The Government has decided the 40 or so "legal high" substances not already banned under the Psychoactive Substances Act should be removed from shop shelves until they are proven to be low-risk. Legislation will be passed under urgency when Parliament next sits on May 8. Local body leaders around the Waikato will be delighted. Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne - and every MP in our region - should be embarrassed. Mr Dunne has been excoriated in recent weeks over the sales of synthetic cannabis.

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Banning the sale of legal highs will lead to an increase of gangs and criminals selling the drug on the black market, Blenheim synthetic cannabis retailers say.

Associate health minister Peter Dunne announced on Sunday the government would introduce legislation that would remove synthetic drugs from shelves within three weeks until they could be proven low-risk.

But Boots 'n All owner Andy Hall told the Express yesterday banning the sale of psychoactive substances would give gangs and criminals a monopoly on the market.

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New Zealand's nine-month experiment with "legal highs" is over. The Government's decision to cancel interim licences for synthetic cannabis is a response to a public outcry that has left all sides wiser. Nearly all parties in Parliament voted for the licensing regime last July. The Psychoactive Substances Act passed by 119-1. The solitary MP who has been vindicated by events is Act's John Banks.

All other parties accepted the idea that drug regulation was preferable to prohibition and that some of the manufactured "party drugs" that have appeared in the past six years would be capable of passing a reasonable safety test. The lawmakers were so confident on that score that they wrote an interim licence into the legislation so that not all brands would be taken off the market while rules for clinical trials are finalised.

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Community relief, but Drug Foundation fears Government u-turn will lead to blackmarket sales.

New Zealanders whose lives have been blighted by the dangers of legal highs are thrilled by plans to pull them from sale within a fortnight - - but fears have been raised users will stockpile the synthetic drugs ahead of an increase in blackmarket activity.

The Government last night announced a policy u-turn, saying it would ban all legal highs until they could be proven to be "low-risk".

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Government's actions seen as an election year stunt, reports Florence Kerr. A move to ban legal highs is being seen as an "election year stunt" by those who've been fighting to get the stuff off the streets for months, saying it's too little too late for people who are now addicts of the drugs. Synthetic bye:

The Waikato Times travelled to Tokoroa yesterday a town that's been fighting to eradicate the stuff to gauge reaction.

Tokoroa's anti-synthetic campaigner, Julie King, said the government's delay in banning the legal highs had only seen the number of addicts grow and she was worried about what would happen to those people once the stuff was banned under urgency on May 8.

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Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne announced with unseemly haste on Sunday the Government will next week introduce and pass under urgency legislation removing from sale all remaining so-called ''legal highs''.

It seems something that should have been undertaken by Mr Dunne many months ago has been forced on him by pressure from local government, the public and media outlets (including the Otago Daily Times, other newspapers and television programmes such as Campbell Live); with the added knowledge Labour was due to release its policy on the same issue yesterday.

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A recovering Palmerston North legal high user has condemned the Government's move to ban synthetic drugs, saying addicts will not be able to handle withdrawal symptoms without more support.

"They're going to go nuts," said Anthony, who spoke on the condition only his first name was published.

The 40-year-old, who decided to quit using legal highs because of the impact on his family, believed more needed to be done to support addicts when legal highs are pulled from shelves next month because the products are "more addictive than what people believe".

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Hawke's Bay psychiatric and addiction services are being urged to prepare for an influx of people dealing with intense synthetic cannabis withdrawals.

Experts have warned stockpiling, fire sales and an added burden on health services may occur when all synthetic cannabis products are withdrawn from sale within a fortnight.

In a Government policy reversal, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said on Sunday all legal high products would be banned until they could be proven "low-risk", with a law change to be introduced under urgency to Parliament next week.

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All synthetic drugs will be pulled off the shelves within two weeks until individual testing has proven each brand is "low-risk", the Government has announced.

Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne told Fairfax Media: "While there has been a substantial reduction in the number of these products available and the number of outlets from which they can be sold, reports of severe adverse reactions continue to be received by the National Poisons Centre and Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring.

"It has been impossible to attribute these adverse effects to any particular products and in the absence of that ministers accepted my recommendation at Cabinet last Tuesday to end the transitional period, taking all products with interim approval off the market.

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The people have spoken and the minister has finally listened. Or the cynics will say that Peter Dunne has banned legal highs due to pressure from the media and Labour's plans to do the same.

Whatever the reason, it is a win for many communities around New Zealand. Dunne was obviously feeling the pressure of constant lobbying that he reacted in such a way, despite repeatedly arguing that bans do not work. As recently as Saturday, he stated on TV that bans on selling legal highs did not work in Ireland or New South Wales. He even quoted the Irish minister of health telling him that the banning of the drugs was the worst decision his government had made. This was a message he repeated time after time. So, why the change of heart?

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An underground legal-high industry - including synthetic cannabis sprayed with illegal homebake - is causing havoc across the Clutha district.

While the Clutha district had no legal-high stores it had not stopped people from filling that market void, Mayor Bryan Cadogan said.

