 | NORML News: Prohibition in New Zealand 1945-1975: The Misuse of Drugs Act |
 The Misuse of Drugs Act was a last-ditch response to the 1960’s liberalisation and the
wave of decriminalisation that was then sweeping the world, writes STEPHEN MCINTYRE in NORML News Sumer 2003/04
Cannabis use in New Zealand was widespread when it was considered a highly useful home remedy and was still legally available over the counter from chemists in both powdered and tinctured forms. Following the passing of the Dangerous Drugs Act in 1927, cannabis remained available in very limited forms under the name Indian hemp. It was used in corn plasters and asthma cigarettes up until around the start of the Second World War, although no-one associated Indian hemp with the supposedly deadly narcotic (sic) marijuana that they'd heard about from time to time in the papers. Up until the late sixties, recreational pot smoking was confined to a small number of people, most of whom were part of the jazz and folk music scenes.
In 1963 however, the presence of cannabis in Auckland's notorious Bassett Road machine-gun murders resurrected tales of 'reefer madness'. John Gillies and Ronald Jorgensen were charged with the killing of two men in a Remuera house. Both testified that they smoked a joint before committing the double murder.
In 1965, at the same time that marijuana and LSD use suddenly exploded in the US and Britain, the war on drugs was declared in New Zealand. In June, the Evening Post reported Police Commissioner Spencer's rhetoric that targeted marijuana as a major threat to national security. "This is a battle. People are killed fighting for it", he was quoted as saying.
When three ounces of pot were found on a ship from Panama, Spencer suspected Mafia involvement, and labelled the incident "the thin edge of the wedge". Paranoid images like this resurfaced in select committee hearings in late 1965, when MPs heard how marijuana had recently accelerated the death of a Wellington addict and that the Bassett Road murders were committed under the influence of the drug.
"A district attorney in New Orleans has stated that half the homicides in that city have been caused by marijuana users", said Spencer. "Should drugs become entrenched here it is not inconceivable
that there will be some takeover bid by [the Mafia]."
Parliament reacted with alarm. New legislation - the Narcotics Bill - instituted mandatory imprisonment and, due to the fact that possession or sale of any drug were treated much the same, some very draconian sentences were metered out. Incredible as it seems by today's standards, you could actually go to prison for possession of a single joint!
Opposition to the law focused on changes in civil rights - police officers now had the power to search private homes without warrants. The Council of Civil Liberties said the burden of proof was being reversed; and MP Henry May, quoted British experience which said drug addicts should be sent to the psychiatric ward of a general hospital, not prison.
The NZ Medical Journal criticised the Narcotics Bill as prepared without consultation, and a reversal of British safeguards on freedom. "Branding sick people as criminals, imprisoning innocent people as drug peddlars, and suspending ancient liberties, will not produce any victories against the narcotics trade that are worth such a price," said the October edition's editorial.
In 1967 the first issue of New Zealand's counter-culture magazine 'Cock' featured a report from Dr Erich Geiringer which called for sanity in attitudes towards marijuana. Geiringer argued that cannabis prohibition only glamourised the drug and placed the monopoly of its distribution in the hands of gangsters.
Geiringer accurately assessed the workings of the illegal marijuana industry by calling cannabis a commodity of vested interests, providing the greatest profits to growers and dealers. Additionally, the continued illegality of cannabis provided police with a strong bargaining chip with which to secure more power and resources.
In response to drug use trends overseas and the emergence of a Kiwi hippy culture, Prime Minister Keith Holyoake in 1968 appointed a committee to investigate drug use and related crime. The appointment came about after a spate of pharmacy break-ins by people looking for opiates, and the fact that some of the thieves smoked cannabis had an immense impact on the new committee. Health Department deputy director and committee chairman Sir Geoffery Blake-Palmer encouraged his fellow members to view marijuana as the first step along the 'slippery slope' that inevitably led to heavy narcotic use.
Committee members were given a report to read entitled 'Current issues in the prevention and control of marijuana abuse'. The report came from the American Bureau of Narcotics, and in a 'reefer madness' style described murders and atrocities supposedly committed under the influence of cannabis.
For the rest of the year, local media repeatedly portrayed cannabis smoking as the start of heroin addiction and a life of crime. Health Department officials, meanwhile, linked cannabis use to unemployment and unhygenic modes of living.
Few sensible voices were heard amidst the rabid sensationalism. Committee member Professor Fred Fastier felt that the evil nature of cannabis had probably been grossly exaggerated - an opinion which failed to sit well with the rest of the committee.
However, Professor Fastier also thought that while cannabis might be no worse in its physical effect than alcohol, the latter had already won an accepted place in society and in addition had some medical use which - to his knowledge - cannabis did not. The law as it stood made cannabis difficult to obtain, and this, he said, "was in the public's interest".
Dr John Dobson from the department of psychological medicine at Christchurch Hospital compared 'reefer madness' with US alcohol prohibition from the '30s. He said that marijuana smoking might in fact be less harmful than alcohol, but that proper scientific research into it was "inhibited by moralists".
In July 1967 a full-page ad in the prestigious London Times newspaper had called for a softening of Britain's cannabis laws. In response the Wootton Committee was convened, and in 1968 its report on marijuana released. For the first time the distinction was made between soft and hard forms of cannabis (ie. marijuana and hashish), and the report concluded that the dangers of its use and the risk of it leading to opiate use were overstated and existing criminal sanctions were unjustifiably harsh.
