Kate Hawkesby: Decriminalising meth shouldn't be something this Govt is looking at, why are they?

It appears advocates of legalising cannabis in this country are still smarting over having lost that referendum. This was a referendum we shouldn’t have even been having in the first place when you look at all the other things needing sorting in this country. Decriminalizing weed shouldn’t be top of the priority list. The fact it ever was, and that millions were spent on a referendum on it, speaks volumes about this Government and where it sees value.  Kids in poverty, people sleeping cars, mental health, housing, health and education would be good starting points for a government who promised a lot on that and have delivered nothing. My bad, sorry, they have delivered something on that – worse stats in every single category. But back to weed. Not content with having lost that debate, they’re now looking at decriminalizing meth.  This insane idea comes from none other than the Helen Clark Foundation. They want a health based approach to everything, seemingly ignoring the fact our health system is in crisis, and sending all the meth addicts there probably isn’t going to help anyone. Again, before anything becomes a health approach we surely should be looking at nurses (getting some), resources (getting some of those too) and actually having a few GPs available in more areas than just central cities. But that aside, not only does the Helen Clark Foundation want meth fully decriminalized, but any hard drugs in small quantities. They also want addicts given places where they’re given the drugs in controlled circumstances.  This is if rehab – two goes at rehab, hasn’t worked. So to be clear, if you’re peddling or imbibing meth or other hard drugs, the Foundation wants it to be legal, and wants clinics to have some meth dished up to you if rehab didn't work. When Helen Clark’s crowd put out this report, the Health Minister, instead of saying, ‘look Helen, not sure what you’ve been smoking but dream on’ and throwing the report in the bin, said he’ll look into it. Andrew Little wants to look at this idea, while in the same breath acknowledging that there’s no appetite in NZ for decriminalization of drugs given the referendum result. But this Government clearly knows better than us, so despite the fact we didn’t want weed shops on every street corner, and we probably don’t want meth clinics around the place peddling meth to users out in the community either, they’ll still look at it because they know best. Little said the Government’s focused on efforts to support addiction recovery and funding addiction recovery programs like the one for gang members on meth. And they’re ‘willing to take bold steps’ to ‘develop this further and expand it’.  He was reported saying that the Government’s poured ‘a lot of resources into health responses for drugs over the past five years’ .. with ‘a lot more money going in’. Is that reassuring to you as a taxpayer? Does that sound like a Health Minister with his priorities in the right place? Call me crazy, but I reckon we could start with some nurses, some GPs, some rural healthcare, some midwives and some decent ED resources.. rather than handing out more money to meth addicts at this point.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.