 | NORML News: Tobacco funding shows hypocrisy of drug education group |
 NORML News Autumn 2003
By Chris Fowlie
Life Education accepts money from beer, tobacco, while arguing against cannabis law reform
The hypocrisy of drug education group Life Education Trust is obvious now that their tobacco industry funding has been revealed.
Life Education is opposed to cannabis law reform but kept quiet about the money they receive from British American Tobacco, and now their bias in favour of society’s most dangerous drug is starting to show.
Health Sponsorship Council spokesman Ian Potter called the relationship inappropriate, while ASH national director Trish Fraser said the donations were “appalling” and called for schools to reconsider using the programme if it continued to accept tobacco funding.
The trust also received money from the Lion Foundation, which is supported by Lion Breweries and the Beer, Wines and Spirits Council.
Life’s tobacco industry funding was revealed on the front page of the Sunday Star Times (5 January 2003) but it was not news to Norml. We have been pointing to this hypocrisy for years.
New Zealand drug education groups, with some notable exceptions, are largely doing a poor job in reducing teenager’s demand for both legal and illegal drugs, and now the Ministry of Youth Affairs are researching why.
But is it any wonder when these so-called drug education groups are being directly funded by the alcohol and tobacco industries?
Together with prohibitionist cartoonist Tom Scott, Life Education director Trevor Grice put together The Great Brain Robbery, an anti-cannabis book that is little different to the “reefer madness” campaigns of the 1930’s.
His sensational claims include that cannabis is genetically engineered and that it is twenty times more potent that it used to be. He has also told high school children that alcohol is a “good drug” because it releases inhibitions and promotes social interaction.
Considering the number of rapes and violent incidents that occur in this country as a direct result of alcohol use, that’s a dodgy thing for him to be telling our young folk, and it’s no wonder they switch off to his message.
The Ministry’s effective drug education project was initiated after Nandor Tanczos and Laila Harre secured funding from the government last parliamentary term (see Norml News, Winter 2002). New youth affairs minister, John Tamihere, who has admitted to having previously “inhaled”, has continued the project and is understood to have contracted out the work to consultants.
The health select committee’s inquiry into strategies relating to cannabis heard a lot of evidence that some groups such as Life, Fade and Dare may be causing more harm than good. In fact, so many people argued against having these groups in schools that their future looked bleak. We think it is doubtful that Life Education’s hypocritical and secretive funding will have helped their cause.
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