Espiner and Gower Takes Turns Blaming Richard Nixon for NZ's Drug Law Woes
December 4, 2022
PHOTO: Supplied to Stuff
Guyon Espiner: Wasted is already available on rnz.co.nz and TVNZ+, while Patrick Gower: On All The Drugs will debut on Three this coming Tuesday night.
Both documentaries are here to tell us the same story. And they succeed at making their points pretty well.
Both feature clips of US president Richard Nixon – to remind us that New Zealand followed the White House’s “war on drugs” that was declared in 1972.
By 1975, our legislation was in place. And like most other western countries, we chose a “booze is good, everything else is bad” model for our law-making that is increasingly being questioned – and jettisoned – around the world.