Pubdate: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 Source: Press, The (New Zealand) Copyright: 2000 The Christchurch Press Company Ltd. Contact: Private Bag 4722, Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: +64-3-364-8238 Website: http://www.press.co.nz/ Author: Rosemary McLeod Note: Also published in The Dominion, contact WHY MAKE MORE SAD DOPE USERS? The pro-cannabis lobby gets into a snit easily. They don't appreciate criticism. Maybe they're used to nodding the issues through among the already persuaded, over a soggy toke. But they have a lot of persuading to do if they want to move sceptics. Who knows? Ultimately the Greens and their sympathisers may prevail and dope will be decriminalised to great acclaim. But in the meantime, these would seem to be the main platforms of their arguments, and the appropriate sceptical responses. * The current laws against cannabis are unenforceable and widely ignored. Therefore they are a waste of police time. The existing law at least encourages discretion and caution. It may contain use of the drug. Also, it helps parents reinforce the message that cannabis, like other recreational drugs, is potentially harmful. We're not living in the 60s any more, by the way, when the cops kicked your door in over a few joints in your tea caddy. * Existing law makes criminals out of ordinary decent New Zealanders. In practice, nobody much cares about adults who keep about them only enough dope for personal use, and first offenders get dealt with through police diversion schemes rather than the courts. You won't go to jail for using the stuff. But because of its legal status there is a disincentive. * We only want cannabis legalised for adults, not kids. Dream on. Look at alcohol and cigarettes: do kids care whether they use them legally or not? Recent research in Kapiti and Wairarapa showed that some adults happily give cannabis to their 10-year-old kids, and one in five 16-year-olds already call themselves regular users. How would legalising dope help that situation? * Drug education would be necessary, and there would be a lot more of it. That would inevitably improve things. And why would it work any better than the existing sex education, alcohol education, and anti-smoking campaigns? * Cannabis does no harm. We don't really know whether that is true. But we do know that it does nobody (other than some people with medical conditions, apparently) any great good. * Cannabis is no more harmful, anyway, than alcohol and cigarettes. Given the social problems they cause, what sort of argument is that? * The Government would get extra tax revenue if we legalised dope. And wouldn't you normally deplore an accountant's argument? * Kids will work out carefully and intelligently whether to use cannabis, what with the drug education programmes we'd introduce. And these would be the same kids who have brought us the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world (courtesy of widespread sex education and free contraception). These would be the same girls who are taking up smoking cigarettes as fast as ever (courtesy of endless anti-smoking information and advertising). And let's not forget the world's highest lung cancer rate among Maori women, despite everyone's best education efforts. * Maori are further stigmatised because so many of them use cannabis and get criminal convictions because of it. The signs are also that Maori are the worst affected by its use. Will having even easier access to the drug help to reverse that or improve their lot? * Criminals, who control the drug market, would lose a valuable power base if dope was legalised. They'd soon find another. * It's absurd to have laws that don't work and which are not respected by many people, some of whom are middle-class and very True. Speeding is the now familiar example. Fraud is antother. * Cannabis use does not lead to the use of harder drugs. How can we possibly know this? * Drug users are sad cases who should not be persecuted by legal means. Back to the education argument They could hardly be more educated about what they do, or aware of the effect of it - and what good has it done them? * Cannabis is popular. Just admit it and get on with it. So, increasingly, are heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. Are we ready to legalise them all? * If we legalise dope we'll be bravely leading the world. We might usefully ask why other countries haven't done it first, and what effect it would have on our relationship with other countries if we went ahead. * Cannabis is just like alcohol, for God's sake. You don't drink alcohol to get drunk necessarily. You only use cannabis to get stoned * We are not pro-cannabis just because we support decriminalisation. It amounts to the same thing. You are surely pro-cannabis if you want it to be more widely and readily available, which is what would happen. And there would be no going back. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D