Anthony King of Essex University, the commission chairman. “The evidence suggests that a majority of people who use drugs are able to use them without harming themselves or others.”

The study ranked alcohol as the fifth most dangerous drug used after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methadone. Amphetamines were ranked eighth, tobacco ninth, cannabis

Cannabis Granny back in courtPatricia Tabram, known as the Cannabis Granny, became a hero to the cannabis community after being convicted two years ago. Recently she was back in court and defiant in the face of injustice.

Three years ago, at age 65, she smoked the first joint of her life. It was like discovering a miracle cure for her long-term depression and back pain, and the side effects of the prescription drugs.

People in her village of Humshaugh, UK, soon noticed the change. “They kept saying to me, ‘Pat, you look great’, and I’d say, ‘Yes, I’ve been cooking with cannabis’.”

She began cooking for friends disabled by illness. As a former chef and restaurant owner, Pat knows her way around the kitchen. Her recipes include cannabis biscuits, soups, casseroles, cannabis leek and chicken pie, and cannabis lime cheesecake. After scoring in a local pub for a while, she decided to save money and grow her own. But police raided her home, found 31 plants, and charged her with possession with intent to supply. Judge David Hodson gave her a suspended sentence, saying he refused to make her a martyr.

She used her sudden public profile to campaign for medicinal cannabis and has published two books: her life story, Grandma Eats Cannabis, and her Cannabis

Cookbook. She was a candidate for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance at the 2005 general election.

Police raided her home a second time and found 4 plants, plus cannabis powder for her recipes. She told police about the cannabis curries, casseroles, and ice cream in the freezer - which the cops left because they did not want to deprive her of food.

This time she was fined 1000 pounds and sentenced to 250 hours community service. Pat Tabram remains a roaring lion. “I am still going to medicate with cannabis. Emmeline Pankhurst had to go to prison three times before women got the vote, so I am not going to be worried about it.”

11th, LSD 14th and ecstasy 18th.

The commission, composed of academics, politicians, drug workers, journalists and a senior police officer, said Britain wastes large amounts of money on futile efforts to stop the supply of illegal drugs.

The report argued for addicts to be given jobs and housing as part of treatment.

For more, see www.theRSA.org

The new drug ranking system used three main factors to determine the potential harm that a substance causes: physical harm to the user, tendency to induce dependence in the user, and the effect of its use on families, communities and society in general. This is what they found:

1 Heroin2 Cocaine3 Barbiturates4 Street Methodone5 Alcohol6 Ketamine7 Benzodiazepines8 Amphetamine9 Tobacco10 Buprenorphine

11 Cannabis12 Solvents13 4-MTA14 LSD15 Ritalin16 Anabolic steroids17 GHB18 Ecstasy19 Alkyl nitrites20 Khat

Hypocrite Tory leader: bust them, not me!UK Conservative Party leader David “the hypocrite” Cameron is urging the Government to take a harder line on possession and supply of cannabis despite reports of his own youthful toking.

Cameron believes cannabis should be reclassified as a Class B drug, reversing the decision to downgrade it to Class C three years ago. He called it “harmful and dangerous” (potential side effects include becoming a politician). The Tory leader, who has neither confirmed nor denied reports that he used cannabis as a student at Eton 25 years ago, said it made it more difficult for parents to keep their children away from drugs. He did not comment on how easy it was to score at Eton under the prohibition regime.

Cameron said he is “relaxed” about legalising cannabis for medicinal use if there is evidence of its health benefits.


woRLD NEWSWITH HARRY CORDING

No doobies in DubaiA Christchurch student busted in Dubai for a tiny amount of marijuana earlier this year was lucky to avoid doing serious jail time in the strictly prohibitionist state.

Passover pot not kosherMarijuana is not kosher for Passover, and Jews who enjoy the herb should abstain during the week of religious observance.

US court victory for medical marijuanaA recent court decision in California is a significant win for medical marijuana.

Mariam Shafeek was arrested at Dubai airport during a stopover on her way home to New Zealand after visiting family in Cairo. A search found 0.2 grams of marijuana - about enough for a cone. The penalty for marijuana

possession in the United Arab Emirates is four years jail, regardless of the amount. Like Shapelle Corby, she claimed to have no knowledge of how it got there. Mariam spent 9 days in a cell with eight others at Dubai’s al-Markapet

women’s jail. Her bed was an uncovered mattress on the floor and she was subjected to interrogation for up to six hours at a time. A date was set for a preliminary hearing, then the charge was dropped without explanation and she was released. Mariam is lucky - an American citizen was jailed for a smaller amount last year. Travellers beware

- take care in the middle east if you value your liberty.

Israel’s Green Leaf Party announced that products of the cannabis plant have been grouped by rabbis within a family of foods such as peas, beans and lentils that are off-limits to Jews of European descent during Passover. The Green Leaf Party,

which advocates legalising cannabis, said it was issuing its advisory as

a service to Jews who want to remain kosher during Passover. It said the ban could be

a blessing in disguise. “Logic dictates that if the rabbis say cannabis is non-kosher for Passover, it is apparently kosher during the rest of the year,” said Michelle Levin, a spokeswoman for the party.

San Diego Superior Court rejected a lawsuit brought by three counties attempting to challenge California’s medical marijuana laws.The lawsuit was brought

against the state of California by San Diego, San Bernardino and Merced counties. They argued that federal laws prohibiting all use of marijuana invalidate state medical marijuana laws.The Drug Policy Alliance,

with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Safe Access, intervened in the case to represent patients, caregivers, and doctors. The court confirmed

the validity of California’s Compassionate Use Act, which allows qualified

patients with a doctor’s recommendation to use medical marijuana. The Medical Marijuana Program Act, passed in 2003, requires counties to implement an identification card program that allows law enforcement to properly identify legitimate patients.Despite the ruling, the

federal government’s persecution of medical cannabis users and providers goes on. DEA agents raided 11 medical marijuana clinics in Los Angeles, where nearly 100 medical marijuana dispensaries operate, seizing several thousand pounds of marijuana. Several people were detained, although no arrests were made.

Obama owns up - kind of. Bill Clinton famously admitted to having smoked marijuana but denied having ever inhaled. George Bush, while acknowledging a near-alcoholic past, refused to say whether he had ever taken illegal drugs. But a generation later there seems to be less bashfulness about the topic. Barack Obama, the Democratic senator who is bidding to become

America’s first black president, has admitted taking both cannabis and cocaine while he was a teenager. In a 1995 memoir he wrote: “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack though.” He now says his activities were part of a youthful behaviour he has long left behind and which he does not condone.

