The Government pays about $5000 to test each product it suspects may be synthetic cannabis - a cost Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne says it is "prepared to bear".
"We currently have the Temporary Drug Class Notices regime which is focused on delivering safety first for young New Zealanders. This regime is specifically temporary."
Next year, a permanent law will be introduced which will require manufacturers to prove the safety of their products and pay for associated expenses.
On Saturday Enjoi Products released a repackaged and modified version of its Amsterdam Cafe synthetic cannabis to convenience stores across Auckland.
The Ministry of Health ignored advice from police and Customs that legislation to ban synthetic cannabis products was incomplete and could lead to the re-emergence of legal highs.
Yesterday it was revealed that a new legal version of Amsterdam Cafe, a synthetic cannabis product, went on sale on Saturday.
Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said yesterday that three new synthetic cannabinoid substances - the chemicals used to produce products like Kronic - had been banned.
Packages of all three were intercepted at the border by Customs. One of them was destined for Enjoi Products, the manufacturer of Amsterdam Cafe.
Mr Dunne said Ministry of Health officials had made contact with Enjoi Products to determine if the intercepted cannabinoids were used in the new version of Amsterdam Cafe.
If it was, the product could be off shelves by next week, otherwise tests would be carried out to determine its contents.
A synthetic cannabis product is back on the market - and others are on the way - less than three months after the so-called "legal highs" were banned.
Auckland-based Enjoi Products released a repackaged and modified version of its Amsterdam Cafe synthetic cannabis product to convenience stores across Auckland on Saturday.
The Long Island Tea blend has been slightly chemically altered from the company's former Havana Special product, which was affected by the Government ban that came into force in August.
But the new product, which sells for $20, has "quite a similar effect" to the old one, Enjoi Products managing director Zaid Muso said.
"There's nothing to really hide here, it is a synthetic cannabinoid."
LATEST: ACT's ticket to Parliament, Epsom candidate John Banks, and the party's president have both rejected leader Don Brash's cannabis stance.
In a speech on law and order to party supporters in Auckland yesterday, Brash said he had serious questions about New Zealand's current marijuana laws and gave his personal endorsement to at least a debate over cannabis law reform.
However ACT president Chris Simmons today said decriminalising the class-C drug wouldn't be the party's policy next year, in 2014 or even 2017.
Simmons said the party's board wouldn't support decriminalisation, which was a "step too far." But he said it was important for party members to be asking questions and raising new ideas.
John Banks, the party's Epsom candidate and a former police minister, today said he could not support cannabis decriminalisation.
Home » News » Dunedin
Wed, 21 Sep 2011
News: Dunedin
A man received almost $53,000 in benefit payments he not entitled to because he failed to tell Winz about large amounts of money he was making from drug-dealing, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday.
Leon Dean Michael Leech (37), unemployed, told an investigator last month he did not disclose the income because it was from illegal activities.
He admitted four charges of dishonestly using Work and Income documents for financial gain and one charge of wilfully failing to disclose his correct financial circumstances to the Ministry of Social Development between August 3, 2007 and June 16 this year.
On all charges, Judge Stephen O'Driscoll convicted and remanded Leech in custody for sentence on November 10.
Slain man suspected drug dealer
Slain Helensville man Lee Ross McMurdo was a suspected drug dealer.
The body of the 32-year-old father of three was found at his property near the small, semi-rural settlement of Helensville, northwest of Auckland, last month. Police said he was violently killed.
Court staff confirmed that Lee McMurdo was facing charges of cultivation of cannabis and possession of cannabis for supply at the time of his death.
He had appeared in Waitakere District Court seven times between January and June 2011 but had not been convicted.
Inquiry head Detective Inspector Greg Cramer declined to comment on whether it was thought the killing was drug-related.
He said the Helensville community probably held the key to solving the "whodunit'' mystery, which was being worked on by 45 police staff.
There had been a "slow but steady'' public response since police launched an appeal for information on Friday. Mr Cramer reiterated the importance of people coming forward with information, no matter how irrelevant it may seem to them.
"I'm still convinced that there are people out there who know what happened that, for one reason or another, are not coming forward.
"Everything we get helps us to build a very comprehensive picture of who he was and his associations and his habitual behaviours and movements.''
Lee McMurdo's body was found in the back yard of the property on July 26, three days after he was last seen.
An LG flat-screen television and a black wallet, containing a cash card and a Video Ezy card with his name on it, were missing from the house.
Mr Cramer would not say whether police had received any new information about these items.
The dead man's parents, Bruce and Sue, last week made an emotional plea for information about what happened to their son.
"We'd just appreciate getting to the bottom of this. We're hoping someone from Helensville or any other area can give the police any assistance whatsoever to solve this crime for us,'' Bruce McMurdo said.
"It's absolutely devastating for our family.''
Lee McMurdo used to operate a business freighting flowers, which he had taken over from his father, but that failed earlier this year.
Campaigner's Sentencing Political Injustice
Wednesday, 29 June 2011, 3:42 pm
Press Release: MildGreens
Press Release: MildGreens. For imediate release.
Politicians and Prohibitors may call Dakta Greens sentencing 'Justice' but health and justice policy activist Dakta Green is right, this is, indisputably political.
It should be obvious to all that there is no New Zealand Alcohol Party, or Tobacco Party of Aotearoa, nor is there likely to ever be on your next electoral ballot sheet a Party of Kronic. But there it is, every by-election, every general election, and many local body elections "ALCP", the monicker for the MMP inspired Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.
On its merits ALCP polls more than Jim Anderton's Progressives, or Dunne's United Future... It does so without access to mainstream media, televised debates or material resources. Two of its former candidates have been elected, and re-elected to parliament.
What simply does not work is the system of severe penalties for producing, transhipping and selling substances deemed illegal.
During my first four years as a National MP I initiated four policy papers, three of which were ultimately embraced as party policy.
11 June, 2011
A top Government scientist says there is an "appalling" lack of information about synthetic cannabis products - but tests so far do not indicate serious mental or physical health risks.
Products such as Kronic which are available in dairies throughout New Zealand contain chemicals that closely mimic the effects of cannabis.
Tests by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) have detected a dozen different active chemicals in Kronic, most of which are described by ESR forensic general manager Keith Bedford as experimental and poorly researched.
"But I think although there's an appalling lack of information on the risks and toxicity of these new substances, every indication seems to be that they are not a high or even medium level of risk - there's a low level of risk."
Dr Bedford said he backed the Government's moves to make "legal weed" products restricted substances instead of banning them outright.
He said a "moral panic" was fuelling attitudes to ban the products instead of restricting them.
A legislative amendment expected to be passed next year will clamp down on where the products can be sold and advertised and force distributors to state on packaging what substances they contain.
While banning is the traditional approach to drugs classed as dangerous, a regulatory "no-man's-land" exists around substances which do not clearly pose a "medium" level of risk, Dr Bedford said.
"I know that harm minimisation has got a mixed press in some cases, but there's a lot to be said for trying to manage and contain the situation rather than almost a knee-jerk reaction of banning without the evidence to back that up," Dr Bedford said.
Banning the products would also prove difficult for authorities faced with the myriad synthetic substances involved.
"You're trying to describe a group of chemicals which, in some cases, are quite different from each other and from THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.
Dr Bedford's comments follow a number of anecdotal reports that using Kronic can lead to long-lasting and heightened negative emotions and send heart rates soaring.
A Herald investigation showed that buying synthetic cannabis was as easy as buying an icecream for under-18s.
