Alexander
Gillespie, University
of Waikato
Deaths from illegal drug
use – particularly from opioid abuse – are a global
problem, and New Zealand is far from immune. Roughly
three New Zealanders die from accidental overdoses every
week – that’s 1,295
people since 2016.
Some of those lives might
potentially have been saved, however, had help arrived
sooner – and people were less afraid to dial 111 in a drug
emergency.
That’s the reasoning behind Green MP
Kahurangi Carter’s “Good
Samaritan” member’s bill, which has just finished
hearings before the Health Select Committee.
The Drug
Overdose (Assistance Protection) Legislation Bill would
prevent low-level drug prosecutions when people seek help
(for themselves or others) for an overdose or acute reaction
to illicit or prescribed drugs.
Police could not
charge people at the scene after an ambulance had been
called, and would not have grounds to search for evidence
(although drug dealers would not be protected).
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The
bill mirrors similar laws now in place in Canada,
large parts of the United
States and parts
of Australia. But it does not have unanimous backing in
the New Zealand parliament, with National
and NZ First arguing it creates legal loopholes and
ignores existing police powers of
discretion.
Submissions to the select committee and
other testimony, however, have pointed to the increasing
availability of illicit and new psychoactive substances
here and overseas, as well as the risk of buying and
ingesting something
unexpected and dangerous.
Like so much
legislation and policy in this area, the bill aims to walk
that line between addressing drug use (and misuse) as a
health issue, and not enabling genuinely criminal
activity.
Making harm reduction
legal
Harm reduction in the world of illicit drugs
poses unique challenges because it requires law and policy
to work with people who operate in a non-legal world.
Credibility, safety and trust are key to
success.
To its credit, New Zealand has been on
this path since 1987 when it became the first country to
establish a legal
needle-exchange programme. This has proved a very
effective tool for preventing the illness and death that can
result from sharing contaminated needles.
Today,
the New Zealand
Needle Exchange Programme distributes over three million
needles and syringes each year through a national network of
21 dedicated exchanges, two mobile exchanges and 197
pharmacies and alternative outlets.
At least 93
countries have followed suit with needle and syringe
exchange programmes.
New Zealand has also made good
progress with public education and information around drug
use and risk. This is a particularly problematic area,
because prohibition has left quality control to dealers and
the black market.
The result has been people buying
something other than the drug they intended to take, which
is estimated to affect about
10% of all illegal drug sales.
Since 2020, Drug
Information and Alerts, a collaboration between various
government and non-government organisations, has sought to
reduce acute harm from dangerous, contaminated or
misrepresented substances by rapidly detecting threats and
issuing public health warnings.
More than 1.4
million people have now visited
the website, with nearly two million views of
harm-reduction information.
Fewer
overdoses
In 2022, the Misuse
of Drugs (Drug and Substance Checking Service Providers)
Regulations have made it legal for people to have their
drugs tested by a licensed entity to ascertain their
composition and safety.
Partly because of the
information collected by such services – and following a
number of serious hospitalisations and overdoses from potent
synthetic opioids – the government drug-buying agency
Pharmac loosened
restrictions around Naloxone
(Narcan), used in the treatment of opioid
overdose,
Previously, Nalaxone had been a
prescription-only medicine. Now it’s allowed for
distribution by groups such as the Needle Exchange
Programme. Again, New Zealand is not an outlier here, with
formal community or take-home distribution programmes
documented in at least 34
other countries.
Similarly, if passed into law,
the Good Samaritan bill will align domestic legislation with
common international practice.
By itself, such a
law won’t
guarantee positive outcomes in every case. But coupled
with the harm-prevention measures already in place, it would
expand efforts to combat a growing problem and potentially
reduce New Zealand’s fatal overdose statistics.
Alexander
Gillespie, Professor of Law, University
of Waikato
This article is
republished from The
Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the
original
article.
