New Zealand takes step closer to legalising recreational marijuana use

DALE OWENS

GRANT MATTHEW/FAIRFAX NZ

It's a matter when - not if - we follow Canada and make the first steps towards legalising recreational marijuana use. (FILE PHOTO)

OPINION: Imagine a New Zealand in which using marijuana both medicinally and recreationally is legal.

Today the country took a step closer to both.

Associate Health Minister and long-time marijuana sceptic Peter Dunne has announced a small but possibly significant change to the laws surrounding the future of cannabis.

TOM LEE/FAIRFAX NZ

Does Peter Dunne's announcement represent a giant step towards legal recreational use of marijuana in New Zealand?

"Cabinet have accepted my recommendation that on the advice of the expert advisory committee of drugs that CBD be removed from the mis-use of drugs act because it has potential therapeutic benefits to patients."

The plant which so many still associate with the stuff smoked by hippies to get high will now be the subject of a big business battle between those who want to legally produce it here in New Zealand and those still determined to stop it.

So what does a future New Zealand that grows, produces and supplies the population legally with marijuana products look like?

The marijuana plant, known as Hemp is already grown here industrially. In fact a legal framework has been in place since 2006 to allow this to happen. But so far farmers can only sell the hemp seed, used for its dietary fats.

Dunne's announcement is a step in the right direction for people who want to see medicinal cannabis legalised. Richard Barge from the New Zealand Hemp Industries Association (NZHIA) is one of those.

"There are tremendous opportunities for the farmers and because we are talking about a bulky raw material, all that value-adding should be done as close to the farm as possible, like processing the fibre or cleaning and drying the seeds which creates opportunities for contractors and people to invest in infrastructure."

 

Listening to Barge talk of a future where huge swathes of land across our fertile country are turned over to growing medicinal marijuana is convincing. New Zealand has much of the infrastructure, the will and the expertise in place to start growing the crop commercially and kick-start some of our poorer rural communities.

But Associate Minister Dunne is still singing from a different songsheet.

"Farmers wont be growing cannabis for medicinal cannabis in New Zealand full stop, this is about products that are CBD-based that are manufactured being able to be prescribed to New Zealand patients. There is a very limited market at the moment."

So we can have it, but we can't grow it. The market is in fact significant in New Zealand, a fair sized black market has sprung up across the country over the past few years, connecting those who need medicinal cannabis to treat cancer, terminal illness, epilepsy and a whole host of other conditions to those who have illegal access to the plant.

Under today's changes CBD would be able to be prescribed by a doctor to their patient and supplied in a manner similar to any other prescription medicine. But with no local supplier and a medical profession with little information how easy will that really be?

Associate Minister Dunne said "There is a big job to do educating the medical profession not just [about] CBD but about the whole issue around cannabis-based medicines, we have been talking with the medical association for some time about providing better medical information to doctors".

The can has been well and truly kicked down the road. For so long, doctors in New Zealand have been unable to talk about medicinal cannabis. Many simply don't know enough about it.

Tori Catherwood is a fifth-year medical student and medicinal marijuana advocate. She's also making a documentary targeted specifically at doctors in New Zealand. The film is designed to give much-needed information to those same doctors who weren't allowed to talk publicly about cannabis.

"There's no education for doctors from the medical association or from any kind of medical advisory board in New Zealand. It puts doctors in a difficult situation because I don't think many of them would be prescribing it immediately, because they probably don't know enough about it" Catherwood said.

"It's been illegal for so long and it's been stigmatised and taboo to talk about for so long that opening up this door, it maybe a while before people start walking through it."

In today's announcement Peter Dunne made it clear he was only discussing the medicinal use of cannabis, but the debate around recreational use goes hand in hand.

In Canada, a country often compared with New Zealand on social issues, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has introduced legislation to legalise the recreational use of marijuana.

Legal sales are expected to begin by the middle of 2018. Naturally, the substance will be taxed, producing revenues of $618 million per year initially - and eventually, billions - according to a report by Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In Canada, medicinal use came first, now its government is set to hear its financial coffers rattle with the sound of recreational marijuana tax dollars.

One wonders if it's a matter of if and not when our own government will follow suit.