Health Minister Andrew Little has shot down calls for a swift overhaul of drug laws, saying any major change would first have to go to a referendum.
A host of health and social organisations have signed an open letter to the government, asking for drug use to be treated as a health issue, not a criminal one.
But Little says the government is constrained by last year's public vote which went against cannabis legalisation.
RNZ deputy political editor Craig McCulloch has the story.
