NOTE: This is an archive site - we now have a new site.
Prohibition Costs the New Zealand Tax Payer $70,000,000
NZ Herald - 26 March 1997
The cost of policing and prosecuting offenders under the Misuse of DrugsAct is more than $40 million a year, with the health agencies paying out at least another $30 million annually on education and treatment of people for drug dependency.
These are the latest available estimates from the Ministry of Health. The costs cover all drugs and alcohol.
The police do not break out costs for chasing cannabis growers and for raids like that at the weekend when they seized more than 7000 plants growing in dense bush in the Whanganui National Park. There is no national budget for drug control. The money spent is up to the commanders of each region as they juggle between other requirements such as bursaries, carconversion, traffic control, rapes and robberies.
Last year there were 60,738 drug and anti-social crimes reported to the police (58,301 in 1995).
A recent Otago University study, funded by the Health Research Council, has shown that more than half of 2l-year-olds surveyed had smoked cannabis in the past year. Nearly 60 per cent were males.
The study is regarded as the first true indication of the use of cannabis in New Zealand, tracking 1000 people born between 1972 and 1973. It found that 14 per cent of males and 4.7 per cent of females were dependent on cannabis by the time they turned 21. The size of the problem has fuelled calls for decriminalisation.
In Victoria, the Drug Advisory Council recommended such a course but the state government failed to implement it.
The director of the Alcohol and Public Health Research Unit at Auckland University's medical school, Sally Casswell, said: "There are pros and cons [for decriminalisation]. I admit to being a bit taken aback by the size of the Whanganui operation. That tells you what a major commercial operationis going on ..."
National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws spokesman Mike Finlayson said the price of cannabis was between $2500 and $3000 a half kilo. It sells for about $20 for a gram bullet.
"The profits are enormous and the Government by its attitude is writing a guaranteed price for the criminal gangs," he said.
|