Government propaganda curbedThe US Congress passed legislation placing new reservations on the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It has limited the testing of mycoherbicides to US laboratories. Mycoherbicides have been developed to kill coca plantations in Latin America, but can also kill food crops and pollute water supplies.The legislation

also prohibits the

government’s anti-marijuana ad campaign being used against marijuana law reform ballot measures. The funds made available for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign can no longer be expended for partisan political purposes, or express advocacy in support of or to defeat any candidate, ballot initiative, legislative or regulatory proposal.

FALC

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A short history ofmedical marijuana

MEDiCAL

Part Two of a Two Part Review by JONATHAN RENNIE

Aotearoan Apothecary

New Zealand once enjoyed its own little golden age of cannabis based apothecary. In 1883 Mother Aubert brought cannabis medicine here and set about producing remedies that combined it with the curative powers of native plants. Anecdotal evidence exists that in places where the plant later began to grow wild, local Maori also incorporated hemp into their rongoa (traditional medicines). Early New Zealand chemists and herbalists naturally kept cannabis products on their shelves and when the NZ Government introduced its first controls on the importation of opiates and other plant-based drugs, cannabis remained classified with herbs and teas, free from all duty.

But in 1928 the Dangerous Drugs Regulations were gazetted, which strictly licensed the sale of Indian hemp for medical use only. Then in 1954, the World Health Organisation stopped all trade in Indian Hemp for medicine, officially ending medical marijuana in NZ and nearly everywhere else.

In a less innocent part of the world, powerful forces had been at work to bring this about...

The Men Who Murdered Medicine

After the repeal of alcohol prohibition in 1933, the American booze police faced an uncertain future. So the newly appointed Commissioner for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, reinvented the enemy. Middle America was soon being frightened by tales of Mexican immigrants getting high and wild on a strange drug called marihuana. Folks did not realise

this was the cannabis they bought in remedies from the chemist. To increase his powers, Anslinger set about getting the drug banned at a federal level. He treated the medical profession with total disdain.

Anslinger began ramming his Marihuana Tax Bill through Congress. The American Medical Association sent its best man, Dr. William C. Woodward, to contest it. Woodward argued eloquently, but to no avail. The game was fixed and the Act was passed in 1937.

Because doctors who prescribed cannabis medicines were sitting ducks for the Narcs, the Act quickly served to wipe out legitimate medicinal use, while underground recreational use flourished. Anslinger’s reefer madness propaganda successfully terrified the public and his drug war empire grew accordingly.

Unconvinced, New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia commissioned a comprehensive study into cannabis use, undertaken by some of the city’s leading doctors. In 1942

the Commission reported there was no evidence of mental or physical damage attributable to marijuana use. The FBN then systematically destroyed the careers of the doctors involved and Anslinger had all cannabis research banned.

The Western world mostly aped US drug policy, but medical cannabis carried on in some countries. So in 1954, using America’s power of veto as a threat, Anslinger bullied the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs into declaring marijuana of no medical value. This led to the ratification of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in March 1961, which effectively prohibited cannabis worldwide.

JFK’s Back Pains

Amazingly, Anslinger thought the Convention wasn’t strident enough. He refused to sign and went home disgruntled. (The US eventually signed in 1967). Anslinger finally resigned from the Bureau in 1962, possibly forced out of office by the new President: John F. Kennedy.

That year, Kennedy arranged

a Conference on Narcotic and Drug Abuse which led, in 1963, to a Presidential Advisory Committee to investigate cannabis. After solid analysis, the Committee strongly attacked accepted prohibitionist wisdom.

JFK suffered from serious lower back pain most of his life and apparently used cannabis as an analgesic. Could he have been quietly manoeuvring for medical marijuana, with the intention of being first in line at the pharmacy? We’ll never know, because later that year he got his brains blown out by God-knows-who. However, his efforts did signal a shift in middle class attitudes to the drug.

Forbidden Medicine: Fugitive Pharmacy

Scientists continued their research into cannabis, although prohibition kept licenses and resources precarious. Meanwhile, as marijuana use infiltrated Western society, modern folk knowledge of its medicinal powers inevitably grew.

In 1965 Israeli chemist Dr Raphael Mechoulam, discovered delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marijuana’s principle psychoactive chemical. It represented a new class of pharmaceutical compounds: the cannabinoids. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare subsequently released a report in 1971 acknowledging the medical potential of cannabis (this, despite Nixon’s new Drug Schedule which stated there was none). There followed an optimistic flurry of new cannabis research. The evidence this produced helped pressure

NICENESS Bay of Plenty


www.cannabis-med.orgfor the latest medical marijuana research go to

FEATURE

the Nixon administration into initiating the New Drugs Programme, which allowed some patients to receive federally grown pot. (Very few applications were successful and the marijuana supplied was of extremely poor quality.)

But a generation of conservative parents was emerging in the 70s who were alarmed by liberal attitudes to marijuana and its growing popularity among teenagers. This encouraged the entrenched anti-drug bureaucracy to fund a raft of biased research intended to demonstrate the dangers of cannabis, while scientists not pursuing this agenda lost their funding. Reagan came to office and the Drug War was revitalised.

Meanwhile, the mechanisms in various countries, including NZ, supposedly meant to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana, got tied up in courts or bureaucracy.

Medical Marijuana Fights Back: Here Come the Cannabinoids!

Science struggled on. Papers emerged throughout the 80s further confirming the medicinal powers of cannabis, especially as a palliative for serious illnesses - and establishing its relative safety as drug.

Then the discoveries, in 1988 and 1992, of the human cannabinoid receptor system and its endogenous correlate, anandamide, were made by Allyn Howlett, William Devane and Raphael Mechoulam. Now that a human neurotransmitter system for cannabinoids had been identified, a world of medical possibilities opened up and the research exploded.

Several synthetic cannabinoids have been developed for medical use, often with a view to reproducing the medical benefits of the plant, while eliminating the “high”. This has only achieved limited success, partly because the psychoactive effects of cannabis are so closely linked to its medicinal actions.

The amassed body of evidence in favour of medical marijuana has led to its acceptance by much of the global medical community, and the public at large. At grassroots, compassion clubs, which illegally sell cannabis to patients with a letter of recommendation from supportive doctors have sprung up (and been shut down) in California, Canada and Great Britain.

