Worst murderers would have escaped three strikes law

Hi cynical, having trouble following your comment, but what I would say is that the level of crime is easy to manipulate, all one need do is try to catch people selling and using drugs under the prohibition model and the crime rate goes up.
People have different tastes in drugs. The first drug-containing product we try is probably as a child when we get a taste of our first easter egg, but no one tries to say that chocolate, caffiene, nicotine, or alcohol are "Gateway" drugs, so what makes cannabis any different?
I also have a right to live unassaulted, free of the police kicking down my door, free of wire taps on my communications, free of standover from organised crime, but under prohibition policy all these assaults on my peace and liberty are seen as fitting and just, or somehow acceptable in some other way because as we all have been trained and conditioned to think, it's the drugs that are "bad", right?
If you wish for more homicide in NZ then just support the prohibition of drugs. If you wish for a relative peace then I would encourage you to investigate ideas that do not demonise drug users, and to support policies that find a way to give addicts the drugs and support they need to live relatively normal lives.
Some people speed, but so far we have not made cars illegal. If caught speeders are punished. We put up safety signs, train and license drivers, make unsafe roads safer to travel on, the same can be done with the drug economy:)
International trade in illicit drugs is worth US$500billion. That's all tax free cash going to people prepared to break the law. We are paying to chase them, paying to imprison them, paying for the health costs associated with adulterated or ill prepared drugs, paying to spread disease.
Drug users are not some body else. They are all of us to varying degrees, it is all just a matter of taste.
Making war on our friends and neighbours under prohibition will not produce peace, but many thousands of victims year in, year out.

If one of god's laws was broken and a loved one of mine was harmed I would seek sublime vengeance!. And I'm an Atheist!.

Urban druid - please do not start with any references to Hitler and cohorts - in fact, if anything, the oppponents of this bill isolate this proposed law as the solution the proponents seek, and none other. We both know that this is not true. You seem to isolate drugs, and I do not disagree that drugs are not a factor in crime. I am not sure if you are one who favours legalisation of cannabis. If you are, do not think for one moment that the drug misuse you refer to begins with P, or heroin. It begins with the cannabis. Having said that, are you not a little off track in this section, promoting your desire for cannabis to become legal? Whether or not such a law would in or decrease crime has nothing to do with the right to live and live unassaulted. The section which deals with cannabis is in the article "Decision reserved on weed advocate's stay application".

V, God didn't right any laws, man did then proclaimed they were written by god.

Even if this law takes only one serious repeat offender off the streets it has been worth while and of more value than the anti-smacking law.

What's that, cynical? The full and "final solution", now where have I heard that term used before? Hey, steady on friend, that's a little heavy isn't it?
I'll give you some numbers. Around 500,000 people smoke cannabis to varying degrees here in New Zealand. We have the highest use rates in the western world, and the highest cannabis arrest stats.
We also have a liking for amphetamine type drugs. People who like powerful CNS stimulants cannot source cocaine and the like very easily. So resourceful as many kiwi's are, we tend to grow, (steal,) and manufacture our own drugs either in the garden, the farmer's bush block, or in the bathtub and kitchen sink...
Recently, Judith Collins, informed us that up to 55,000 people in our communities have a penchant for methamphetamine. A billion dollar a year industry.
A friend told me recently he saw, Paul Holmes, say on TV that 92% of people who use "P" can do so without significant problems. If this is accurate, it is probably true for all those who use the other letters of the alphabet as well, so what are we doing crashing in on their lives up to the point of life imprisonment (and sometimes beyond)? Surely we should focus on the 8% who are having the problems? and at first blush the best approach would be to team them up with a doctor or some trained health worker?
This is not some radical idea. It was pretty much the policy in the UK for heroin and cocaine until about the 1960's when there was a shift in focus away from the patient's "maintenance" needs towards psychiatrists who were given the responsibility of swapping the patient's heroin for methadone and trying to wean them free of opiates altogether.
Unfortunately, this was a dysfunctional policy because most preferred heroin to methadone and sought out heroin to top up on. This led to increased crime, increases in levels of addiction and the spread of disease.
It should be obvious how to remedy the situation for much of the crime we experience. Yes? No?

Ah, urban druid, what a shame that not only the activists can have a say these days. My position stems from the right to live and live unassaulted, as you will no doubt be aware by now. It is your freedom of expression which allows you to argue for the cultivation of victims. If you believe that I see this law as the full and final solution to the problems, you have not read all my other postings. This law should have been in place from the start of Justice and the legal profession should be the most concerned with this basic right. All other rights are of no consequence without this.

Hi, V, by "Gods law!" do you mean light, love, and compassion? That sort of thing? Or perhaps, John Cleese, blowing a tin whistle as idiot town official over-seeing the execution of "blasphemers" and so on at the local stoning pit, ("Life of Brian") style?
Cynical, hello, what I feel some think it means is that the solution to our crime problems is not likely to be found in the "one, two, three-strikes-you're-out..." concept of justice.
Some months ago, when Prime Minister, John Key, was asked about the tough on crime initiatives he had allowed his party to buy into, as to whether they would help ease New Zealands crime problems or not, his exact words were, "Probably not."
Probably not? Well what on earth are we trying them for?
If they do not solve our crime problems, what is their actual side effect(s)? Those "unexpected", but "expected to be tolerated" outcomes for the rest of us?
More crime and criminal behaviour will produce not only more prisons, police, and prison officers, but also thousands more actual victims in our communities. Yes? No?
Jan, what do you think?
No, people have been watching too much TV, and in the absence of any real world understanding for the ideas and scenes they see constructed before them, the fabrication in their mind becomes a reality all of its own.
Most people have not got enough time to think. The responsibility for their communities health and safety is passed on to members of our society who see the opportunity to profit from the set up, or those who can see through the illusion but are crippled by the vested interests of the status quo.

3 strikes? I think 2 strikes are more than enough.

It is there to protect us from the serial, non curable crims who are proven to commit crimes within weeks of being released ie. paedophiles, rapists etc and those who start offending young and will never change.