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SocietyMarch 15, 2018

Longer jail sentences will do nothing to solve the synthetic cannabis epidemic

Guest writer
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Instead of increasing prison time for the supply of drugs like synthetic cannabis, let’s focus on the solutions that have been proven to work, argues Victoria University criminologist Dr Fiona Hutton.

Last week parliament debated an amendment to the 2013 Psychoactive Substances Act which would increase penalties for supplying new psychoactive substances such as synthetic cannabis from two years’ prison time to eight.

The amendment comes in the wake of the Vice documentary Syn City about those struggling with addictions to synthetic cannabis. In an interview to promote the documentary, the journalist behind it called the government’s inaction over synthetics “staggering”. And the government’s response? The tired, drum-banging rhetoric of ‘getting tough’, with its empty promise that this will actually tackle the problems related to synthetic cannabis, or any other drug.

Evidence shows, again and again, that law and order approaches to health issues are ineffective. This is abundantly clear given that the 2014 amendment to the 2013 Psychoactive Substances Act – another knee-jerk response – effectively created the unregulated, underground market for synthetics that is today causing users, their families and communities such heartache and grief.

The 2013 Psychoactive Substances Act is up for review this year. The Act needs to be refocused on regulating dosage and availability in order to prevent harms from new psychoactive substances, as it was originally intended to do.

Our skewed focus on supply has proven ineffective. New Zealand spends $273.1 million a year through police, courts and corrections on preventing the supply of drugs, but only $78.3 on health interventions and treatment. Focusing on supply has not stopped illegal drug use in New Zealand, or any other country. It has simply filled prisons with low-level drug dealers who are usually users themselves, and often from disadvantaged, marginalised communities.

Focusing on supply in this way sidesteps the issue of demand, of why people take drugs such as synthetic cannabis. There will always be supply to meet demand. Physician Gabor Mate notes that addiction is all about pain and if you first address people’s pain then you can try to address their addictions. The pain of those in Syn City is clear for all to see, so why not try and address that pain, instead of pedalling empty rhetoric about ‘getting tough’?

Drugs, both legal and illegal, have the potential to cause harms, particularly to those who use them problematically and are addicted. Although these are a small minority of users over all — most people who use drugs suffer few if any harms — we need to concentrate on providing compassionate, health-focused responses to those whose drug use is causing problems for them, their families and their communities.

Let’s not waste time and taxpayer dollars ‘getting tough’. Let’s implement policies that are effective and which help those in need of support and treatment for their addictions, rather than criminalising and stigmatising them.

We need to extend treatment services to effectively cover substances like synthetic cannabis, while implementing an early warning system to enable urgent action when particular drugs are becoming a problem. We need to make it easier for agencies at the coal face of dealing with the consequences of addiction to drugs to liaise with each other. In short, we need to implement policies that actually reduce the harms from drugs like synthetic cannabis.

More Reading

The new coalition government stands at a crossroads in terms of drug policy and reform. It can be remembered as the government that carried on down the worn path of prohibition and ‘getting tough’, an approach which has proven to be ineffective. Or it can be remembered as the government that stood up and listened to the evidence. Which is it to be?

Dr Fiona Hutton is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington.

This section is made possible by Simplicity, New Zealand’s fastest growing KiwiSaver scheme. As a nonprofit, Simplicity only charges members what it costs to invest their money. It already has more than 12,500 plus members who, together, are saving more than $3.8 million annually in fees. This year, New Zealanders will pay more than $525 million in KiwiSaver fees. Why pay more than you need to? It takes two minutes to switch. Grab your IRD # and driver’s licence. It really is that simple.

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SocietyMarch 15, 2018

NZ’s failure on sexual misconduct is much, much bigger than any one case

Guest writer

From State Services to Russell McVeagh, from the Human Rights Commission to the Labour Party, a clear pattern emerges in sexual harassment stories across NZ, and it reveals we just don’t take the issue seriously, argues Catriona MacLennan.

Sexual harassment is still not regarded a serious issue in Aotearoa.

That is what we have learned since 2014, as a pattern of inadequate responses to harassment has played out in the public and media spotlight.

In November 2014, then-Canterbury Earthquake recovery Authority Chief Executive Roger Sutton was permitted to stand alongside top state sector bosses Iain Rennie and Andrew Kibbelwhite at a press conference as it was announced that Sutton had resigned from his job.