There have also been important legislative and judiciary developments. The Compassionate Use Act 1996 legalised medical marijuana in the State of California. Despite the federal Drug Enforcement Agency’s refusal to respect the state’s jurisdiction, 10 other states have done the same. In 2001 Canada legalised medical marijuana: Health Canada supplies herbal marijuana, or patients can grow their own. In the Netherlands, the Bureau of Medical Cannabis now supplies two varieties of medical grade marijuana through pharmacies.

Medical cannabis trials using whole herb extract have been carried out in Britain since 2000, many using GW Pharmaceuticals’ sub-lingual spray, Sativex.

< continued from over page

Although the results have been promising, the process of getting the product to patients is being held up by the Government. Several other countries have shown an interest in GWP’s products, as an answer to growing calls for medpot. This does raise the spectre of corporate-pharmacy control over cannabis medicines, which many drug companies would no-doubt love. But as medical marijuana gains acceptance, fears of misuse will subside and the perceived justification for pharmacy control will probably fade.

Green Politics, Green Medicine

In 2006 the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill was drawn from the Private Member’s hat in the NZ Parliament. Originally penned by Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons, the bill aims to legalise doctor-prescribed cannabis, with provisions in place for various models of supply, including home cultivation. If passed, it will be the first item of marijuana law reform passed in New Zealand since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. Stewardship of the bill was taken over by Green MP Metiria Turei, who has postponed its first reading until she is more sure it will have the numbers in Parliament.

Shortly after the bill was drawn, a TV3 News poll put public support at a whopping 63%. NORML NZ has already presented the Health Select Committee with a 3000 signature petition in support of the bill [and is collecting more signatures - sign it on page 5!]. The parliamentarians remain

queerly out of step with the voting public on this issue. Under MMP,

political agendas are tangled, and public opinion sometimes gets overlooked.

It remains to be seen if the Aotearoan law reform movement can

muster the army of lobbyists, brave patients and doctors, supportive journalists and concerned members of the public it will need in order to swing the vote in Parliament.

If it happens, New Zealand could join a growing fraternity of nations and states which have chosen compassion over politics. History will look back upon the medical marijuana nations of the early 21st century with gratitude. Will New Zealand be one of them?

Sources: Martin Booth, Cannabis: a History, 2003; Chris Conrad, Hemp for Health, 1997; Redmer Yska, New Zealand Green, 1990; Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 2000; NORML News, Winter/Spring 2006.

TARANAKI HOME GROWN


HIMALAYAN HIGHFreak Street is a picturesque

cobblestone lane in the heart of Kathmandu, situated near ancient Hindu temples and monuments. In the 1970s it became a haven for hippies who flocked there to enjoy Nepal’s legal hashish trade.

The original freaks often begged for money, went round naked and even kept pet monkeys. They were tolerated until 1976 when the US pressured Nepal to introduce cannabis prohibition. Thirty years on, freaky travellers still gravitate towards central Kathmandu, even if this means being surrounded by the fallout from 10 years of civil conflict.

On the 6th of April 2006 Maoist rebels, who control the majority of rural Nepal, i n i t i a t e d a month long general strike i n p r o t e s t a g a i n s t t h e m o n a r c h y . Shops were closed, borders and highways

blockaded and curfews enforced. Across Nepal millions took to the streets in protest at the dictatorial rule of the world’s only Hindu King, King Gyanendra. He came to power following the massacre of the Royal Family in 2001. The new King dissolved parliament and assumed total control of the country and its military. This only served to intensify the conflict between Maoist rebels and the Army, which has resulted in 13,000 deaths since 1996.

Facing the prospect of being confined to Freak St for a whole month, what better to do than kick back and get acquainted with the rich, dark flavours of Nepalese Charras. Charras is

hand rubbed black hashish from the Himalayas where Indica crops grow wild - especially in peoples gardens. One Tola (about 11g) sells for around 500 Nepali Rupees or NZ$10. Scoring Charras is not difficult, with street dealers regularly approaching foreigners (“sir, sir, something...”) but quality and price vary a fair bit. Because of the strength of charras, a small ball is heated and rubbed in with tobacco. Locals often empty cigarettes, mix in charras and then re-pack the cigarette for a discreet smoke in a café or bar. Another popular and powerful way to smoke is the traditional chillum.

Thanks to its Hindu heritage, cannabis or Ganja as its called, enjoys high regard in Nepal. Weed leaf beanies are a favourite item of clothing for toddlers. The chief Hindu god Shiva also happens to be the god of Ganja. Shiva is a mythical dread-locked hermit whose birthday in February is a major day of celebration for Hindus. In Durbar Square, at the northern end of Freak St, hundreds of Shivite Sadhu gather, naked and covered in ash, to smoke in public, much like a holy version of J-Day. In the evening villagers come together across

t h e c o u n t r y to ce leb ra te around a bon-f i r e w i t h a b i g p o t o f Gan ja food , w h i c h e v e n the ch i ldren partake in as the stoned revellers play traditional

music late into the night.

Staying in Freak St during the popular uprising was

literally like being in the eye of the storm. Many protesters had travelled to Kathmandu and were gathering on the outskirts of the city. At first protest organisers, the ‘seven agitating parties’ were unsure how far they could defy curfew orders inside city limits without suffering retribution. Every day at protest rallies people were being killed and injured by police bullets. The first really big defiance of curfew was a crowd of tens of thousands of women, dressed in colourful saris. The men soon got the idea and Kathmandu became completely surrounded by protesters, many proudly displaying the hammer and sickle. The King was held up in his palace just a few kilometers from Freak street, surrounded by very edgy security forces.

The rooftops of Freak street were a surreal place to get baked and witness the drama unfold. Across Kathmandu plumes of smoke rose from street fires, while medieval mobs ran around with flaming sticks. One day locals took to their rooftops banging pots and pans while troops patrolled below. After a

big chillum each we opened the guest house windows and joined in with a drum and didge. A friend coming back from the

embassy said the noise had spread for miles across the rooftops of the city.

Every day the protesters grew stronger despite troops opening fire on crowds with live ammunition. It was only a matter of time before the protesters engulfed the central city and royal residence. Eventually, after a month of clashes, the King agreed to address the nation. Across the city streets were deserted as people were glued to the television. Next moment cheers of joy resounded from peoples homes. The King had announced he would reinstate parliament and hand over power to an interim administration. The next day protesters reached the inner city, not to stage a bloody coup but to celebrate their victory peacefully in a large park. A year on from the these events, Maoists have just joined the Nepali government, assuming responsibility for five portfolios. After a decade of fighting they have signed a peace accord and handed over 3500 weapons.

