Drugs and the Law

United Future will:

• Oppose the decriminalisation of cannabis and any liberalisation of other drug laws.
• Introduce tougher penalties for all drug dealing, including cannabis, and make it an aggravating factor in sentencing for those found guilty of dealing to young people.
• Raise penalties for receiving income from the proceeds of drugs, and introduce legislation that allows for the confiscation of the proceeds of crime for all gangs and criminal organisations with the onus of proof of lawfully acquired wealth shifted onto the suspect.
• Ensure that all who are apprehended for possession or use of drugs for the first time are required to undergo treatment, whether they receive a custodial sentence or not.
• Introduce specialist drug courts to allow treatment options to be incorporated into sentencing, combined with the use of further sanctions for continued abuse of drugs and other re-offending.
• Introduce a Restricted Substances Act that would regulate the sale and use of party pills and other substances such as nitrous oxide and solvents that also have legitimate uses.
• Crack down on sales of alcohol to minors by increasing police resources to enforce underage drinking laws, introducing stronger penalties for supply, and a change to the law to require retailers to check age ID by law.
• Regularly review the classification of drugs to ensure that they accurately reflect their health, behavioural and social effects, and only allow them to move upwards into more serious classes of drugs.
• Ensure that laws dealing with new drugs are fast tracked in response to changes in drug culture, informed by the experience of police.
• Enact legislation that make drug dealers an accomplice to any crime committed by their 'customers', where the activities of those customers are related to their drug use and where the link can be reasonably established.
• Allow police to drug test all offenders, including young offenders, and make it mandatory for all young people testing positive to be referred to treatment programmes.
• Remove being under the influence of drugs or alcohol while committing a crime as a mitigating factor in sentencing.
• Deny home detention for drug dealers.
• Require prisoners to undergo full toxicology testing on admission to prison to establish the level of drug use and provide them with a clean start through targeted detection, deterrence, treatment and education programmes.
• Crack down on the level of drug use in prisons with the aim of making all prisons 'clean'. The Department of Corrections will be funded to ensure that it can continue to provide a comprehensive programme for the elimination of drug use within all prisons and youth correction facilities, reporting progress annually on its achievements.
• Ensure that re-integration services for prison inmates upon release include mandatory drug-testing and drug treatment options.
• Ensure that Customs are sufficiently funded to stop the importation of drugs.
• Increase the age at which liquor may be purchased from off-licensed premises to twenty.
• Establish legal guidelines for drug-testing in workplaces, schools and other environments, and encourage comprehensive employee assistance programmes in return for reduced ACC levies, to ensure there are no barriers to implementing testing.
• Ban advertising promoting illicit drug use or accessories.
• Undertake thorough research into the relationship between the level of drug use and all other crime.
• Require all coroners to drug test all suicide victims to help determine the relationship between drug use and suicide.

		Return to Policies Index

Home | News | Successes | The Team | Policies | Get Involved

United Future Contacts: 0800 UFNZHQ
Parliamentary: Bowen House, Lambton Quay, Wellington E-mail: Ph: 04 471 9410