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Health Minister Andrew Little says a new bill will provide a short-term solution over the summer and a longer-term solution will be worked out next year. Photo / Mark Tantrum
Health Minister Andrew Little says young people who use drugs at festivals are not bad people and should have access to advice and tests to make it safer.
Health Minister Andrew Little revealed yesterday morning that the government will pass an urgent law to provide legal breathing space for drug control in time for the summer festival season.
Little told Mike Hosking of Newstalk ZB that he disagreed with young people taking “mind-altering substances” but wanted people to do so safely.
“We know that with festival season upon us, young people come to concerts and drugs are passed and they don’t know what is in them.
“We are not encouraging it, but it is happening anyway.
“Young people experiment with these things and it doesn’t make them bad people.”
It’s a surprise after both Little and Police Minister Poto Williams recently told the Herald that such a law change was “unlikely” before the end of the year, given that there were only two weeks of sessions left in Parliament.
Judith Collins does not endorse on-site pill testing at festivals, although she knows her opinion is unpopular.
A 2019 Colmar Brunton poll shows 75 percent of people support some kind of legal pill test.
The youth wing of National also supports the move.
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National leader Judith Collins told Kate Hawkesby of Newstalk ZB that we need to look beyond polls before introducing new laws.
Drug testing allows users to turn in a sample and find out if it is what they think it is or if it is laced with something more sinister. Some drugs in Rhythm and Vines in 2018 were found to have pesticides, industrial paint compounds, and acetaminophen, while there have been several overseas health warnings for fentanyl cannabis.
Currently, section 12 of the Drug Abuse Act says that anyone who knowingly allows a premises to be used for a drug-related crime faces up to 10 years in prison, depending on the drug in question.
It created a gray area where drug inspectors or festival hosts could face charges, although drug enforcement organization KnowYourStuffNZ has said it has never been threatened with prosecution or harassed by police.
Last season, KnowYourStuffNZ analyzed 1,368 samples between April 2019 and March this year, and 86 percent of the time the drug was what users thought it was; when it wasn’t, 52 percent of people said they wouldn’t take it.
