 | Press Releases: Committee failed to find evidence, says NORML |
 MEDIA RELEASE -- August 8th 2003 -- FOR IMMEDIATE USE
The Health Select Committee went looking for evidence
to justify harsh measures on cannabis - and couldn't
find any, says Chris Fowlie, spokesperson for the
National Organisation for Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Chris Fowlie says the committee found plenty of
evidence that cannabis prohibition is often harmful to
society and individuals, and has recorded it in the
report. "Once again, a full official inquiry has
investigated cannabis and realised that, on the
evidence, cannabis prohibition cannot be justified".
(A list of previous governmental reports that found
against cannabis prohibition policies can be provided
upon request).
NORML says that despite thirty years of increasing
cannabis use in New Zealand, the committee members are
still asking for more research on possible harms, such
as a link between cannabis and suicide. "They tried to
find damning evidence, and discovered there isn't
any", says Chris Fowlie. "What they did find is that
the current law on cannabis is being applied unfairly,
unjustly and unreasonably, but they failed to
recommend doing anything much about it.."
NORML says it is "encouraging" to see some recognition
of the problems of prohibition, and supports
recommendations for a re-classification of cannabis by
the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, and an
investigation of police search practises. "There are
some helpful recommendations in the report, even
though the Committee decided not to deal with the key
issue of the legal status of cannabis", says Chris
Fowlie. "It's very significant that the report does
not recommend supporting the current law, and instead
sets out the case for law reform."
NORML supports the recommendation that medicinal use
of cannabis should be allowed. "Therapeutic use of
cannabis is a traditional remedy that for many people
provides relief from pain or alleviates serious
medical condition," says Chris Fowlie. The Committee
has not gone far enough in its recommendations, says
NORML, but the findings "begin to set right one of the
worst injustices of our prohibition laws - prosecuting
sick people for taking their preferred medicine".
NORML members are disappointed that another three
years have gone by, and the task of making a
recommendation on the legal status of cannabis has
been side-stepped. "We said at the time that the
Justice and Electoral Committee of Parliament was the
right place to review the problems of treating
cannabis use as a crime, instead of a health issue,"
says NORML National Secretary, Phil Saxby.
"Public fears about teenage use of drugs are used to
bolster up the arguments of the prohibitionists. Its
time Parliament recognised that prohibition glamorises
cannabis use, as Helen Clark said recently, and looked
for better ways of dealing with youthful
experimentation. Turning young people into criminals
is probably the worst policy New Zealand could have,"
says NORML's South Island coordinator Stephen
McIntyre.
NORML argues that cannabis use by adults is widely
tolerated by society and prohibition penalties should
be lifted.
ENDS.
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