Drug Foundation mouthpiece for Anderton’s morality

After years of being a progressive drug proponent with a harm minimization policy, the Drug Foundation is now the moralizing mouthpiece of Jim Anderton, watching Ross Bell on Breakfast this morning, the Executive Director of the NZ Drug Foundation bleated about new ingredients in party pills without BZP, he claimed that we don’t have any regulation over the industry, which is an understatement now because this prohibition has simply pushed the whole issue underground. It was here that I wrote that this was because he had backed the call to ban BZP's, that's not the case, the Drug Foundation did point out the pointlessness of this ban, my beef is more to do with the timid interview he did on Breakfast, because based on his interview where Ross didn't challenge the prohibition but was meekly taking it made the good work of the Drug Foundation in the past pale significantly, his almost apologetic response ended up making him look like just another nodding head from the 'something must do something brigade' which led me to conclude that The Drug Foundation should be called the Prohibition Foundation, they are the new Wellington based Temperance Union, and are as relevant to the drug debate as the Sensible Sentencing Trust is to the prison debate. Where once liberal ideas and thinking were espoused, there now reeks an acceptance that the conservative morality of the day blankets the mainstream debate, which seems to be a boat the Drug Foundation have given up rocking.

PLEASE NOTE: I've had an angry email from Ross Bell pointing out that they didn't support the BZP ban - this is a fair cop, I wrote that he did based on his very poor performance on Breakfast where Ross didn't fight the prohibition issue whatsoever and ended up looking like a nodding head to the 'something must be done' brigade. I've re-written the above to reflect my concern.