Tag: new zealand

A little over a week ago we published an article describing how New Zealand’s Justice Minister threw cold water on calls for the nation to reform its cannabis laws. Calls had ramped up after United States President Joe Biden announced a plan to issue pardons to people convicted of federal cannabis possession in the U.S.

New Zealand Justice Minister Kiri Allan offered up various reasons for why new cannabis reform measures would not be pursued, specifically referencing a measure from 2019 that provided flexibility to law enforcement for cannabis cases.

“We have a slightly different context here. In 2019, we introduced the ability for the police to exercise discretion when it came to possession of cannabis offences,” Minister Allan stated earlier this month according to RNZ. “Subsequently, we’ve seen a radical reduction in terms of those that are convicted merely for cannabis possession.”

New data obtained by Newshub is putting into proper context how misleading Minister Allan’s claim truly is. Below is a chart of the actual cannabis enforcement numbers, via Newshub:

To be fair, the number of court actions did technically reduce from August 2019 to July 2022, however, it is clearly not enough of a reduction to be properly described as a “radical reduction” and certainly not enough of a reduction to warrant keeping cannabis prohibition in place.

Whenever members of law enforcement are allowed to decide when to arrest someone and when not to, it creates a situation that is ripe for selective enforcement. The only way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to end cannabis prohibition.

Cannabis advocates inside and outside of New Zealand will continue to call for meaningful reform regardless of the misleading talking points that are offered up by opponents. As momentum continues to increase outside of New Zealand’s borders for legalization it will become increasingly difficult for prohibitionists to maintain the status quo.

Last week United States President Joe Biden announced a plan to issue pardons to people convicted of a federal cannabis possession charge. The plan is estimated to affect as many as 6,500 people, although only time will tell what the final number ends up being.

In the meantime, other elected officials around the globe are chiming in on the matter, with many demanding that their own nations take similar action as the U.S. did. One of those nations is New Zealand, however, New Zealand’s Justice Minister made it clear that there are no plans to do so any time soon.

Pointing To Prior Measures

New Zealand Green Party drug reform spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick appears to be leading the charge when it comes to demands for cannabis reform in New Zealand. Swarbrick referred to the United States as ‘the birthplace of the war on drugs,’ and that if the United States can pursue federal cannabis reform, then so too can New Zealand.

In response to those calls for reform, Justice Minister Kiri Allan pointed to a prior reform measure that was passed in 2019 giving law enforcement some discretion over how to penalize people for cannabis. Minister Allan also pointed to the results of the 2020 referendum measure vote as justification for not pursuing further reform.

“We have a slightly different context here. In 2019, we introduced the ability for the police to exercise discretion when it came to possession of cannabis offences,” Minister Allan stated according to RNZ. “Subsequently, we’ve seen a radical reduction in terms of those that are convicted merely for cannabis possession.”

A Breeding Ground For Selective Enforcement

Giving law enforcement the ability to issue a fine in lieu of arresting someone for cannabis is obviously better than requiring law enforcement to arrest someone for cannabis. However, providing the multiple options and still giving law enforcement the ability to arrest some people and not others is a breeding ground for selective enforcement. It’s great that convictions are down in New Zealand, yet it would clearly be better if the convictions were zero.

It’s very unfortunate that so many elected officials in New Zealand appear to be pushing the talking point that the outcome of the 2020 referendum is absolute, as if it was the final answer when it comes to cannabis policy in New Zealand. That talking point completely disregards the fact that the outcome was extremely close, and that 48.4% of people voted for the measure (1,406,973 people). Cannabis policies are evolving in many places across the globe, and that needs to happen in New Zealand as well.

New Zealand nearly became the third country to pass an adult-use cannabis legalization measure back in 2020. The referendum measure failed by just over 2% of the vote. Had the referendum succeeded, New Zealand would have become the first country on earth to pass a national cannabis legalization measure at the ballot box versus via legislative action. Unfortunately, it proved to be a missed opportunity.

New Zealand was already home to a medical cannabis program, however, the program was very limited. While that will still largely be the case, there’s at least one component of the country’s medical cannabis program that is going to see improvement in the near future.

Government officials in New Zealand have finally granted permission for domestic medical cannabis cultivation. Per Newshub:

The Ministry of Health has just approved homegrown and manufactured medicines – so Kiwis no longer have to rely on imported medicinal cannabis.

This green gold has been given the green light by health officials to be turned into medicine for Kiwis patients.

“It’s something the whole industry has been working towards,” Helius Therapeutics CEO Carmen Doran said.

New Zealand is currently home to roughly three dozen medical cannabis companies, however, they are all operating on an import/export model. Allowing domestic cultivation will likely prove to be a gamechanger for the nation’s emerging cannabis industry.

Cannabis imports and exports will always play a role in the emerging cannabis industry, and should not be avoided entirely. With that being said, no country’s medical cannabis program will never reach its full potential without allowing some form of domestic cultivation.

New Zealand came very close to becoming just the third country to legalize cannabis for adult use, and if it had done so, would have become the first to legalize cannabis via a citizen vote.

Uruguay was the first to legalize cannabis the better part of a decade ago now, and Canada became the second country to legalize cannabis for adult use nearly 4 years ago. Both countries legalized cannabis via legislative action.

In New Zealand, where activists have worked very hard for many years, voters got to weigh in on a cannabis referendum measure back in 2020. Unfortunately, the measure was narrowly defeated by a vote of 51.47% to 48.53%.

