Police have moved to reassure Taranaki parents that drug dealers are not targeting their children with candy flavoured methamphetamine.

Mangorei School's May newsletter included a warning to parents about Strawberry Quik which "looks and smells like strawberry Pop Rocks".

"They are calling it strawberry meth or strawberry quick," the newsletter read.

"Kids are ingesting this thinking it is candy and being rushed to the hospital. It also comes in chocolate, peanut butter, cola, cherry, grape and orange."

Principal Michael Carr said the school was approached by a number of concerned parents regarding the issue.

[continues 189 words]

Police say they do not support the decriminalisation of natural cannabis despite calls by Auckland's Deputy Mayor that it's safer than banned synthetic versions.

Penny Hulse said it was time New Zealanders discussed the decriminalisation of cannabis, much as they had had discussions on prostitution and same-sex marriage.

But a police national headquarters spokesman said there was no political will for decriminalisation and their stance on the issue was clear.

"Police do not support the decriminalisation of cannabis."

[continues 498 words]

A Hamilton woman has become the first person in the country to be convicted under new law banning the sale of formerly legal highs.

Nikita Awhina Pender, 19, pleaded guilty in the Hamilton District Court today, to one charge of selling a prohibited substance under amended psychoactive substance law.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of two years' jail.

She was convicted and remanded on bail for sentencing next month.

Her partner Jason Graeme McConnochie, 31, facing the same charge, was remanded without plea on bail, with a condition that he not associate with Pender.

[continues 216 words]

New Zealand should not proceed down the path of decriminialisation when it comes to marijuana, writes Bob McCoskrie.

IT IS ironic that at the same time as we ban synthetic cannabis and we try to price and label cigarettes out of existence, supporters of marijuana are peddling the same myths that we believed for far too long about tobacco - that marijuana is harmless, and it can even have health benefits.

Supporters of decriminalisation would have us believe that cannabis is a gentle, harmless substance that gives users little more than a sense of mellow euphoria and hurts no one else, and that legal highs wouldn't be as attractive if we just decriminalised marijuana.

[continues 632 words]

Auckland Deputy Mayor Says Natural Drug Safer Than Synthetic and Should Be Decriminalised

Auckland Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse says it is time to decriminalise natural cannabis because it is safer than the synthetic versions that were banned last week.

The veteran councillor and former industrial laboratory technician said she had always opposed decriminalisation, but changed her mind after reading scientific papers about the dangers of synthetic cannabis.

Yesterday, she told an Auckland Council committee drawing up a policy on " legal highs" that it made no sense to regulate when synthetic cannabis could be sold without considering safer alternatives.

[continues 470 words]

Synthetic-High Kingpins Are Angry at Lost Investments.

SYNTHETIC-HIGH manufacturers say the Government should compensate them for now-worthless stock after last week's quickfire law change, but health minister Peter Dunne has rejected their demands. Photo: Chris Skelton Losses: Stephen Beere burns his now illegal highs.

Some wholesalers were left holding stock with a street value of several million dollars, but Dunne had no sympathy and said the law change specifically excused the Government from paying compensation.

"And I think that is entirely as it should be. I don't think the Government has any liability in this respect. The Government intentions were made clear a good 10 days before [the ban]."

[continues 565 words]

It was probably too much to expect New Zealand's innovative psychoactive substances regime to survive an election year.

MPs who passed the legislation 119-1 last year have climbed over each other to "fix" the situation in recent weeks, in response to angry protests over the very visible impacts in communities around the nation - especially in smaller cities that have had one seller of these drugs since August intead of a dozen, aggregating antisocial behaviour and providing a focus for people's outrage.

[continues 280 words]

From midnight, it will be illegal to sell, supply or possess psychoactive substances including synthetic cannabis, but the Government would begin recalling the products today.

Anyone looking to stock up before the products were removed should "bear that in mind", Health Minister Tony Ryall said. Parliament passed a law under urgency, banning the products, last night.

Yesterday, Ryall introduced the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Bill, which banned 41 products given interim approval under legislation passed last year.

It also ensured the testing regime for future potential legal highs could not use animal testing.

[continues 584 words]

The legal-high industry made massive multimillion-dollar profits during the Government's brief fling with regulation.

In a rare insight into the legal-high industry, the Ministry of Health estimates the industry was making a 1000 per cent profit on every packet of synthetic cannabis sold.

Chemicals were imported in bulk from China, processed into synthetic cannabis for about $2 a packet and sold for $20.

Since the Government set up the regulated market in July last year, it is estimated that 3.5 million packets of synthetic cannabis were sold in New Zealand.

[continues 423 words]

The contrast between legal highs and alcohol legislation shows how irrational drug laws are in New Zealand, and now with a knee-jerk response by Peter Dunne, in response to media-generated hysteria, there is chaos.

Synthetic cannabinoids create more harm than natural cannabis, but less than alcohol. Drug experts say that if alcohol was a new drug like synthetic cannabinoids it would be banned.