He confirmed reports of people in his area selling synthetic cannabis from the back of cars and selling products in return for "favours".

Others were getting overnight courier packages from Dunedin.

He had anecdotal reports of workers failing drug tests after legal highs they had smoked had been allegedly laced with homebake.

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A former manager of the Community Probation Service in Timaru believes cannabis should be legalised and synthetic cannabis should be criminalised.

Kevin Foley said the legal highs being sold seemed to be inconsistent substances and people never knew exactly what they were going to be putting into their bodies.

He said there seemed to be greater consistency with natural cannabis.

"It would be much better to legalise cannabis," Foley said.

He said he believed it was unfair of central government to hand on the issue of legal highs to local government for regulation.

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OPINION: Harmful legal products make mockery of drug laws

More than one of our national addictions was laid bare last week.

It turns out that not only are we a nation of royal obsessives, but we're rather fond of our recreational drugs.

The 2014 Global Drug Survey reveals some disturbing information about New Zealanders' liking for psychoactive drugs, and so-called "legal highs" in particular.

It turns out that we share with the United Kingdom the dubious distinction of being the highest users (on a per capita basis, obviously) of synthetic cannabis products in the world.

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Questions about cannabis law reform are again being posed, with a survey revealing that most users would not use more if the drug became legal.

The Global Drug Survey, conducted in partnership with Fairfax Media, shows that we are a nation of cannabis smokers, with more than a third of the almost 6000 respondents having used it in the past year.

Respondents were also asked about their attitude towards legalising drugs, and how their behaviour would change if the law was amended.

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An invisible swath of middle-class New Zealanders are drinking heavily and indulging in drugs, a new survey has found.

Fairfax Media's involvement in the Global Drugs Survey on worldwide drug use has for the first time revealed how entrenched alcohol and drugs - both legal and illegal - are in our everyday lives.

Addiction medicine specialists say the results have identified key trends in our drug use, and show users fall across a broad spectrum of the population.

The survey reveal both interesting and shocking glimpses into the drug habits of the 5731 New Zealand respondents, who had a mean age of 34.7, about half of whom had an undergraduate degree, and 84 per cent of whom were employed.

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LAWS and the legislation that enables them are key points to building and sustaining a safe, reasonable society. But just as important than the laws themselves is the level of confidence we place in them. Without that confidence people will ignore the rules or, worse still, take the law into their own hands.

One thing that can erode that confidence is criticism and searching questions from people charged with enforcing that law. A lot of people already think the law can be an ass, but when top-level officials come to the same conclusion, then you have some issues.

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MONDAY'S business feature in the Taranaki Daily News was yet another reminder (as if we needed it) that innovation and hard work are integral parts of our psyche.

Taranaki-born Greg Flavall founded Hemp Technologies in the US state of North Carolina before shifting to the taxfree state of Nevada. The business now has branches in New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Romania and employs about 300 staff, from administration and distribution to chemical scientists.

The core business is the manufacture of hempcrete, which is made much like concrete, and the only ingredient not from New Zealand is the hemp itself, which is grown in the Netherlands. It is actually a mixture of hemp and lime and is easier to work with than concrete because it is less brittle. It is also a compound that should be dear to the heart of every greenie - like every plant, hemp absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows. It stores the carbon and releases the oxygen. This could be a really important step in the climate change battle. The hempcrete also acts as an insulator and keeps the damp out.

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New Zealand's first hemp house is being built right here in Taranaki. In part four in a series on innovative Taranaki businesses, Susan Strongman speaks to Hemp Technologies owner Greg Flavall about all things hemp.

"You'd have to smoke a joint as big as a telephone pole to even get a headache from what we grow." Greg Flavall Hemp Technologies

On a four hectare lifestyle block a few minutes north of New Plymouth, New Zealand's first hemp house is being built. Amongst wandering sheep, chooks and bee hives, the house is being constructed out of timber and hempcrete a mixture of hemp, lime and water. Hemp house: Hemp Technologies co-founder Greg Flavall holds a bag of hemp at New Zealand's first hemp house, which is being built in Brixton. Left: A hen house made of hemp and recycled materials.

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A Loosening of Cannabis Laws Overseas May Change Kiwis' Thinking About the Drug Say Experts. Mike Mather Reports.

New Zealand's traditional hard line on cannabis could soon be eased, says a leading academic who predicts a "sea change" is imminent.

His comments follow a profound change in how the drug, also known as marijuana and dope, is being treated overseas.

And an alcohol and drug counsellor says New Zealand is in the "stone age" when it comes to marijuana laws and that alcohol is actually the most dangerous substance in the country.

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In response to Marie O'Connor (Letters' January 27) I am compelled to share with you a few facts I have come across concerning cannabis.

Portugal decriminalised all drugs 12 years ago, not just cannabis, all drugs, and the result was that drug abuse has now halved. This may come as a surprise to a lot of you, and the theory of decriminalisation being a ticket to drug problems is a fair statement to make, but the real tide turner is what we choose to do with drug users/abusers. Do we lock them up like animals or do we treat them like humans and give them the help they may need?

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