So if you are thinking of going travelling and want to sample the world’s finest at an affordable price, keep Freak St, Kathmandu in mind. It isn’t too freaky, really.

JULIAN CRAWFORD has just returned from Nepal, where he experienced the local canna-culture - and the overthrow of the government

TRAVEL


FEATURE

‘Twas twelve days before Christmas when the Government announced its intention to create a new offence making it illegal to drive while impaired by illegal drugs in order to crack down on “drugged” drivers.

As JASON BAKER-SHERMAN reports, the focus of the media was the roadside test the Police would use to judge impairment. But greater scrutiny raises doubts about the Government’s commitment to road safety that should be of great concern to everyone, both cannabis users and non-users alike.

Concerns over cannabis testTesting for cannabis impairment is far more problematic than testing for alcohol impairment: > There is no proven correlation between THC concentrations in the blood or urine and intoxication or impairment. > THC and its metabolites are stored within the fat cells of the body and slowly released back into the bloodstream which means that someone who has smoked cannabis can still test positive for it days or even weeks after being stoned.> Tests using urine samples can only indicate “recent” cannabis use as they measure metabolised THC. Blood samples can be used to measure either delta-9-THC or its metabolites depending on the analytical method used, but taking a blood sample is invasive and could potentially contravene the Bill of Rights> Saliva-based cannabis tests are not yet reliable or sensitive enough to be used as evidence.

Roadside drug testing

Transport Minister Annette King said the

issue of drugged drivers was one of the most important raised during the “See You There … Safe As!” workshops held since June 2006, yet gave no evidence to support the level of concern being shown. Indeed, Ms King admitted the lack of evidence herself when she said, somewhat nonsensically, that it was difficult to pinpoint the level of illegal drug use in drivers except that it was higher than the statistics suggested.

Ms King revealed the Government’s real modus operandi by stating that “What we are trying to achieve, however, is greater road safety in ways the majority of New Zealanders will acknowledge as making good sense, and which they will support as a consequence”. In other words a law against illegally drugged young drivers would be publicly acceptable whereas addressing the road safety issue of drivers impaired by prescription drugs would not.

But regardless, the question remains: Why create a new offence to allow the Police to do something that they can already do, that is, remove drug impaired drivers from the road?

Manufacturing the issue

In order to get a better understanding of the reasoning behind the proposed law it is necessary to return to 25th April 2000 when the Otago Daily Times reported, under the headline “Cannabis drivers seem safe except with alcohol: study”, that road researcher Dr John Bailey had analysed the blood of fatal crash victims and surprisingly discovered that drivers who had only cannabis in their blood appeared to be safer than drivers who didn’t have any drugs, legal or illegal, “on board”.

Less surprising was the study’s discovery that smoking cannabis while drinking and driving was a dangerous combination. Police Minister George Hawkins said the aim of the research was to show how widely cannabis was being used by drivers and how much of a problem it was. As the answer to the second question was “not much”, it was surprising that Dr Bailey should then mention having talked “to police and the Land Safety Transport Authority representatives about follow-up research” which would support the “proposition” of roadside testing for cannabis.

Furthermore, he added,

research results would be useful in the debate over whether cannabis should be decriminalised. It was said to be considered by Parliament towards the end of that year, at a time when a majority of MPs as well as two-thirds of New Zealanders were reported as supporting a law change.

Six months later The Dominion article “Cannabis link to fatal crashes shown” (2nd November 2000) reported on Dr Bailey’s follow-up research which now claimed to have “confirmed a long-suspected

link between cannabis use and repeat drink-driving” on the basis that 55% of the drunk drivers killed in road accidents with one or more convictions had cannabis in their blood compared to 61% of those who had two or more convictions.

Dr Bailey also expressed the paradox of the prohibitionist when he said his statistics high-lighted the need for tougher penalties while admitting that “most of these people have got an alcohol problem and many of them have a cannabis problem as well and

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The Roadside Impairment Test The Government is proposing to change the existing law which prohibits drivers using drugs if they are “incapable of maintaining proper control”, to prosecuting being “impaired” by drugs. Should a police officer suspects that a motorist may be impaired by illegal drugs then under the proposed new law it would become compulsory for that motorist to undergo a “Standardised Field Sobriety Test” such as:

> Balance: Motorist asked to stand up straight with feet together and hands by sides. The head is tilted back and eyes are closed before remaining like that for 30 seconds. Motorist indicates when they think the time is up.> Walk and turn: Motorist walks toe-to-heel along a line for nine steps, makes a balanced turn and then walks toe-to-heel back along the line with arms down by their side throughout.> One leg stand: Motorist stands with feet together, arms by sides and raises right foot off ground. Position is maintained for 30 seconds and then repeated with the left leg.> Finger to nose: Motorist closes eyes, tilts head back and touches nose with the nominated finger. Police officer then gets motorist to repeat with alternate fingers another six times.

During the test the police officers will be watching for swaying, loss of balance, hopping, use of arms to balance, head movement or inability to follow instructions correctly (even starting before being instructed!). The motorist’s eyes will also be examined for any pupil irregularities or eye redness. If a motorist is judged by the officer to have failed the test then they will be required to provide a blood sample and could be treated as a drunk-driver if any illegal drugs are detected. Failing an SFST is considered to demonstrate impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level of at least 0.1% (the legal blood alcohol limit is 0.08%). The million dollar question is - what will the THC blood concentration limit be? Or will any detected level of THC or THC metabolites be considered enough for prosecution?

NORML’s main concern is that failing the test is a subjective decision made by a police officer who would then require the driver to give a blood sample. Should that sample reveal even historical cannabis use via the presence of THC metabolites then that could be enough to convict the driver under the proposed law even though the impairment - if it existed - may have had a lawful cause like fatigue or a prescription drug. Given the widespread use of cannabis, hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will have THC metabolites in their system at any time - but that doesn’t mean they are unsafe drivers.

How reliable is the roadside test?

The roadside test used by Police to detect impairment is known as a Standardised Field Sobriety Test (SFST). A study published in Psychopharmacology (2005, 180:p107-114) showed that 5 minutes after smoking up to eight 2-second-long tokes of “high” dosage cannabis, a motorist with 70 ng of THC per ml of blood still has a better than 50-50 chance of passing an SFST, as long as they can keep their head still! For “low” dosage cannabis (55 ng THC/ml of blood) the odds are even better with a 75% pass rate. The study concluded SFSTs were only a “moderate predictor” of cannabis impairment. The study’s results were:

% classified as impaired (THC blood concentration, ng/ml, just before test) Time after smokingGroup 5 min 55 min 105 minPlacebo (0% THC) 2.5% (0) 7.5% (0) 5.0% (0)Low dose (1.74% THC) 23.1% (56) 23.1% (6.2) 25.4% (3.2) High dose (2.93% THC) 46.2% (71) 41.0% (6.8) 28.2% (3.7) Note: Psychoactive effects require somewhere in the range of 2 to 25 ng of THC per ml of blood depending on the user.

in many cases people who have these problems probably need medical help as much as punishment.”

