(upbeat music)
At this year's election,
we will be asked, do you support
the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?
To get a better understanding
of the arguments of for and against,
I spoke to anti-campaigner, Aaron Ironside.
I'll be fighting against legalising cannabis.
And pro-campaigner, Anna Jacob.
I will be voting for legalising cannabis.
The bill aims to reduce
the harms associated with cannabis use.
The debate is whether or not legalising cannabis
will achieve that.
First, let's hear the arguments for voting no.
Legalising could increase use.
Fundamentally, I'm opposed to legalising cannabis
because harm reduction doesn't go with increased use
and everywhere around the world
that cannabis has been legalised, over time,
the effect is that more cannabis
is grown and used than ever.
It's actually really hard
to draw conclusions from overseas studies.
Studies have found both increased and decreased use
in countries that have legalised cannabis.
Legalising weed might not free up police time.
There'll be spending the same amount of time as always
focusing on the same issues that they always had,
which is targeting growers and distributors,
and they'll need to do that
even if a new law comes into play.
The police don't waste their time
on those who are simply using recreationally.
Last year,
a total of 15,046 drug charges were made,
3,384 of those charges were for cannabis use opposition
and out of the 754 convictions
for drug use opposition only 309 were for cannabis.
Cannabis doesn't need to be legalised
to be treated as a health and education issue.
It's being presented as a false choice
that you can only do one of those but in actual fact,
we often have health and education programmes
for things that are illegal like speeding, drunk driving.
Those are illegal and yet we take
a health and education approach to those.
Decriminalisation could be better
than legalisation.
All we agree that you shouldn't go to jail
for smoking a joint, and in fact,
if decriminalisation was the conversation,
maybe we would be speaking differently about this issue,
but that isn't what's been asked,
what's been asked is, should we legalise?
Should we set up an entire new industry
to sell cannabis to the public?
So what's the difference
between decriminalisation and legalisation?
Decriminalisation would still have penalties for use
and possession, but they wouldn't be criminal charges.
Instead of offenders being treated as criminals,
they would be referred to health professionals.
Legalisation, which is what the bill is proposing,
would completely remove any penalties
and allow for the government
to regulate the production, sale, and use of weed.
Pro-campaigners say the problem with decriminalisation
is that it doesn't deal with the issue of supply.
People would still be accessing cannabis
from illicit sources
where they don't really know what they're getting.
All of we agree that that's definitely the challenge.
We're not advocating for prohibition,
we're opposing legalisation because it's worse.
So it's true, there are lots of high potency products
out there in the market, so we do need police
to continue to target those
who are producing and selling these very dangerous products.
The black market might continue.
And that black market isn't going away,
they're gonna try and recover their lost revenue.
So all that you're really doing when you legalise
is setting up competition
and the two groups compete for each other,
both looking for new customers.
Now let's hear the arguments for voting, yes.
Cannabis use is common, despite it being illegal.
A study found that four out of five New Zealanders
have tried cannabis before the age of 25.
So we know that its use is prolific in New Zealand.
What we are doing here is creating
some really strong measures around how we use cannabis,
which will help to formulate the future generations'
attitudes and behaviours towards cannabis.
Cannabis offences
disproportionately affect Maori men.
This really for me, yeah, it's about cannabis,
but it's also about reforming a criminal justice system
which disproportionately prosecutes
and impacts on brown people and their families.
Maori a three times more likely
to be arrested and convicted
of a cannabis-related crime than non-Maori,
even after accounting for differences in use.
It is estimated that legalising cannabis
would reduce Maori-cannabis convictions
by up to 1,279 per year.
Legalisation would provide a different route for people.
It would actually provide jobs
and real business opportunities.
Legalising cannabis could help fund
harm-reduction strategies.
By voting yes, I'm voting for more funds
to go into supporting the mental health and addiction sector
so that friends like people that I've grown up with and love
are able to get the help that they need when they need it.
Under the proposed bill,
some of the money generated from cannabis products
would be used to directly fund services that will assist
in reducing the harm caused by cannabis use.
Legalisation could free up police time.
I'm a child of Auckland, I grew up in central Auckland,
I live in South Auckland,
I'm raising my family in South Auckland.
In the community in which we live in,
it's not a rare occurrence to see a chopper over our heads,
to see police cars down our streets.
By legalising cannabis,
I truly believe that you would see a reduction
in the amount of police presence in our communities
as a result of gang-related activity going down.
Legalising cannabis
could reduce harm for young people.
Under the proposed bill, people under the age of 20
would not be allowed to purchase or consume cannabis.
We've seen it with smoking, right?
As you put stronger measures around the sale and access
to tobacco, you've seen the reduction in smoking rates.
In 1984,
the government initiated a tobacco control programme.
Since then, there has been an overall downward trend
of smoking prevalence in New Zealand.
So what will your vote be?
(upbeat music)