I spent the weekend at the Cannaposium. No cannabis was consumed, visibly anyway, but there was a lot of talking.
It was the third annual gathering of a small, diverse group interested in therapeutic use of cannabis, whose daily lives place them on either side of the law: a scatter graph of licensed growers, unlicensed green fairies, medical herbalists, patients, advocates, researchers, a doctor, a journalist. A good lunch was provided.
I help out with the panel discussions, which this year included Sarah Helm, executive director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, who had flown up from Wellington for the day. It was a nice gesture, given that Helm and her team were only days away from launching their biggest publication in years. Safer drug laws for Aotearoa New Zealand: Evidence to inform regulatory change marks the 50th anniversary of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. Like the Law Commission review of 2011 and the report of the Mental Health and Addictions Inquiry in 2018, it calls for a complete overhaul of our drug law.
In support of its recommendations, the foundation’s report offers a picture of where we are, drawing data from a range of sources. Among adults, more than 15% of us have used cannabis in the past year, about 50% higher than in 2011. Twice as many people aged 15-24 have used MDMA in the past year (about 10%) than in 2012 but weekly use of cannabis by school students has fallen since the beginning of the millennium and stabilised at about 4%. “Over time,” it says, “drug use among adults trended upwards, with cannabis the most commonly used substance, followed by MDMA, psychedelics and more recently cocaine.”
Where the alarm really sounds is in the drugs very few of us use and the harms drug laws are meant to prevent. Accidental overdose deaths were in single figures annually in the late 1990s, but there were more than 140 in 2023. Methamphetamine seizures by Customs increased more than 700% between 2018 and 2024 and street prices have plummeted, while the proportion of people using actually reduced slightly to about 1%. It’s the same people in deeper trouble. The burden of both health harm and criminalisation continues to be disproportionately shouldered by Māori, who have remained far more likely to be prosecuted if apprehended than any other group.
The foundation’s recommendations are similar to those of the Law Commission and, more especially, of the mental health inquiry, which repeatedly called for criminalisation of personal drug use to be retired in favour of a greater emphasis and investment in health and treatment.
Having written a historical guide to accompany the foundation’s report, I can say it’s also essentially the view of the five-year Board of Health investigation that preceded the 1975 law. Health should come first, it said, and punishment should be a last resort.
The foundation also recommends an approach to cannabis that may have broader appeal than the regulated retail system that narrowly failed to win approval in the 2020 referendum: regulated non-profit cannabis social clubs like those in Spain and other countries, which allow growing of cannabis for those who want to use it. Cannabis clubs may also suit the Cannaposium folk better than the highly prescriptive regulations in the referendum bill.
The proper legal status of cannabis was far more of a live issue in the years before 1975 than you might think, and the Board of Health committee decided prohibition should apply only “so long as this [could] be shown to be largely effective”. An expert advisory committee pointed out to the government as early as 1989 that it plainly had not been effective. The same advice has been offered repeatedly since, but ministers and MPs have not listened. The way is open for them to listen now.