Nevertheless this became the justification for roadside drug testing but was based on the blood samples of just 92 drink-drivers killed between 1994 and 1996 who had used cannabis within a few days of their death.

In June 2000 the Automobile Association’s national council voted unanimously to oppose any move to decriminalise cannabis, due to the drugs negative effect on driving performance. The AA believed that relaxation of the rules relating to cannabis use would be a “body blow” to the country’s road-safety programme and it called on “all MPs to vote against any change to NZ’s cannabis laws.”

In the August 2000 issue of its magazine Directions, then Transport Minister Mark Gosche said “I probably tend towards decriminalisation but I want to hear all the arguments first.”

Since then the Police and groups like the AA have

maintained their campaign to link cannabis use with road accidents despite Professor Jack Maclean, Director of the Road Accident Research Unit at Adelaide University, telling a 2001 Driver Fatigue Conference that “it has been impossible to prove marijuana affects driving adversely”, and that “there are some researchers who are going through incredible contortions to try and prove that [it] has to be a problem”.

The Otago Daily Times report “Cannabis and excessive speed factors in crash” (21st February 2002) is a good example. Despite police evidence that the victim “had smoked the equivalent of one cannabis cigarette between half an hour

and up to eight hours before his death” and that “it is likely the cannabis was consumed during the deceased’s time of work” the coroner judiciously decided that he could not say if the accident victim had been affected by cannabis when the accident happened.

Nine days later Wellington coroner Garry Evans was less reasonable when he said that “the death of a man whose car crashed off the Ngauranga Gorge flyover last year graphically illustrates the dangers of smoking cannabis before driving... In the experience of coroners and police officers, cannabis is not the innocuous recreational drug that a section of society would maintain. People who drive after having smoked cannabis put both their lives and the lives of others at peril” (“Wgtn coroner gives cannabis warning”, The Dominion, 2nd March 2002). The coroner’s report made cannabis seem more culpable by downplaying the influence of excessive and unsafe speed, the presence of two bald tyres on the vehicle and the victim’s lack of a driving licence.

Since then, there have been many other accidents including air, maritime and road that have been conveniently blamed on cannabis when the presence of THC metabolites are found in the blood of the driver, pilot or skipper. Which is why Annette King’s comment that “the aim of this policy is to ensure that people know if they get behind the wheel of a car and they are found to be impaired and it’s found in their blood, then they will be charged” should seem all the more alarming, as no mention is made of how much of “it” will be needed to prove “impairment”.


FEATURE

Ms King also mentioned that “we are not

introducing random drug testing at this stage” which seems to indicate that one day they could.

In answer to the question “Why does the new offence apply only to illegal drugs [and not tranquillisers]?”, Transport Minister Annette King replied “Illegal drugs may be a bigger safety risk than legal drugs. Prescribed medicines and over the counter medicines generally come with substantial warnings where necessary, and are used responsibly by the majority of the population. While the proposed new offence will

only apply to illegal drugs the offence of driving while being incapable of proper control will apply to both legal and illegal substances.”

Using the same logic, the best way to deal with the problem of cannabis and road safety would therefore be to legalise and regulate it’s supply, place substantial warnings on the packaging about using heavy machinery and driving after using cannabis, and allow the majority of New Zealanders to continue using cannabis in a responsible manner. The Police would still be able to remove any irresponsible cannabis users incapable of driving from our roads.

The most telling omission from Ms King’s road safety policy statement, however, was a lack of concern about fatigue. The day the Government announced it’s intentions was also the 2nd New Zealand Drowsy Driving Awareness Day but that was overshadowed by the attention given to the issue of “drugged” drivers. Ten days later, the Otago Daily Times reported (“Fatigue the silent killer, drivers warned” 23rd December 2006) that “the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the United Kingdom had shown up to half of all road accidents around the globe were caused by the driver simply being

too tired.” Land Transport NZ statistics had shown fatigue was a contributing factor in three fatalities, 228 injury crashes and 125 non-injury crashes on Otago roads between 2001 and 2006.

PM Helen Clark’s comments regarding a cellphone ban show a similar inconsistency. In “No driver cellphone ban, for now” (Otago Daily Times, 19th December 2006) she said that Cabinet decided against the ban on using cellphones while driving because research showed “it might - underlining might - save one life a year.” Yet in the same article United Future MP Gordon Copeland stated that cellphone distractions caused 79 crashes

in 2005, of which 7 were fatal. With “drugs” being proven in 3 crashes and suspected in 36, none fatal, during the same year, it is hard to see how Cabinet can justify its proposed roadside drug testing law.

The PM said a cellphone ban “has to be put against the inconvenience of the travelling public”. In other words road safety is just one part of the bigger picture. However, the road safety aspect of cannabis use has been given greater importance than the negative effects of prohibition even though many more people are killed and hurt by cannabis prohibition each year than by stoned drivers. Furthermore,

the state ruins peoples’ lives by treating cannabis users as criminals and by depriving the sick, and the healthy too, of a medicinal miracle. But the biggest irony is that the road safety aspects of cannabis use are pretty much independent of its legal status except that prohibition is an impediment to finding a meaningful solution to the problem.

Green Party Drug and Alcohol Spokesperson Metiria Turei said the proposed law “amounts to a body search, with no evidentiary threshold. It is a process open to abuse... The road accident statistics do not support the need to give Police this extension of their drug search powers. Some

drugs - including cannabis - can remain in the blood for weeks. When it comes to road safety though, what matters is the degree of impairment - whether that be caused by alcohol, by prescription drugs or by recreational drugs... If the Government really want to reduce road accidents related to alcohol and drugs, the message from the accident statistics is clear. It should lower the blood alcohol threshold for driving after drinking.”

Whangarei lawyer Dave Sayes noted police were already able to charge drivers under the influence of alcohol and drugs under the Transport Act. “The power already exists but the police really haven’t utilised it. This is a duplication - end of story.”

