Overview
The draft cannabis legislation is out and in short, the government is to take control of the cannabis market:
The purpose of this Act is to regulate and control the cultivation, manufacture, use, and sale of cannabis in New Zealand, with the intent of reducing harms from cannabis use to individuals, families, whanau, and communities by—
(a) exercising controls over the availability of cannabis in New Zealand and deterring the illegal supply of cannabis;
The government will do this through a licensing regime. You’ll be able to sell weed commercially but you’ll need a licence to do so. You’ll also be able to grow cannabis commercially but again you’ll need a licence and you can’t be both a grower and a seller.
s9 Cannabis Regulatory Authority established
[…](1) The main objective of the Authority is to oversee regulation of the supply and use of cannabis in New Zealand in a way that—
(a) promotes the wellbeing of New Zealanders; and
(b) reduces the multiple harms associated with cannabis use; and
(c) lowers the overall use of cannabis over time.
Highlights
Minimum age of 20
s20 Minimum age
A person must be aged 20 years or older to purchase or possess cannabis
This is basically a compromise between 18 and 25.
Personal use
You’ll be able to grow two plants or up to four if there is more than one person:
s15 Limits on growing cannabis for personal use
(1) Subject to subsection (2) and the requirements in section 16, a person aged 20 years or older may grow not more than 2 cannabis plants on a property or that part of a property in respect of which they have a qualifying legal interest.
(2) Despite subsection (1), if 2 or more persons aged 20 years or older are part of the same household, the maximum number of cannabis plants that those persons may grow on a property or that part of a property in respect of which 1 or more of those persons has a qualifying legal interest is 4 (in aggregate).
Social sharing
A recognition of reality. Not allowing social sharing would be as ridiculous as not allowing someone to share a beer with a mate.
Purchase limit
Under the proposed law you’ll be able to buy 14 grams of weed a day.
s19 Purchase limit
(1) A person may not purchase more than 14 grams of dried cannabis (or its equivalent) per day.
That’s quite a bit of cannabis but no one expects anyone to do that much weed in a day. But it also needs to be remembered that there will be people outside urban centres who will want to go into town, get a reasonable amount and go home, without having to go to the black market.
As an aside, it’s been argued that there should be no limit as there is no limit for buying alcohol. This is a nonsense argument and an example of an appeal to hypocrisy. It could be argued that maybe there should be a limit on the amount of alcohol that people can buy.
Dispensaries to be discreet
s37 Exemptions from advertising prohibition for retailers
A retailer of cannabis products may do all or any of the following things
(c) display the retailer’s name or trade name at the outside of the retailer’s place of business so long as the name is not and does not include either or both of the following:
(i) any word or expression signifying that any cannabis product is available in that place for purchase:
(ii) the trade mark of a cannabis product or the company name of a cannabis product manufacturer.
So you wouldn’t be able to have a dispensary with a big marijuana leaf and the word “Kiweed” on the outside.
No online sales
The reasoning for this, I understand, is that online sales are more difficult to control.
Maori
Through out the draft legislation, the word “Maori” is mentioned quite a bit. To the Left, “justice for Maori” is as important, or even the most important reason for the legislation as any other reason.
There is no doubt that cannabis criminalisation has disproportionately targeted Maori. But this has been due to socio-economic reasons rather than race ie most Maori can’t afford a good lawyer.
I’m OK with, say, a representative of an Iwi applying for a licence because he wants to remove the black market that is destroying his people and getting preferential treatment because of that. But it would be totally unacceptable if, say, a member of the Mongrel Mob could automatically get preference when applying for a retail licence just because he happens to be a Maori.
Also, if the legislation ends up being too much about “justice for Maori”, then you can’t really blame the more cynical voters if they conclude that the legislation is all about getting the brown vote.
Missing in action
Expungements
How will the law deal with those who have been or are serving time for cannabis offences? What about offences where cannabis was a factor in sentencing? We don’t know. Will all cannabis convictions be expunged and compensation paid? Again we don’t know but it is something that needs to be addressed.
Drug driving
It is absolutely unacceptable that drug driving is not included in the draft legislation. How the law will handle drug driving is one of the issues, if not the issue, that has the potential to kill cannabis law reform.
Drugs are basically “crimes” of risk, especially risk to others. When deciding what laws to enact, we need to consider whether laws proposed will reduce the risk to others. If we end up with legislation where it is next to impossible to catch someone drug driving and putting others at risk then this something that needs to be addressed.
And, of course, the same kind of considerations apply to employment; especially work involving the operation of dangerous machinery and the like.
Also if we are not already measuring drug driving then we should be. Otherwise, we will have no yardstick to compare with.
Reviews only every five years
s126 Review of Act
[…]This section will create a statutory requirement for the responsible Minister to review and report on the operation of the legislation following five years of operation of the licensed regime.
Five years simply isn’t good enough. If the licensing regime, for example, is not working as it should we want to know as soon as reasonably possible. If it were up to me, I’d start with a review every six months for the first two years, followed by yearly reviews for the next three years, then a review every three years after that. You may say six months is too short, but remember, the purpose of these reviews should be to identify as early as possible what is working and what isn’t.
No measurement requirements
There are no measurement requirements. The closest we have is s126:
The review will draw on data and other evidence to assess the extent to which the regulatory regime has been effective in delivering the objectives and purpose of the regime, and to make recommendations on potential reform of the regulatory approach, as appropriate.
The review will be undertaken by an independent body of academics, scientists and researchers, including individuals with iwi and M?ori expertise brought together specifically for this task.
Again, this is simply not good enough. Where, for instance, is there any explicit requirement to measure the prevalence of cannabis use amongst youth before and after the law change and compared to past trends?
As a quick note, we shouldn’t read too much into what has happened in other jurisdictions. What overseas experience tells us is what won’t necessarily happen, not what will necessarily happen.
Conclusions
I’ve used the words “not good enough” and “unacceptable”, but overall, the draft legislation is a step in the right direction. The licensing scheme isn’t perfect (there appears to be no means by which someone can appeal a licence being erroneously granted for example and there need to be more checks and balances). It is imperative that the legislation is clear about drug driving, and measuring the impact of the legislation needs to be explicitly built in. If the legislation is causing more harm than good then we need to know as early as possible.
Personally I wouldn’t allow retail sales until at least two years after the legislation has been passed and during the first two years I would only allow sale through cannabis clubs or similar. I would allow members-only consumption premises.
Lastly, the cannabis referendum won’t be decided by the NZ Drug Foundation or Family First. It will be decided by moderate conservatives. In other words it will be decided by you, The BFD reader.