As we now know, the failed vote in New Zealand paved the way for a different country, Malta, to eventually become the third country to legalize cannabis for adult use.

So where does cannabis reform stand in New Zealand roughly 1.5 years after the failed cannabis legalization vote? Two top lawmakers in New Zealand recently published a rare dual op-ed (for Stuff).

The op-ed provided a ‘for’ argument in support of cannabis reform by Arena Williams (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūhoe), Labour MP for the Auckland electorate of Manurewa, and an ‘against’ argument in support of continued prohibition by Stuart Smith, National MP for the South Island electorate of Kaikōura.

The first paragraph, copied and pasted below, really summed up how ineffective prohibition is in New Zealand:

Senior police say the annual cannabis eradication operation, costing $700,000, a year, does nothing to reduce the supply or raise the price of marijuana on the street and distracts from targeting gangs, guns and meth.

The ‘core operating budget‘ for New Zealand’s current fiscal year is in the billions, so from that perspective, $700,000 is not a lot. However, it’s still a huge waste of money, as apparently pointed out by ‘senior police.’ So what is the point?

From my perspective, the country’s cannabis eradication program is nothing more than symbolic, presumably meant to serve as something for prohibitionists to point to as ‘proof’ that the country is fighting the unregulated cannabis industry.

How many school books does $700,000 buy? Meals for children? That money could be better spent on virtually any other public need.

In his portion of the op-ed, MP Smith seems to argue that cannabis prohibition should be the law of the land forever, that the public voted, and the result is final. That is unfortunate and does not actually reflect reality.

Yes, voters in New Zealand defeated the measure that was put before them in 2020. However, it’s just one general form of legalization, and with just a few policy tweaks it’s likely that more people would support it.

Prohibition is a failed public policy and is tremendously harmful to society. That is true in New Zealand, and everywhere else that prohibition exists. Rather than cling to prohibition, all lawmakers in New Zealand need to get on the rights side of history and pass reforms that make sense for the country.

Effective cannabis activism can take on different forms depending on the time and setting. Despite what some activists may claim, there really is no ‘perfect’ way to do cannabis activism. Proper cannabis activism incorporates a diversity of tactics, with some tactics perhaps being more unorthodox than others.

One form of activism that has occurred in multiple places around the world over the years involves advocates planting cannabis seeds or clones on high-profile government properties. The latest example of the tactic recently occurred in New Zealand where plants suspected to be cannabis were discovered on the grounds of the nation’s Parliament. Per NewsHub:

Images posted to Twitter on Thursday show small, green, leafy plants growing out of the bark in a garden on the forecourt.

The suspicious plants caught the attention of Speaker Trevor Mallard, whose only response to the situation was “we are weeding out the weed”.

It hasn’t been confirmed if the plants are indeed cannabis but Dakta Green, founder of New Zealand’s first cannabis club The Daktory, said it’s possible.

“From the photo, it appears green fairies have been sprinkling peace and love. Closer inspection required for [a] definitive answer,” Green tweeted in response to the photos.

It’s worth pointing out, as the article excerpt touches on, that the plants were not 100% confirmed to be cannabis via a lab test prior to being removed and destroyed by government officials. However, they clearly appear to be cannabis plants and if they were not, it’s likely that they would have been left in the ground, at least for a little longer.

Planting cannabis seeds may seem to be a silly tactic to some people in the international cannabis community. Yet, if you consider how much media attention the stunt received, and that the media coverage highlighted the fact that New Zealand continues to prohibit cannabis, then perhaps it’s not that silly of a tactic after all.

New Zealand voters narrowly defeated a cannabis legalization referendum measure in 2020. Unfortunately, it is unclear when voters will get another chance to weigh in on the issue.

New Zealand was very close to becoming the third country to legalize cannabis for adult use back in 2020. Voters in New Zealand narrowly rejected a legalization referendum measure in 2020, with the measure losing by less than 2 percentage points.

The title of ‘third country to legalize’ ultimately went to Malta, which passed a legalization measure late last year. The failed vote in New Zealand was a missed opportunity to be sure, however, cannabis reform is still moving forward in other ways.

Medical cannabis was already legal in New Zealand prior to the failed referendum vote, and recently medical cannabis flower was permitted for limited use. Per excerpts from an article first published by Newshub:

The cannabis buds from Australian pharmaceutical company ANTG have approval from the Ministry of Health to be prescribed to patients with chronic pain, but only in the form of a tea.

“This is a great day for New Zealand, just across the Tasman they’ve had dried flowers available to be prescribed by doctors for at least two to three years – we’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Green Doctors co-founder Mark Hotu says.

While this cannabis flower contains less than one percent THC, others due on the market later in the year will contain much more.

It is always perplexing why lawmakers and regulators around the globe seem to be so scared of cannabis flower. A number of jurisdictions that permit medical cannabis products simultaneously continue to ban sales of dried flower.

The reasoning offered up for such flower bans always seems to hinge on lawmakers and regulators wanting to deter patients from combusting and inhaling cannabis flower.

What that reasoning fails to account for is that some patients benefit more from smoking and/or vaporizing inhaled flower compared to ingesting cannabis via a pill or tincture or other delivery methods. It also doesn’t account for the fact that patients will still seek out unregulated flower if it’s not available legally, and the end result of the ban is simply that patients will be consuming less-safe medicine.

Suffering patients deserve to have unimpeded, safe access to any and all forms of cannabis that help treat their condition. It’s the logical and compassionate approach that every country needs to pursue via every reasonable means necessary, including in New Zealand.