Time for sensible debate on drug laws

He leads an organisation devoted to it, in a country that uses the most of it but the president of New Zealand's legalise marijuana lobby insists he does not smoke pot.

Phil Saxby just wants a law he says is expensive, a breach of human rights and simply not working to be changed.

A background in lobbying led Mr Saxby to the front of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) last November and he is giving it three years.

He hopes to make the most of a review by the law commission into the 33-year-old Misuse of Drugs act.

Yesterday Mr Saxby was in New Plymouth speaking to the city's small number of Norml members and hoping to drum up awareness of the review, which is due in November. "It's time for sensible debate. What we want is for the community to say, `Is this really what we want from our drug laws?"'

Mr Saxby said the current law cost the taxpayer more than $70 million a year and many were then charged for a "victimless crime".

He hoped the Government would pay attention to the review and hoped the community and lobby groups would make sure that happened.

"This is an opportunity for serious public debate for the first time in 30 years. We think it's time the country was brought up to date and prohibition ended."