Questions & Answers about Cannabis Law Reform
After years of prohibitionist reefer-madness propaganda, marijuana and marijuana law reform are widely-misunderstood. These are the most common questions that people ask about marijuana law reform, and some model answers.
1. If we change the law then use will increase.
Every major study of drug policy has found no evidence to support this claim.
There is no difference in use between the 10 US States that decriminalised in the
1970s and those that kept a strict prohibition. In Europe, several countries have
decriminalised cannabis and actually seen a significant drop in drug use, largely
because the 'forbidden fruit' syndrome is removed, there is an emphasis on
education, and in the case of the Netherlands cannabis sales are restricted to
those aged over 18.
According to a December 1995 editorial in the British Medical Journal, regular
cannabis use by 17-18 year-olds in the Netherlands dropped from 13 per cent to
6 per cent between in 1976 and 1985. The latest research, also published in the
BMJ, confirms this trend.
By contrast, teen use in New Zealand continues to rise as a result of the
uncontrolled black market and glamorisation of cannabis use. The Christchurch
Health and Development Study’s 1999 report found 49.8% of 18 year olds had
tried cannabis, and 68.9% had tried cannabis by the age of 21.
2. We must keep cannabis illegal to protect our children
We all agree that children must be protected from drug abuse. That’s why we are
looking for a better solution - because what we are doing now is obviously not
working. More young people use cannabis now than ever before and at ever
younger ages. Cannabis is more easily available to young people than beer, or
even pizza.
Cannabis prohibition makes it profitable to get young children into drugs. We
believe that reducing the black market by allowing adults to grow their own, and
spending at least some of the tens of millions of police money saved from that on
drug education and treatment would be a far more effective way of protecting our
young people.
3. Cannabis law reform sends the wrong message
How many people should we arrest, convict, fine and jail to send the right
message? Is this really the best way of communicating with children? Perhaps we
need to be spending our money on some simple courses in basic communication
or child-rearing. Laws and regulations are not designed to 'send messages'.This
is the role of parents/family/iwi, churches, schools, and other social institutions.
We must also recognise that at present young people are receiving very mixed
messages with respect to social policies surrounding recreational drugs.Young
people easily see through the hypocrisy and dishonesty of an approach that
encourages the use of the most harmful drugs (alcohol and tobacco) while dealing
harshly with those who prefer cannabis.
Regulation does not imply endorsement; rather, society has an obligation to
regulate and control widely used substances with significant potential for harmful
use.Abdicating this responsibility to the black market itself sends the wrong
message: that New Zealand society cannot cope with cannabis in a manner
consistent with sound scientific evidence and reasoned analysis.This message
should be rejected.
4. My child was turned into a psycho by drugs
The fact that your son/daughter became a victim of drugs is proof that the current
policy did not work for you and your family. All it really does is to make it harder
to get treatment for those who need it. People with problems are often unwilling
to admit to an illegal activity for fear of arrest (or being thrown out of school or
the family home). Drug education and rehabilitation services are poorly funded in
NZ, and funding has been capped for the past five years. At the same time we
are spending more and more each year on arresting by and large moderate and
responsible adult users. How would giving your child a criminal conviction have
helped? Shouldn’t we at least look at the evidence to see what works best?
5. Those who promote cannabis law reform are promoting cannabis use
This is quite wrong. We are promoting an effective and workable alternative to
cannabis prohibition, a policy that has clearly failed in all it’s stated goals. We
share the same concerns about problematic cannabis use, and we are trying to
find an effective policy that actually works to address our concerns.
6. We have so many problems with alcohol and tobacco already. Why add
another?
Cannabis is already here, and has been for decades. Even the police admit that
they have never had a significant impact on the cannabis market at any time. It is
a not a question of adding to anything. It is a question off finding the most
effective way to deal with a problem we already have.
Legislation cannot repeal the law of supply and demand. Experience from
overseas shows that when we stop arresting adults the use of cannabis does not
substantially increase.
7. Gangs will turn to selling hard drugs such as Heroin if they can’t sell marijuana
Gangs might try (as they do now) to sell hard drugs, but there isn’t much of a
market for them in New Zealand — nor would gangs likely succeed in creating
such a market.The cannabis experience is nothing like that associated with
heroin and cocaine, and very few people would be interesting in using these latter
drugs if cannabis were readily available.As far as gangs turning to burglary etc,
most people - including gang members - see a distinct difference between selling
a widely available substance to willing consumers, on the one hand, and breaking
into houses, on the other.In any case, it is obviously fallacious to argue that we
must keep cannabis illegal in order to prevent gangs from turning to worse forms
of crime. Besides, even if gangs did attempt this, our police would be much more
able to stop them as they would not be wasting their scarce resources arresting
cannabis users.
Evidence from the Netherlands does not support the concern that making
cannabis more freely available to adults might increase hard drug use amongst
young people. Government figures for heroin addicts have consistently dropped
every year following cannabis law reform, and the average age of heroin addicts
has increased every year. The controlled availability of cannabis has coincided
with a reduction of young people becoming addicted to opiates.
8. I used to be a junkie and I know that drugs should not be legalised!
It is illegal now and that didn’t stop you. All it really does is keep most people
from getting help sooner because we are spending all of our money on prisons
and we cannot provide adequate treatment.
9. They tried this in Europe with Needle Park and it didn’t work
Absolutely not true. Europe, in general, is committed to decriminalisation and we
invite anyone to talk to the law enforcement officials in Rotterdam, Amsterdam,
or Liverpool, and see for themselves. There have been some policies which the
European officials admit did not work as well as others, such as Needle Park, but
they are still committed to a non-criminal approach to drugs. Australia, Great
Britain, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic,
Greece, Germany, and Colombia have all taken steps toward the legalisation or
decriminalisation of drugs. In addition, the heads of Interpol, the British
Association of Chiefs of Police, the UK Police Foundation, the Canadian Chiefs
of Police, and even the New Zealand Police have called for an end to drug
prohibition.
10. Why don’t we just legalise murder and robbery and then we won’t have a crime problem?
There is a great deal of difference between personal use of cannabis, which only
directly effects the user, and crimes which have victims. NZ has the highest rate
of cannabis arrests in the world, with 25 293 cannabis offences reported in police
statistics in the 1998/99 year, up from 24 899 the previous year. Most New
Zealanders would agree that they would rather see scarce police resources spent
on investigating violence and theft than on arresting people for using cannabis.
11. OK, so what do you want to do about it?
Firstly, NORML opposes the introduction of instant fines, which are just another
form of prohibition. The South Australian experience has shown that fines make
prohibition easier for the police to administer, but do nothing to prevent the
unrestricted access by young people to cannabis, or the sale of cannabis by
organised criminals. The number of cannabis users before the courts has actually
increased because of widespread non-payments of fines and police using the
tickets as a revenue-gatherer.
NORML supports decriminalisation - the immediate removal of all penalties for
the use, possession and cultivation of small amounts of cannabis by adults. We
recognise that there will always be a market for cannabis, and we believe it is
best to regulate and control that supply than to hand over control to whoever is
willing want to break the law. To this end, we support the establishment of a
Royal Commission to investigate effective regulatory models to control the
availability of cannabis.
Unless stated otherwise, copyright © 1998-2005 by NORML New Zealand, working for marijuana law reform Published on: 2003-03-09 (3771 reads) [ Go Back ] |