Sutton was given a platform to speak to the media and trivialise his actions. Kibblewhite embraced Sutton. Rennie praised him. Sutton’s wife gave emotional on-camera interviews.

I knew as soon as I heard the first story about the resignation that the way it was being portrayed in the media was inaccurate: if the media view of events had been correct, Sutton would not have resigned.

But it took a couple of days for more accurate details to emerge, during which time Sutton was portrayed as the charming victim of heavy-handed complaints.

The complainant, meanwhile, was publicly vilified and unable to walk down the street.

And, to cap it all, we discovered that the State Services Commission itself did not have adequate procedures in place to deal with sexual harassment.

In 2015, we learned of former Prime Minister John Key’s repeated pulling of a waitress’s pony tail. Despite the woman’s ongoing requests for the behaviour to cease and her obvious distress, Mr Key insisted that his behaviour was just “horsing around” and “sort of practical jokes.”

Complaints of sexual harassment in the military have been made over many years. The New Zealand Defence Force in 2016 launched Operation RESPECT to tackle such behaviours, but women to this day continue to come forward to speak about their complaints being inadequately handled.

In February this year, the Human Rights Commission – which is itself supposed to deal with sexual harassment complaints – was revealed to have botched its response to a complaint within the commission.

In the same month, sexual harassment and assault at law firm Russell McVeagh were publicly revealed, with the firm’s reaction being widely – and justifiably –criticised for its inadequacy.

Russell McVeagh subsequently announced that it had implemented a zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment, but refused to state when this had been introduced.

Wouldn’t you expect a law firm to have had a clear policy since the very day it was established?

The New Zealand Law Society has also been criticised for its handling of the Russell McVeagh revelations. In March, the Law Society announced that it was establishing a working group to consider what improvements could be made to enable better reporting of harassment in the legal profession.

This week, the Labour Party has been under the microscope as reports emerged of sexual assault at a camp for young people.

There are five common threads running through all these cases.

  • Many employers and other organisations do not have proper procedures for dealing with sexual harassment. It is difficult to put this down to anything other than them not considering sexual harassment to be important. I can guarantee that all of the above organisations have robust procedures for dealing with, for example, theft and would know exactly what to do if money disappeared;
  • The immediate response of a majority of organisations is to downplay sexual harassment and assault, minimising and trivialising it. This is because the key concern of those to whom sexual harassment is reported is with protecting the organisation, rather than supporting the victims;
  • Sexual harassment – like rape, domestic violence, the gender pay gap and other issues – is pigeon-holed as a “women’s issue”. This means that women are regarded as being responsible for solving it. Men are the perpetrators, but calling sexual harassment a “women’s issue” gives men a get-out-of-jail-free card. Not a single male lawyer has spoken out about sexual harassment in the legal profession. They have – gutlessly –sat by and left it to women to speak;
  • The role of the media is incredibly important. It seems that it is only when journalists do stories about sexual harassment that employers are forced to deal with it properly;
  • It is the victims who continue to pay the heaviest price. In addition to dealing with the behaviour to which they are subjected, they are forced to weigh up the likely impact on their careers of seeking justice for what they have endured.

As a result of the latest stories, there will be reviews and new procedures.

But, fundamentally, nothing will change.

That is because the root cause of sexual harassment is power.

In our society, it is middle-class, Pākehā males who hold power.

In their heart of hearts, they view women as inferior. They are used to women in their lives deferring to them.

The position is even worse for non-Pākehā women and women with disabilities.

They suffer double or treble discrimination.

Until we not only tackle but actually solve the power imbalance, Pākehā males will continue to believe that women’s bodies are theirs for the taking – whether it is in the workplace or elsewhere.

When the men who sexually harass young women in law firms look at female interns, they don’t see lawyers.

They see women, and their lives have taught them to have a sense of entitlement towards women.

They need to start seeing lawyers, just as in every single workplace men need to start regarding women as colleagues, rather than as members of a subservient gender.

This section is made possible by Simplicity, New Zealand’s fastest growing KiwiSaver scheme. As a nonprofit, Simplicity only charges members what it costs to invest their money. It already has more than 12,500 plus members who, together, are saving more than $3.8 million annually in fees. This year, New Zealanders will pay more than $525 million in KiwiSaver fees. Why pay more than you need to? It takes two minutes to switch. Grab your IRD # and driver’s licence. It really is that simple.

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