Pubdate: Thu, 15 Oct 2020
Source: Gisborne Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2020 The Gisborne Herald Co. Ltd
Contact: http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/Contact/
Website: http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/924
Author: Matthew Elrod

CANADA'S LEGALISATION EXPERIENCE

It's been fascinating to watch the debate over cannabis law reform in
New Zealand from Canada, especially the arguments based on how well or
how poorly legal regulation has been playing out in my country. It's
also interesting - and amusing - to read the sometimes apocalyptic or
pollyannaish predictions about what will happen in New Zealand if
voters endorse the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill (CLCB), with
no regard for evidence from overseas.

It might have appeared out of the blue when Canada legalised cannabis
almost two years ago, but we were finally following the unanimous
recommendations of a non-partisan senate committee from 2002.

We had been spending about $328 per consumer year on law enforcement,
failing to avoid about $20 per consumer year in social costs. Canadian
youth were among the heaviest consumers in the industrialised world.
They found cannabis easier to obtain than alcohol, were twice as
likely to try cannabis than try tobacco before they graduated from
high school, and their average age of initiation was 14.

Our Cannabis Act is similar to your CLCB, but less restrictive. For
example, Canadians are allowed to purchase and possess 30 grams of
cannabis, whereas the CLCB proposes a 14g limit. Canadians may shop at
stores or online, and purchase edibles and extracts.

As one might expect, cannabis legalisation has fallen short of our
most optimistic expectations in Canada, but I'm pleased to report that
we haven't suffered the societal collapse prophesised by the drug-war
doomsayers.

According to Statistics Canada, "Between 2018 and 2019 cannabis use
increased, particularly among persons aged 25 and older (13.1 percent
to 15.5 percent) and among males (17.5 percent to 20.3 percent). The
corresponding rates for 15- to 24-year-olds (27.6 percent to 26.4
percent) and females (12.3 percent to 13.4 percent) remained constant.
Whereas use among 15- to 17-year-olds declined (19.8 percent to 10.4
percent)." Only seniors seem to be using more, but they may just be
more honest about it.

Despite the somewhat rocky and uneven establishment of the legal
market across our provinces, the illicit market for cannabis is
roughly half the size it was before legalisation. Online and retail
store sales reached $908 million ($NZ1.04 billion) in 2019. It's worth
noting that Canadians won a constitutional right to grow and use
cannabis for medicinal purposes two decades ago, so large, licensed
producers got a head start on the "craft" and micro-producers now
entering the marketplace.

As has been the case in the US states that have legalised cannabis, we
haven't seen an increase in workplace or traffic accidents. I see the
"nope" campaigners fret that about 13 percent of Canadian consumers
with valid driver's licences report driving within two hours of use,
but that figure hasn't changed from 2018.

The Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health endorsed
legalisation, writing: "We examined the evidence around the risks and
harms associated with cannabis use and concluded that legalisation,
accompanied by strict health-focused regulation, is the most promising
means of reducing those risks and harms."

Indeed, cannabis prohibition competes and interferes with education,
research, treatment and harm reduction. Canada invests surplus
cannabis tax revenue into reducing the relatively minor social costs
of cannabis use. It's encouraging to see that the CLCB does the same.

The referendum isn't asking voters to approve of non-medical cannabis
use. It's asking voters to choose between spending hundreds of
millions annually to maintain a failed prohibition foisted on New
Zealand by the US and a racially-charged moral panic in the early 20th
century, or adapting an evidence-based model from early 21st century
Canada. From up here, the correct answer seems painfully obvious.
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MAP posted-by: Matt