Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Drugs and why Dunne did it, in reply to BenWilson,
BTW, Dunne actually was replaced for a time as associate Health minister by a no-name Nat from the regions: Todd McClay.
Here's McClay, last month, rushing to the press to denounce Gareth Morgan's cannabis decriminalisation proposal:
"Young people taking drugs and voting should never be linked. Drug abuse is harmful particularly to our young.
"I have worked hard to remove drugs from our community and will never support any change that increases the risk to Rotorua youth from drugs."
Tell me again how Dunne's the problem.
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The animus towards Dunne is quite reminiscent of the way people kept on hurling invective at his predecessor, Anderton, even as he was doing some quite progressive things.
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Hard News: Drugs and why Dunne did it, in reply to BenWilson,
If he genuinely believed in legalization all along, then I think he should have made a damned stand on it, from the position he held.
So your problem is that he listened to evidence and changed his mind?
Sometime before now, when it’s likely he’s not going to make another term. Those other achievements? I really think some no-name regional Nat could very well have done better with 15 odd years to burn on it (although of course quite a few of those years it could have been a no-name city Labour MP).
On some other planet, perhaps. On this one, any reform advocate will tell you that the bloc in the way of reform is in the National Party. The Greens (who have clarified their policy in the past year too) are clearly on board, and so, to one degree or another will be some portion of the Labour caucus, the Māori Party (although they haven’t really thought it through) and maybe even NZ First. United Future and the Greens have the most similar policies, although UF’s is the more radical.
I get it, you dislike Dunne. Fair enough, lots of people do, and his pomp can make him hard to like at times. But I write about this stuff for a job and I talk to advocates all the time and periodically to him. I’m very clear on whether he’s the problem: he isn’t.
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This Politik story about Steven Joyce getting worried about the cost of the prison population and looking for ways to imprison fewer people for less time is interesting.
But, y'know, a good part of the current problem is directly down to his government's actions.
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Hard News: Drugs and why Dunne did it, in reply to BenWilson,
I’m sorry, but professing good intentions and yet doing very little beyond temporarily legalizing much, much more dangerous alternatives
No, they were legal for years before that. The Psychoactive Substances Act was actually a very bold initiative, one that passed with only one dissenting vote in Parliament. Clearly, synthetic cannabinoids were the wrong thing to be regulating, but that’s what was for sale in dairies at the time it was passed. The act may yet prove to be useful in the way Dunne envisages, we’ll see. Its main problem is the animal testing ban forced in by an amendment voted for by National and Labour and campaigned for by Trevor Mallard and the Greens. (The Greens abstained on the amendment but supported the testing ban.)
have worn my patience well thin with this character. He sat square in this position, blocking anyone else from having it, and claims he always wanted to legalize.
Wait, what? He should have given up his ministerial post? For, presumably, some no-name regional Nat? Seriously? How do you think that would have worked out?
I’m puzzled about what you think he should have achieved. He delivered the National Drug Policy, which is a good, progressive document, undone only by its incompatibility with the law. He has also publicly backed drug-checking at festivals and his staff are in regular and friendly communication with MCANZ on medical cannabis approvals. It could be so much worse.
I’ve been disappointed by Dunne at times, but I’m perpetually amazed by people who think he’s the problem. He isn’t. Try Simon Power, John Key, Jonathan Coleman and Bill English. For that matter, try Andrew Little. Dunne has made law reform (including the decriminalisation of all drugs, which would make NZ the only country other than Portugal to do so) and the regulated sale of cannabis the policy of his tiny party. What else do you believe he can do?
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Hard News: Drugs and why Dunne did it, in reply to FletcherB,
I don’t follow this issue very closely but hasn’t this been a massive slow u-turn by Peter Dunne?
I believe this comes under the heading of “when I’m presented with contrary evidence, I change my mind, what do you do?”
There's a similar story with his predecessor, Jim Anderton, who came into the job deeply suspicious of needle exchanges and wound up winning funding to make them free to access. They get exposed to evidence.
Although when I interviewed Dunne last year, he insisted that he'd always held such views and making no change to the law on cannabis a condition of United Future's coalition support for Labour was only a sop to the nutbars in his caucus at the time who wanted to make the law even more draconian.
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Hard News: Drugs and why Dunne did it, in reply to Hilary Stace,
That is an unfair and untrue comment. Incidentally, Greg O’Connor is on the record with a policy very similar to this one of Peter Dunne’s.
O'Connor, I think, toned it down when he realised he might be a Labour candidate, but he's on record as saying that if we're to reform, decriminalisation isn't enough. He certainly is not a hanger and flogger. Indeed, it's ironic, that two law reformers are contesting the same electorate.
My question is why was Peter Dunne so resistant to Helen Kelly’s request for medicinal cannabis for her and others only last year?
The answer is quite complicated. Her doctor's application didn't meet the approval guidelines from the ministry's advisors. But the guidelines were in some respects unreasonable. On the other hand, they sought approval for the wrong product (one whose manufacturers couldn't provide an assay for). Yet in theory, Dunne could have said what the hell, I'm approving it anyway. But that would have meant him sticking his neck out quite a long way – too far for comfort.
Happily, things have improved a lot in that space in this year, not least because Shane Le Brun at MCANZ has worked really hard at making his case for other products. It's still too hard, but it's better, and ministry officials have moved quite a long way.
Dunne has also said, as minister, that he would like to see police discretion used in the case of terminally ill patients. But he can't change the law on his own.
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Hard News: Drugs and why Dunne did it, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Maybe I’m overly dramatic – maybe we don’t prosecute all that many people for possession anymore
Yeah, nah, we do. Police discretion is having an impact, but on a formal level, diversion and pre-charge warnings only work for people with a clean slate.
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Bill English remains resolutely not on board:
Standing in Mr Dunne's way is his ministerial boss - the Prime Minister. Bill English says Mr Dunne is "making a lot of assumptions" about a drug that "does real damage to people".
"We don't want to encourage open trading in cannabis and a whole industry around it," he told The AM Show.
Mr English says the impact on gangs would be minimal, as they have other criminal avenues to make money, while Customs and police are "doing a much better job now" of intercepting drugs before they hit the streets.
Despite his unwillingness to make any changes to drug laws, Mr English does agree with Mr Dunne that the so-called war on drugs can't be called a success.
"It's failing if one person is having their lives wrecked, or wrecking their family's lives with drugs. You can never say it's succeeded - put it that way. There's always more to do."
Perhaps the Prime Minister could read his own government's National Drug Policy before commenting further.
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Meanwhile, an indication of how high the stakes can be: the Philippines' murderous drug war on its own citizens.