It is not hard to conclude that the Government’s proposed

new law to tackle “drugged” drivers seems far less about road safety and more about providing another blunt tool for the Police in the War on Drugs. Police National Headquarters Superintendent Dave Cliff’s comment that the impairment test had a lower threshold than the existing “incapable of proper control” test suggests it is the case.

A law making it illegal to drive with merely the presence of an illegal drug in one’s bloodstream epitomises prohibition in that it pointlessly creates a new problem by making something that isn’t a problem illegal while simultaneously ignoring other very real road safety issues such as fatigue, cellphone use and pharmaceutical impairment simply because they are legal.

While smoking cannabis before driving may not be the wisest thing to do, and should certainly never be mixed with drinking or done while driving, the evidence suggests cannabis users are at least as safe at driving as drug-free members of society. They are certainly far less dangerous than tired drivers.

“the proposed new law to tackle ‘drugged’ drivers seems far less about road safety and more about providing another blunt tool for the Police in the War on Drugs”

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BUSH DOCTOR’s

Manicuring

the Mastayoda

& hash-making!

Woohoo it’s autumn again, and everyone’s got loads of weed. Isn’t it choice getting baked

at this time of year? Nature is changing colours, there’s less people at the beach, even the food seems to taste better at the end of summer after a smoke.

It’s a time to kick back and enjoy the fruits of our summers’s labour. But if you are still cultivating a few late bloomers, I’ve got a couple of harvest tips for you...

Wear some latex gloves while manicuring the plants. Fresh resin will readily stick to anything and will build up

quickly on your hands in the process of handling green buds. The resin build up is easily rolled off latex to make the most beautiful black finger hash.

It’s much cleaner and easier to collect finger hash off latex rather than skin and fingernails. Plus if you need to do something else quickly while plucking (such as make a hot drink or go to the loo) you can just take off the gloves and go about your business without sticking to everything you touch.

When you get used to manicuring plants with your fingers, rather than with clippers or scissors, you’ll be amazed at how much finger hash you can collect. Great gobs of dark sticky goodness build up so quickly you can find yourself spending more time rolling hash off gloves rather than plucking leaves off plants. What I do when I’ve got time constraints on the harvest is just take off the gloves when they get too gummed up and grab a fresh pair. I’ll collect a pile of gummed up messy gloves throughout the days labour of love and chuck them in the freezer. Then when I’ve got time later, the frozen resin peels off effortlessly.

There is definitely a hand manicuring technique that facilitates processing loads of herb quickly (quicker than with scissors),

while yielding fat amounts of hash. The first step is to remove all the shade leaves from the plant by

pulling them down and away from the stalk. These large leaves are rubbish to go into your compost pile. Now you should be left with a plant devoid of large leaves, but still with a fair amount of crystal covered smaller leaves protruding out of the flowers. These leaves are removed using a quick pinching action as you turn the buds over and around in your hands to ensure the entire plant gets manicured. With practice this technique becomes much faster than scissors. The cabbage that gets removed in the second step of the hand manicure has generally got plenty of resin still coating the leaves, so it is perfect material to process into ice hash using the bubblebag ice and water separation technique.

Mila, the person responsible for inventing this revolutionary hash making technique, should be immortalized in cannabis

lore for her contributions to hash culture. The concept of separating oil based crystals from water based plant material using nothing but ice, water, agitation and filtration is astoundingly simple yet brilliantly effective. The end results are so impressive!! You can make awesome hash from average leaf that otherwise will often just get chucked away. In fact every grower that is serious about optimizing their crop should be using bubblebags. It’s a really good process to put mouldy buds through too. All the mould spores get rinsed off and chucked away with the vegetative residue, leaving behind clean, unadulterated trichromes [just make sure you rinse or flush it well so that all the spores are passed through]. Brilliant.

continued over page >


bushdoctor

Mastayoda - Whakatane, Bay of Plenty. These trichome-coated leaves are perfect for making hash

SouthAucks Ice

It’s possible to press the dried, trichromes into pieces of solid hash, but you don’t have to. A sprinkle of resin glands in a joint adds

fantastic flavour, makes it much, much stronger and makes it burn longer too. I love blowing peoples minds with trichrome enriched doobies, it gets you way higher, way faster, adding an almost psychedelic edge to the buzz. It’s doubly buzzy because the ice hash is a bonus freebie off the discards.

Just like good buds, hashish tastes richer and fuller after it has been cured for a few weeks. And just like herb, it needs to be

dried out properly before being stored in air tight glass jars. If you intend to store it for a long time, it’s best to store unpressed trichromes in their powdery state. In fact in traditional hashish

cultures like Afghanistan and Pakistan, hash farmers and traders would often store unpressed resin glands for years in cool, dark, dry underground cellars. They would only take out a small handful at a time which they hand pressed into round, flat patties or little black sausages. They knew that as soon as hash is pressed is should be consumed within weeks, as the pressing causes some of the resin glands to burst which starts a degradation process which leaves the hash rather less potent and flavoursome.

Fingerhash is generally a little contaminated with tiny bits of leaf and stamen which don’t really detract from the flavour, but do start oxidizing and/or moulding. So finger hash is generally perfect around 2 to 3 weeks after it has been made, long enough for the flavours to round out but not long enough to spoil.

Which brings me right back to where I started. Isn’t it a choice time of year, the outdoor fingerhash is just perfect, right

about now! Aaaahhh…

Nic’s lunar finger hash


KNOW youR RIGHTSLEGAL NEWS

Govt’s asset seizure bill violates rights

Supreme Court ruling on presumption for supplyThe Supreme Court’s recently decided on it’s first case involving the Misuse of Drugs Act’s presumption of supply.

Paul Rodney Hansen argued that the 900g of cannabis found on his farm was not his. Although he lost the case, the court ruled that by placing a legal burdon of proof on the accused, the Act was an unjustified limitation on the presumption of innocence.

Parliament had been assured by the Attorney-General in 2005 that the law did not represent an unjustified limitation on our fundamental rights and freedoms. Now 4 out of 5 members of the Supreme Court have decided that was wrong. Although the court said the Government was “under no obligation to change the law”, it was a “reasonable constitutional obligation” that there would be a reappraisal of the way it was implemented.

More info: Hansen v R [2007] NZSC 7 (20 Feb 2007)

Corruption in police & prisons requires a truly independent complaints authorityNew disciplinary procedures

will make it easier to sack bent cops, but the Police Complaints Authority must be made independent in practice, not just name.

While the recent attention given to dodgy after-hours activities among the police and corruption in the prisons service may not be news to many in the cannabis community, it has increased calls for them to be overseen by truly independent complaints and inspectorate bodies.

