Peter Dunne announced last night that legal highs were to be banned next week; the Herald reports:
The Government will ban all synthetic drugs within two weeks until they can be proven to be low-risk, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne has revealed.
The move comes as Labour plans to announce its own policy on psychoactive substances tomorrow, and follows increasing protest from local communities against legal highs.
Mr Dunne told the Herald this afternoon: "Last Tuesday, Cabinet agreed on a proposal from me to introduce legislation under urgency when Parliament resumes to remove the remaining 41 products from the shelves until such time as their low-level of risk can be proven."
He said he would have made the announcement earlier but he did not want to encourage stock-piling of the drugs.
The emergency legislation will be introduced when Parliament resumed on May 6, and will be passed under urgency.
"I'm expecting it to be passed that particular week and to take effect pretty much immediately afterwards," Mr Dunne said.
This meant there would be no psychoactive substances for sale in New Zealand for "some considerable amount of time".
This is very welcome news. A couple of friends have gone through some tough times in the last couple of years with children becoming addicted to legal highs. The legislation designed to regulate the sale of these harmful products has not worked as was intended.
With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to argue that Peter Dunne ought to have acted sooner. 20/20 hindsight though is a rare and precious gift. We applaud the Minister for taking this step, even though it is something that probably should have been done sooner.
We look forward to the passage of the necessary legislation next week,and we would hope that the vote is unanimous. Legal highs serve no useful purpose.
