surfisup1000:

 

I wonder what would happen if all drugs were simply legalised, but drug education was boosted. 

 

As mentioned by someone else, there's the big debate of legalisation vs decriminalisation.

The country where there has probably been the most drastic liberalisation of drug laws is Portugal, but they went down the track (in 2001) of decriminalisation of all drugs, not legalisation. The results have been quite striking, though this article points out that not all the improvements can necessarily be put down to the law change - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it

I heard/read something interesting a few weeks back on drug reform, in which a key point was that it was not feasible to make assumptions based on what happened in other locations where drug laws have been liberalised: it's such a multi-factorial issue. So decriminalising all drugs in NZ may lead to quite different outcomes than what occurred in Portugal.

Anyone interested in reading about drug reform should read Russell Brown's posts in his blog Public Address. One of his recent posts is of particular relevance to the original question of this thread, given it points towards a more hands-off approach towards possession and personal use of all drugs:

But an accompanying announcement is the really interesting part. As I've indicated here before, ministers have been seeking to balance the get-tough part of any new approach to the synthetics problem in both a specific and general sense. Specifically, to try and ensure that people stuck using synthetics aren't further victimised by the harsher penalties for simple possession that the rescheduling implies. And generally, to do justice to its mantra that drug use should be approached as primarily a health rather than a criminal matter.

 

Finding the actual nature of that balance has not been an easy matter, and both official and independent expert advice has been sought on how to manage it. But this is what they're doing, per this morning's announcement:

 

Amending the Misuse of Drugs Act to specify in law that Police should use their discretion and not prosecute for possession and personal use where a therapeutic approach would be more beneficial, or there is no public interest in a prosecution. This will apply to the use of all illegal drugs, so there is no perverse incentive created encouraging people to switch to a particular drug.

 

Yes, you read that correctly. The Misuse of Drugs Act will be amended to guide Police discretion in such a way that the default will be to not prosecute personal use and possession of any illegal drug. The government is at pains to emphasise that this is not the full Portugal-style decriminalisation  repeatedly called for in last week's Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction, and you may even expect reform advocates to play it down a bit. But it's a really big deal.