The Blake-Palmer committee would have none of this softly softly approach. It condemned such liberalism by restating warnings by the American Medical Association against relaxation. The bottom line for the committee was the supposed 'gateway' theory: marijuana use inevitably led to narcotic addiction and - to finance the habit - crime.
But the tone of the Blake-Palmer committee's first report, issued in early 1970, was even more sinister. Implicating cannabis as having a role in the Charlie Manson inspired Tate/Bianca murders, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, and private armies in Nigeria, the committee went as far as linking marijuana to mass murder!
In Parliament, both major parties accepted the report as an affirmation of the staus quo; although a few brave MPs dared raise the point that there was clearly a difference between marijuana and hashish. The Otago Daily Times approved of the committee's report and said that there should be no relaxation of the laws on cannabis, while the Salvation Army chimed in, saying that the greatest danger of marijuana was its propensity to cause people to commit "unnatural and perverted sex acts".
Tauranga doctor S. W. Tremlow however responded that this was just hysteria which created "totally unfounded fear", and voiced his concern over the problems that prohibition created. "A dangerous situation arises when the police force is committed to advocacy of certain laws instead of merely being the passive agents for its enforcement. [Marijuana] is not their ground. I don't tell them how to catch safe breakers", he said.
Strong opposition to the report came from students and secondary school teachers. June 1970 saw a review of the report in the PPTA Journal which said that its findings would only be "acceptable to the uninvolved but moralistic majority". The Auckland University Students Association said the real danger of cannabis was its illegality which fosters an "antisocial subculture which is forced to associate with real criminal elements and hard drug users." They accurately predicted that "this situation will intensify as more and more people find out that marijuana is harmless."
The US version of the Wooton and Blake-Palmer inquiries - the Shafer Commission - released its findings in 1972. The commission's report criticised marijuana prohibition for causing more problems than the drug itself and recommended decriminalisation for small amounts, while supporting a policy of controlled distribution.
In June that year, members of the Shafer Commission visited New Zealand and met with a reconvened Blake-Palmer committee. Delegation head Raymond Shafer insisted that effective discouragement of cannabis did not require making possession for personal use a crime. Marijuana, he said, should be in a seperate category from stronger drugs. He recommended restricting cannabis to private use, outlawing possession of more than an ounce in public, and maintaining heavy
penalties for trafficking.
The Blake-Palmer committee's response was that there was a strong need for discouragement of marijuana use. The committee also agreed that non-medical drugs should be reclassified according to their harms, with penalties appropriate to each classification, and made the recommendation that penalties for possession and use of cannabis be lessened, but maintained for trafficking.
The Police opposed decriminalisation, saying that removal of penalties for use and possession would make law enforcement virtually impossible; but the Shafer Commission's visit most certainly had a political effect. The Norman Kirk-led Labour government was beginning to confront the issue, and even the Young Nationals voted at their annual conference in 1973 to put cannabis in a distinct act with reduced penalties!
In 1974, Health Minister Bob Tizard announced impending legislation to place marijuana on a lesser schedule of prohibited drugs, with reduced penalties for both possession and supply. The new laws, said the minister, "are certain to keep New Zealand penalties amongst the lowest and most understanding in the world."
The Blake-Palmer commission released its final report at around the same time. In keeping with the generally liberal approach of the times, it said that cannabis was less harmful than narcotics and criticised penalties that were too harsh and carried too high a social cost. What that social cost amounted to were young lives irrevocably affected by having a criminal conviction. Furthermore, money was being diverted away from drug abuse treatment and research, and inhibiting the development of effective public education programmes that discouraged use.
The report suggested seperating the classification between marijuana and hashish, but concluded that easing restrictions would mean widespread abuse and the near impossibility of any control measures.
"Whether the use of cannabis in New Zealand has become so widespread that the habit must be regarded as ineradicable is uncertain. Since we support legislative measures aimed at discouraging the habit, we recommend continuance of a prohibition policy so long as this can be shown to be largely effective."
The committee also recommended that the effectiveness of the law be reviewed in ten years time - although it actually took twenty three years before cannabis would be revisited with the 1998 Health Select Committee's inquiry.
In July 1975, the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed, and for the first time drugs were categorised and penalised according to their perceived harms and lack of medical value. Cannabis was seperated into two schedules: marijuana became a Class C drug; while hashish became Class B. Supply of marijuana to an adult was redesignated as a minor offence.
The Misuse of Drugs Act never discouraged cannabis use as hoped for by the Blake-Palmer committee. In fact, twenty eight years after its passing, New Zealand now has one of the highest rates of cannabis use internationally and - at around sixty per day - the world's highest rates of arrest for cannabis.
Next issue: 1975 'til present.
image caption:
Above: In the 60’s few people even knew what cannabis looked like. Below: Norml News continues the campaign begun by magazines such as Counterculture and Cock.
pullquote:
“The Misuse of Drugs Act never discouraged cannabis use as hoped for ... Twenty eight years after its passing, New Zealand now has one of the world’s highest rates of cannabis use as well as the world’s highest arrest rate for cannabis”
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