Synthetic drugs are ‘killing our people’
Mana Party leader Hone Harawira, whose nephew Kahu died after smoking synthetic drugs, says dealers deserve to die.
Kahu Harawira was found dead in a West Auckland law firm’s carpark in June shortly after smoking synthetics.
The coroner is investigating his death, and at least 19 others.
Hone Harawira, the candidate for Te Tai Tokerau, said dealers ‘‘need to be put up against the wall and shot’’.
He said Kahu ‘‘had his demons’’ but was a ‘‘lovely bear of a boy’’. ‘‘His cousins miss him terribly. ‘‘It’s a massive hole in the fabric of our family.’’ Harawira said synthetic cannabis was ‘‘killing our people and somebody needs to take serious action to stop it’’.
‘‘Do I know exactly how that should be? ‘‘No I don’t. ‘‘But do I want to send a message out there to those ... who are doing this?
‘‘Hell yeah. I do it as an uncle, as a father and as a politician.
He railed at politicians such as Peter Dunne for trying to regulate the psychoactive substances market, under which people had become rich.
‘‘The people who made money from legal highs, they don’t deserve the fortune that they have – it’s a fortune built entirely on misery.’’
Harawira said people did not seem to care that 20 people had died, citing ‘‘personal choice’’.
But once someone became addicted to such substances, rational thought went out the window, he said.
‘‘If this was rich little kids from a well-off school there’d be a horrendous noise, there’d be MPs condemning this, there’d be a special commission set up and immediate action.
‘‘This is really bad stuff, we are at a very nasty point in our society’s development when we can turn a blind eye to people being killed.
‘‘Someone’s accountable.
‘‘But while we’re thinking about it, people are dying.
‘‘We either step up to the plate or we allow it to continue.’’ got to be held