Chicago Boyz link to an insightful piece, “Wouldn’t you feel safer with a gun?” by Richard Munday in the Times:

We are so self-congratulatory about our officially disarmed society,
and so dismissive of colonial rednecks, that we have forgotten that
within living memory British citizens could buy any gun – rifle,
pistol, or machinegun – without any licence. When Dr Watson walked the
streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, he was a perfectly
ordinary Victorian or Edwardian…  in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four
pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when
they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an
armed robbery. We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should
have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked
rather by the idea of an armed robbery.

If armed crime in London in the years before the First World War amounted to
less than 2 per cent of that we suffer today, it was not simply because
society then was more stable. Edwardian Britain was rocked by a series of
massive strikes in which lives were lost and troops deployed, and
suffragette incendiaries, anarchist bombers, Fenians, and the spectre of a
revolutionary general strike made Britain then arguably a much more
turbulent place than it is today. In that unstable society the impact of the
widespread carrying of arms was not inflammatory, it was deterrent of
violence.

As late as 1951, self-defence was the justification of three quarters of all
applications for pistol licences. And in the years 1946-51 armed robbery,
the most significant measure of gun crime, ran at less than two dozen
incidents a year in London; today, in our disarmed society, we suffer as
many every week.

All emphasis mine.  Of course, the situation was very similar in New Zealand.  The state put far more trust in ordinary citizens than is the case today.

In fact, it was the same for drugs.  Munday mentions Dr. Watson’s habit of carrying a revolver in his pocket; Sherlock Holmes’ “only vice” was his cocaine habit.  Both activities are highly illegal in today’s London.  And in New Zealand, opium, hemp and cocaine were available at any good chemist.  Overuse was frowned on, but almost no-one advocated banning these widely-used substances.  Citizens were trusted to take care of themselves.

• Herald -  Legislation to ban party pills introduced
  

As with all legislation, the party pill ban has to be reviewed for consistency with the Bill of Rights before it can be passed.  Unfortunately, the BORA has no teeth, and the “rights” it describes can be violated by Parliament with impunity, as long as it is for the benefit of the “community.”

But it is interesting anyway that Michael Cullen, in his role as Attorney-General, has pinpointed the “supply” clause of the BZP ban as a breach of the Bill of Rights.  It would violate the presumption of innocence by forcing anyone caught with more than 5 grams of BZP (or 100 tablets) to prove that they don’t have it for the purpose of supply.  It is yet to be seen whether this review will actually make any difference.

In an ideal system, all drug prohibition would fail the Bill of Rights test due to the violation of individual sovereignty inherent in such laws.  New Zealand survived for many years with all drugs legal, and society didn’t collapse.  Drug prohibition only started due to a moral panic about opium-smoking Chinese immigrants.  So this BZP ban is nothing more than a throwback to the “Yellow Peril”.

Banning a safe, legal alternative to illegal drugs is a horribly retarded example of government incompetence, as they demonstrate not only their utter inability to grasp reality, but their complete lack of concern for the health and safety of the drug users who they claim to be trying to protect.  Shame on Jim Anderton and Jacqui Dean!