Editorial: Blunt tools against legal highs

The government needs to ban legal highs. Photo/Paul Taylor

If the Government is serious about encouraging local councils to regulate the sale of legal highs then it needs to take a look at the tools it has given communities to do the job.

Because those tools are blunt.

Parliament last year introduced the Psychoactive Substances Act, giving local authorities the right to develop locally approved products policy to determine where such products could be sold.

But not to ban them.

The Whangarei District Council has to follow this Act, and, faced with being unable to ban them, can only make life as difficult as possible for the sellers.

The council has suggested that the sale of legal highs could be restricted to three streets in Whangarei.

If the idea becomes policy - and there is some way to go before it does - then it would mean existing legal high retailers would not be able to continue selling them unless they traded from within the proposed three block zone. The zone was chosen as it was far enough away from schools, kindergartens, places of worship or other community facilities.

Sales of legal highs could also be restricted to between 10am and 2pm and from 6pm to 8pm, mainly so that they were not open when children were going to and from school.

Existing businesses (who aren't selling legal highs) in the zone say "no way - ban it altogether".

So do Advocate readers who have commented on our story this week about the proposal.

As senior Advocate reporter Mike Dinsdale, who wrote the story, says, "the Government has given the council a hospital pass really by saying it's legal for adults aged over 18, 'now you guys decide how to regulate and minimise harm' etc, similar to alcohol.

"Also, the Ministry of Health's Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority is responsible for ensuring that any licensed sellers are adhering to any local restrictions.

"So our council can impose these regulations but a separate body has the job of enforcing them ... daft if you ask me."

I agree with Mike, and I like his creative observation that the council's smokefree policy might give it some teeth in dealing with the matter.

Because creativity is what will be needed on the council's behalf, to regulate legal highs to the satisfaction of ratepayers, whom I suspect want them banned.

The last thing we need is the equivalent of Amsterdam's Coffee Shops popping up in Whangarei as Legal High Cafes. The first thing is central government legislation that gives our local bodies some teeth, and not gummy, false ones. Future amendments or additions to the Act could offer that opportunity, at which point our community voice should be loud, and in unison, "ban them completely".