More whining (and myths) from the pro-cannabis advocates!

Bob McCoskrie
A new article has appeared the The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific this week.

Entitled New Zealand’s failed cannabis legalization referendum – implications for cannabis policy reform, it’s by Benedikt Fischer (a long-standing campaigner for legalisation) and Australian Wayne Hall.

In a short analysis, it concludes:

“Governments and lawmakers, rather, will need to develop and move forward reform initiatives in their respective political systems and demonstrate leadership and courage in persuading their citizens that cannabis legalization is a desirable and valid policy direction.”

An atrocious piece. Ignore the people – only MPs should have a say. The public are too dumb. Helen Clark made these same claims. (Ironically she was the one who ‘whipped’ her own MPs to vote for the prostitution law reform when she was PM.)

By the way, this sentence in the article is just fake news

“New Zealand’s current cannabis control approach is prohibition-based. Law enforcement has the discretion to make ‘no-charge’ where a health-based approach is more beneficial but this is not commonly exercised.” 

From the latest Salvation Army Report released just this week…

Prosecutions for cannabis offences declined by 15 percent between June 2020 (5223 offences) and June 2019 (6125 offences). In fact, prosecutions for cannabis have declined by 70 percent since 2010. In 2019/20, 45 percent of those charged with cannabis-related offences were Māori. However, the number of Māori being charged with cannabis offences has consistently declined, dropping by 57 percent between 2010/11 and 2019/20.

And last November, Radio NZ reported

40% reduction in cannabis prosecutions in the last 5 years. Statistics for the three months to September show prosecutions for Māori are down by 17%, and there’s been a 50% increase in warnings to Māori where there are two or more offences. Fewer than 20% of all people caught with cannabis were prosecuted, and 500 people have been referred to health professionals.