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Dunne expects Kronic restrictions within weeks

Friday 17 June 2011, 7:05PM

By Peter Dunne

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The Government will have the ability to severely curtail the marketing and sale of the synthetic cannabis product Kronic within weeks, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said today.

“We will able to place strong restrictions on Kronic when Parliament passes amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act in the next few weeks,” Mr Dunne said.

He said it was already illegal to sell to those under 18 under smokefree legislation.

“The new legislation will enable us to develop the regulations to make Kronic a restricted substance and I have directed officials to ensure that occurs shortly after the legislation is passed.

“In the longer term, I think, the Law Commission’s recent recommendation that we reverse the onus and put it on the makers of these products to prove they are safe before they go to market is the right way to go, and the Government will be looking very seriously at that.

“It is horse before cart at the moment with authorities having to prove that these products are unsafe once they are already out there.

“It needs to be the other way around. They will need to prove that their products are safe or they will not be able to sell them.

“We cannot have this ongoing situation where we have to wait to a product is already on the market and then, authorities have to prove that it is unsafe, and when we do, they change an ingredient or two and we are back to square one.

“They are making the money; they are producing a product and they need to prove that it is safe; not the other way around,” Mr Dunne said.

He said that advice from the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs (EACD) has to date been that Kronic has been a low health risk, but that he was now instructing health officials to obtain fresh data on people seeking hospital or medical treatment for the effects of Kronic.