Editorial: Relieve shop owners of fake dope dilemma

Photo / APN

When Napoleon described Britain as a nation of shopkeepers, he was being far from complimentary. His portrayal was that of mundane people doing a banal job. Fast forward 200 years, however, and things are not so straightforward for New Zealand's shopkeepers. The arrival of Kronic and other synthetic cannabis brands has presented them with the sort of dilemma normally reserved for highly paid chief executives.

Of 67 shops in Auckland surveyed by the Herald this week, most of them suburban dairies, 40 were selling synthetic cannabis. They are doing nothing wrong because it is legal to sell the products to anyone except minors. Yet it is not quite that simple. Nobody knows how safe they are, a situation highlighted by young people ending up in hospital after smoking them.

This has led some shopkeepers to stop selling synthetic cannabis, forsaking a big profit margin in the process. One said, quite admirably, that if he would not sell it to his own son, he could not sell it to someone else's son. Others have taken it from their shelves after enduring customers' wrath.

Yet it remains difficult to condemn the majority who, in choosing to sell the products, are not breaking any law.

Shopkeepers should not have this dilemma. The Government plans to accelerate moves to limit the sale and advertisement of synthetic cannabis.

The real answer lies, however, in manufacturers having to prove their products are safe before they can be sold. With that enshrined in law, shopkeepers could return to a more mundane, but far happier, existence.