“Most New Zealanders never see this face of the police but for some, and in particular those least able to stick up for themselves, police abuse of power is a reality,” Green Party Justice spokesperson Nandor Tanczos said.

The Bazley report into police conduct found the existing system favoured the police and was a disincentive for lodging

complaints. It recommended a new system based on a code of conduct and requiring a lower standard of proof.

The police will stay under close scrutiny for 10 years - the State Services Commissioner will make an annual audit of police culture, and the Auditor-General will monitor how the report’s 60 recommendations are being implemented.

But that’s not enough, especially in light of revelations police stalled and resisted the Bazley inquiry. For the police to regain the public’s trust, they must no longer investigate complaints against their own members. And the complaints body should do more than simply review police investigations into police. It needs it’s own budget and investigative powers.

The Greens have led the campaign for a genuinely

independent Police Complaints Authority to be developed alongside an independent Prison Inspectorate. Now they’ve been joined by other parties, increasing pressure on the Government to amend the planned PCA legislation to truly make the body independent.

Ron Mark said “The Police Complaints Authority needs now to be absolutely 100 per cent

independent. New Zealand First is going to ask now that [Justice Minister Mark Burton] change the legislation he has drafted, to make the PCA an office of Parliament ... which has totally independent funding, which is not in any way subordinate to the Ministry of Justice or to the police and is seen to be totally and absolutely independent of those bodies.”

By HARRY CORDING

The Cr imina l Proceeds (Recovery) Bill, which had

its first reading in Parliament on March 20, proposes to seize people’s assets even though they have not been convicted of any crime.

The bill would allow both conviction-based forfeiture and confiscation which requires no conviction for property assumed to be the proceeds of crime or unlawfully derived income. Consequently, the same person may be the subject of criminal prosecution and confiscation action under the civil process. They would not have to be prosecuted to have their assets seized - but if they are prosecuted, they could not use their disputed assets to fund their defense.

There is provision for restraining orders to freeze assets while the Crown gathers evidence - and suspects may not even know they face action. The bill specifies that

“the court may not allow legal expenses to be paid out of the restrained property”.

The bill contains many of the same provisions as the Criminal Proceeds and Instruments Bill, which the government introduced in 2005 but withdrew before its first reading. It also contains amendments to the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1992 to allow New Zealand police to assist with asset seizures from foreign jurisdictions.

People who are targeted have to prove themselves innocent, and the bill allows the government to use an absurdly low standard of proof - “reasonable cause to believe” - to seize assets.

People who are acquitted can still have their assets seized.

This bill is a significant erosion of civil liberties and will almost certainly see the innocent punished. It violates fundamental norms of justice, such as the presumption of innocence and the prohibition on double jeopardy,

and could also breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Under the existing Proceeds of Crime Act 1991, which the new bill would replace, the total amount confiscated has been less than $10 million in 11 years. Police estimate the new law will reap $20 million a year.

The government has noted that other countries have been more successful in seizing assets. In New South Wales assets are often frozen under ex parte orders - issued without the defendant or their lawyer present. NSW has raked in $84 million since 1995 through its asset seizure law.

Brisbane criminal lawyer Ian Dearden, president of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, says a similar law in Queensland has caused some appalling miscarriages of justice. “It’s classically opinion-poll-driven legislation that seeks to wipe out the rights of people who legitimately own property by seizing that property on what’s

often no more than a suspicion. The onus is then on the owner of that property to prove otherwise. It can be very hard to prove income was legally derived without documented evidence.”

G r e e n M P a n d j u s t i c e spokesperson Nandor Tanczos says the bill “uses civil procedures to punish people for unproved and unspecified crimes. “It is an outright assault on basic principles of justice.”

Phillip Morgan QC, convenor of the New Zealand Law Society’s criminal law committee, is concerned that the new powers will tempt police to “take the easy route” rather than go for a conviction. “They may look at somebody they think is a drug dealer then think `Why not just seize his assets’. It’s a very large departure from the principles of justice.” He says it’s likely to be used to attack “ordinary members of the public who are easier to get” rather than organised crime.


LAWYERS LIST Whangarei: David Sayes 09 4382154; Nick Leader 09 4384039 Auckland: Peter Winter 09 3797658; Graeme Minchin 025 2122704; Johnnie Kovacevich 021 653933 or 09 3093364; Matt Goodwin 09 3750052 or 0274-999433, Colin Amery 09 2665910; Marie Dyhrberg 09 3604550; Adam Couchman 09 3733592; Charl Hirschfeld 09 3076997; Maria Pecotic 09 5227399; Owen Harold 09 6304969; Rodney Harrison 09 3034157; Grey Lynn Community Law: 09 3786085 Hamilton: Roger Layborne 07 8396288; Emily Coupland 07 8381069 Rotorua: Simon Lance 07 3460796 Hastings: Community Law Centre 06 8797625 Palmerston North: Peter Coles 06 3581075 Wairarapa: Peter Broad 021 3264547 or 06-3798049 Wellington: Michael Appleby 0274 403363; Chris Tennet 021 626878 or 04 4711952; Community Law Centre 04 4992928 Christchurch: David Ruth 03 3745486 Community Law Centre 03 3666870 Timaru: Tony Shaw 03 6886056 Dunedin: Community Law Centre 03 4779562 Invercargill: John Pringle 03 2144069; Community Law Centre 03 2143180 YouthLaw: free legal advice for people under 25 - ph 09 3096967 or see www.youthlaw.co.nz Legal Services Agency (legal aid): www.lsa.govt.nz

BUSTED?Say nothing until you have spoken to

PETER WINTER BA LLBBarrister

Specialist in Criminal LawHobson St Chambers, Auckland City.

Phone 09 379-7658 Mobile 0274 499-987Also available for trials in Northland & the Waikato

Police Questioning· You have the right to remain silent – including not making a statement - but you must give your correct name and address and in some cases date of birth. Talk to a lawyer before saying anything else.· If the Police want you to go with them, always ask if you’ve been arrested. If you are over 17 you only have to go with the police if you’ve been arrested.· You have the right to talk to your own or a free lawyer if you’re being questioning about an offence. Tell the police you want to speak to one on the Bill of Rights list.· If you’re under 17 you have the right to have a supportive adult of your choice with you at the police station. If you don’t name someone the police must get another adult to be with you (not a police officer).

Searches· Always ask why you are being searched. · The police can only search you, your bag or car if you let them; or they arrest you; or they have a search warrant; or they have reasonable grounds to think you have drugs, or an offensive weapon. · The police can search your home if: you let them; or they have a search warrant; or they have reasonable grounds to think it contains drugs.· If you don’t agree to a search you must say so. Silence is consent!· If you are female usually only a policewoman can search you.

