REFLECTIVE INSIGHT #420 - FROM HANDCUFFS TO HARVEST: THE CASE FOR REGIONAL CANNABIS LEGALISATION

A Memory of Unfairness

When I was six years old, a family friend was sent to prison over cannabis. I remember overhearing my mum on the phone saying that the police should be chasing real criminals. That memory has stuck with me for forty years, and she was absolutely right. For five decades, our national drug laws have completely failed to stop drug harm. Instead, they have been used to hurt Māori in Te Tai Tokerau more than anyone else, bringing our communities to a breaking point of social damage.

Turning Our Communities into Criminals

If using cannabis is a crime, then almost our whole region is full of "criminals". A long-term study that followed New Zealand children found that by the time they turned 21, over two-thirds of them had tried cannabis. Arresting or convicting people fails to stop them from using it again in 95% of cases. The law is handed out in an unfair, biased way, creating a bad reputation for our people and forcing our whānau to buy from unsafe, illegal markets. We are running a broken Babylonian system that treats our people as objects to be punished instead of helping them grow.