The prime minister debates whether rats are more acceptable than rabbits for drug testing while he prevails over a drug policy which actively encourages corporate drug testing of alcohol on young New Zealand human beings on a daily basis. The most stark example of harm being several thousand children born every year with alcohol-induced brain damage.

Auckland

[end]

The letter to this and other newspapers from Robert Sharpe of Washington lobby group Common Sense for Drug Policy makes the standard tired reference to a mythical "war on drugs".

No such war has ever launched.

What we've had is a war on the bulk supply of drugs to the lower classes coupled with tolerance to personal demand for drugs from the middle class.

It's the same double standard now embodied in calls for minimum alcohol pricing.

A beautiful illustration of our feigning drug war is documented in the extras of the film City of God when an honest Rio police chief starts winning the drug war in the favelas but loses it in the dinner parties when his peers can no longer procure their little indulgence.

[continues 135 words]

It's possible our politicians haven't a clue what they're doing with drug policy. It's easy to see why. Drugs are outside their experience, highly emotive and dangerous politics. Politicians as far apart as Nandor Tanczos and Don Brash have come unstuck attempting a rational discussion.

These two politicians constitute a grim warning across the political spectrum.

The result is drug law that is incoherent and now in disarray.

Within a year we have gone from prohibition to laissez faire to a regulated market and now back to prohibition.

[continues 380 words]

A soggy day didn't stub the spirit of a group of marijuana supporters celebrating "J Day".

About 40 people gathered at the Bowl of Brooklands for the event, which aimed at getting people talking about cannabis and how it can be used in a safe way.

The smell of marijuana smoke suggested the drug was not only being talked about.

The nationwide J Day celebrations were held as debate raged over the future legality of and harm caused by synthetic cannabis.

[continues 274 words]

Family 'incensed' boy is being treated more harshly than local pupils.

A German international student has been expelled from school and faces being kicked out of the country because he had one puff on a joint in his free time.

The move has been labelled excessive by the teenager's family, who are incensed that international students are held to a different set of standards than locals, but Tauranga Boys College is standing by its decision.

The 17-year-old, who wished to remain anonymous, and four other German international students met after school on March 7 and decided to procure and consume marijuana.

[continues 568 words]

DRUG LAW reform campaigners have seized on the scrap over soon-to-be-illegal highs to argue for the legalisation of cannabis.

Thousands of New Zealanders openly smoked cannabis in public parks and domains yesterday during "J Day" celebrations.

The gatherings were organised by Norml (the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana) and the Aotearoa Cannabis Party, who used J Day to launch its 2014 general election campaign.

The national day of "celebrations" were held as debate rages over the future legality of and harm caused by synthetic cannabis. Last week Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne announced the Government would introduce legislation to remove synthetic drugs from sale within three weeks until proven low-risk.

[continues 231 words]

Protests Bring Results but 'Still Work to Be Done', Reports Florence Kerr.

Legal highs may have been effectively banned by the Government but a Tokoroa woman who started a nationwide campaign against the drugs is not resting.

Julie King is short in stature - 1.52m tall - but this Kiwi battler has fought her demons and won.

Until May last year the mother of four held herself captive in her bedroom for two years, suffering from bipolar disorder - a condition that causes people to swing between being manic and being depressed.

[continues 479 words]

Eventually, for me, it came down to this.

Why does a can of imported tuna display nutritional information and a list of ingredients including the type of thickener used, the percentage of tuna (57 per cent) and detail on the colouring (paprika).

Thus allowing me to make an informed choice about consuming this product.

Why do we know nothing about what's in "synthetic cannabis", a so-called legal high with potentially addictive and destructive qualities?

In recent months, the public clamour to ban legal highs has given National a political headache and the country a new health issue.

[continues 385 words]

When you make a mistake, admit it - and put it right.

It has taken Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne and the Government a long time to admit they got it wrong with legal highs, but at the weekend they did so, and next week these potentially lethal drugs will be banned.

The good intentions of Mr Dunne's Psychoactive Substances Bill, passed last July, have been swept away by reports revealing the psychotic behaviour brought about by these products.

The weight of evidence of the damage, coupled with the public outcry in many communities - including here in Wanganui - made the continued legalisation of these drugs untenable.

[continues 228 words]

Ever since the first concerns around synthetic cannabis arose, Invercargill residents have been asking me to raise their concerns over these legal highs in Parliament.

I took the concerns to my colleagues and made forceful arguments on behalf of those concerned about the effects these products were having on our communities. The Government listened, and last year the Psychoactive Substances Act came into force. The act allowed a grace period for some legal highs that had been deemed a low risk by an expert panel.

[continues 317 words]

Taranaki health workers are bracing themselves for an increase in youth prostitution, alcohol abuse and experimental drug use in the wake of the ban on legal highs.

Currently legal, psychoactive substances will be yanked from the shelves within weeks following a Government U-turn on how to deal with synthetic highs.

Hailed by opponents as a victory for common sense, many fear the sudden change will bring unintended consequences.

Lynette West of the Young People's Trust in New Plymouth said the ban would see young synthetic cannabis users taking ever more drastic measures to meet their addiction to the products, especially synthetic cannabis.

[continues 417 words]