Arrests, Detainment and Charges· Always ask if you’re being arrested, detained or charged and why.· Don’t run away or resist arrest.· Ask to make a phone call and phone someone you trust.· You don’t have to answer any questions or make a statement. You have the right to talk to a free lawyer. Tell the police you want to talk to one on the Bill of Rights list before talking to them.

· You have the right to get bail unless there is a good reason for holding you in custody or you have been charged with a very serious offence.

Going To Court· First appearance - you can enter “no plea” and in the time until your next appearance, you can get a copy of your po-lice file and seek legal advice. Ask for “full disclosure” of all the evidence against you. Check with the court registrar if you can get legal aid or see the duty solicitor at court on the day of your case.· If this is your first time in court, you may be eligible for the police diversion scheme. Ask your lawyer or the duty sergeant for more information. · Otherwise, your options are to plead Guilty (like a lamb to

the slaughter) and accept whatever punishment is given to you; or plead Not Guilty and fight the charges.· Being a Roaring Lion doesn’t mean you will have any worse a punish-ment if found

guilty, but greatly increases your chances of getting a plea bargain or having the charges thrown out from a lack of evi-dence or a unlawful search.

Remember· Stay calm and don’t get smart.· Try to get the police officer’s name, number and police station.· Try to get someone to wit-ness what the police do.· If the police breach your rights tell your lawyer/a duty solicitor or make a police complaint later, rather than argue at the time.

Police Complaints· Freephone the Police Com-plaints Authority 0800 503 728; or your local community law centre, YouthLaw, a law-yer or NORML. Write down everything that happened while you remember. Get photos of any injuries and see a doctor.

E TU! KIA KAHA!

KNOW youR RIGHTS

for civil rights advice & support, call us on

09 302 5255or in the South Island:

021 399 822or see our website:

www.norml.org.nz/rightsplease call weekday daytime only. priority to norml members

BUSTLINE

more information:www.norml.org.nz/rights www.norml.org.nz/forum4www.youthlaw.co.nz www.courtsofnz.govt.nz

You have the right to remain

silent - use it!


Although the vast majority of people who use cannabis suffer no harm, some do experience problems. Ensure that your cannabis use does not impair your health, family, employment and education, and try to have periods of reducing use or not consuming cannabis.

Harm reduction:> Remember that “Less is More” - the less you use, the less you will need, and the more high you will get. > NORML recommends consuming organic cannabis. > Heavy long term cannabis use may lead to some respiratory damage. Deep tokes and long breath duration are more harmful to the lungs. > Water pipes and bongs help cool the smoke, filter solids, and absorb some of the most harmful tars in the water. Bongs can make the smoke very smooth, so avoid inhaling too deeply. Replace bong water each time and regularly sterilise your pipe or bong (eg using meths, alcohol or denture cleaning tablets)> Meningitis and other diseases can be transmitted through saliva, so don’t share spit on joints or pipes. Try using your hands like a chillum to hold the joint. - especially if someone in the circle has the flu!> Try other ways of ingesting cannabis, such as eating or drinking it, or using a vaporiser to heat the herb and release THC without combustion.> When eating cannabis preparations, start with a small piece and wait an hour before increasing the amount, if desired. The effects of edible cannabis products may be stronger than smoked cannabis.

Health warnings:> Cannabis is best avoided by pregnant and breast-feeding women.> People with a history of severe mental illness should reduce any cannabis use to a level agreed with their clinician, or avoid cannabis altogether.> Those receiving digitalis or other heart medications should consult their doctors before using cannabis.> Mixing cannabis with alcohol can make you more out of it than you intended. The anti-nausea effect of cannabis may also cause you to drink more.> Mixing cannabis with tobacco means more smoke damage to your lungs, and may make you become nicotine dependent.

safer cannabis use

Serious about Hemp?Join the New Zealand Hemp Industries Association Inc.$100 full membership or $20 supporter. Full membership includes 2 annual copies of the Journal of the Internation-al Hemp Association - a must read for hemp industrialists. Join the NZHIA today, and help us to represent the NZ hemp industry. If you would like to receive a membership application form, Send your contact details to the address below. Name: Phone:Address: Town:

NZHIA, PO Box 38392 Howick, Auckland. Fax 09 273 7396


CONTACTS

NORML New Zealand Inc. PO Box 3307 Auckland or c/- The Hempstore 29 Victoria St East. Phone: 09 302-5255 Fax: 09 [email protected] www.norml.org.nz

Northland: Mike [email protected]: Chris 09 302 5255 [email protected] Auckland University: [email protected]: Max [email protected]: Billy 06 368 8181 [email protected] Wellington: Will [email protected]: Duncan 021 1740 400 [email protected]: Paula 03 389 1955 [email protected] University: Josh [email protected]: Simon or Abe [email protected]

HARM

THIS ISSUE’S HEALTHY TIP:

Traditional shisha (or Nakhla) water pipes not only look cool, they are cool to smoke through. Flavoured molasses-tobacco is usually put in the bowl, along with a lump of hashish if possible, and hot air from coals on top of the tin foil is drawn through, vaporising the herbs but not completely burning them. The smoke is cooler and much lower amounts in tar.

Have you got a healthy tip? email [email protected]

No, this isn’t the police’s blue poison spray. Cannabis will naturally turn purple in response to sudden drops in temperature. Certain strains are also genetically primed to release a cyan pigment following shifts in daylight hours. The police’s poison is dyed blue, supposedly so we know not to consume it. But as this photo shows, it can be hard to tell. Consuming cannabis sprayed by the police represents a serious health risk. Look for a copper-blue coloured dye that is drawn up into the inside of any twigs or branches. Please report any incidences of poisoned cannabis to NORML, and do not consume.!

NICENESS FROM MR GREEN


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Got some great plants? email high res digi pix to [email protected] or post film, photos or CDs to NORML News, PO Box 3307 Auckland NZ.

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TICK THE LEAF

clockwise from above:

> Kaia, Erin & Wendy’s “pot” dog > Skywalker at 20 days - SouthAucks > Tacky Kura - “a female grew this female”> Black Afro Magic - Far North “too good to be true, these plants were stolen only hours later”> Big T’s crop, Central Auckland> centre: Roger with his hefty buds

norml news autumn 2007

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norml news autumn

opinion of norml news

norml members

norml new zealand

marijuana prohibition

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