Soros provides opportunity for long overdue discussion

Government and drug campaigner backs NZ Law conference

The Government has found itself in the embarrassing position of jointly financing a $165,000 conference on drug policy with one of the world's leading advocates of decriminalising marijuana use.

Billionaire currency speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute has given $35,000 to this week's symposium, which will be attended by Government ministers, police and a judge and will examine New Zealand's drug laws.

Mr Soros is known for financing drug reform campaigns, and most recently backed a referendum in the American state of Massachusetts which decriminalised possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The Ministry of Health has put up $30,000 and the symposium organiser, the largely Government-funded NZ Drug Foundation, is paying $50,000.

The Society on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, a charitable trust, is putting up $50,000.

Soros' swathes of cash reaching our shores has promoted a frenzy amongst parties who seek to distance themselves from his leanings on marijuana legalization. While National, United Future and Labour's Phil Goff argue that Soros' funding of the conference in no way signals that there will be any discussion of changing the law, legalizing marijuana is something that should be seriously considered.

The medicinal properties of marijuana have long been noted (indeed it was Catholic nuns who first brought the herb to our shores). Indeed, not so long ago in world history it was so accepted that Henry Ford made a car out of it. However, hemp's status as ecological wonder product and medication for the masses was to be devastatingly undermined with the growth of the petrochemical industry, and hemp became demonised in an attempt to further the growth of plastics and other fibres.

The argument goes that it is better for us to allow pharmaceutical companies to refine marijuana so that then people who legitimately would have a concern to use it (and I am talking here about people on large concoctions of chemical drugs, such as AIDs patients or parapalegics) will be able to have a legal way of consuming it. In this way, the Government is still able to tax a plant that can be freely grown and we sidestep the fears of encouraging a cottage industry of drug production.

The prohibitionists have a point: even they recognise marijuana has minimal harm when compared to alcohol or tobacco (as Annette King has noted in the past), but the worry is about how tinkering with the herb's status might affect the use of other drugs that it is often considered a "gateway" to. Although the "gateway" theory is often hotly contested, from a black market perspective, supplying an array of drugs is just good business. It is little coincidence, then, that the rise in discussion of talks surrounding marijuana legalisation in New Zealand coincided with a push from the gangs towards the supply of crystal methamphetamine, which had laid dormant as a form of "home bake" since the 1980s.

However, a vital point that the prohibitionists ignore is that it is also drug culture that needs to be moderated. The current crisis over the widespread use of methamphetamine is a case in point here: the uptake of 'P' in New Zealand is different to the way similar drugs like crack cocaine have been taken up in countries such as the United States and Britain, where its use is very much class structured and aligned with those from less well-off backgrounds. In Britain, where ecstacy tablets cost as little as two pounds, meth is seen as a street drug, as in the US, where its association with crack cocaine renders it similar status. In the US, this perception is no doubt the result of exposure to the long-term ravages of crack cocaine, which like meth has destructive effects on one's skin as well as their mental disposition.

In contrast, the black market economy of New Zealand's isolation means crystal meth is an expensive exercise and cuts across all segments of society - from white collar workers to the gangs. Despite the allocation of serious police resources and large budgets to its eradication, it is clear that the Government's approach is doing little to stem the flow of its spread. We need to begin examining ways of moderating the culture of drugs if we are going to minimise its impact. This means creating a culture of drug responsibility, and it is here that the Greens have some weight to their arguments of harm minimisation. The effects of marijuana are very different to the long-term effects of P: if one pacifies the majority of people who consume it, the other encourages sleep deprived, irrational and agitated people who often have difficulty recovering even after rehabilitation. We need to separate these two cultures rather than criminalising both for the sake of our youth. Rather than demonising P, which has little effect on recreational users who often do not experience the long-term impact of this drug until they are addicted, we need to emphasise the irresponsibility in its usage and create an environment where people who want help feel comfortable coming forward. We also need to stop wasting police resources on marijuana and, due to its widespread usage in New Zealand society, separate it from much more dangerous drugs at the level of its supply otherwise we just fuel its spread. Perhaps Soros might be able to talk some sense into those, who often aware of these arguments, might be seen as posturing to capture the conservative vote.