Cannabis referendum: Would legalisation change the 'race-based' targeting of Māori?

Thursday, 3 September 2020

An outline of what the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill would mean if it came into law.

A clergyman, a disability and human rights lawyer, a cannabis cultivation expert and a doctor all have personal stories about cannabis. They agree too many Māori have been penalised for the drug but are divided about whether recreational use should be legalised. Carmen Parahi reports.

Human rights lawyer Dr Huhana Hickey claims she knows of lawyers, judges and police officers who all use cannabis. But she won’t name them. Instead, Hickey uses their consumption of cannabis as an example of the racism involved in current drug laws. She’ll be voting yes in the cannabis legalisation and control referendum on October 17.

Criminalisation a ‘racist policy’

“I can tell you it’s not like they’re innocent,” says Hickey. She calls the criminalisation of the drug, “a race-based hate for cannabis”.

“It’s a racist policy. It imprisons people of colour, it does not imprison white people.”

**READ MORE:

Lawyer and disability advocate Huhana Hickey wheeled herself to hospital after ambulance staff couldn’t take her wheelchair.

* Cannabis referendum: how NZ's ex-illicit growers are poised to transform the proposed legal market

* Cannabis policing 'worst waste of taxpayer money', former PM Helen Clark says

* Scientific evidence behind legalising cannabis is uncertain, prime minister's chief scientist says

The New Zealand Health Survey 2012-13 into cannabis use found Māori were nearly twice as likely as non-Māori to get in trouble with the law for using cannabis.

Dr Huhana Hickey hopes legalising recreational cannabis will help lower medicinal costs.

“It needs to be legalised in order to remove the racism that exists in the incarceration of our people,” says Hickey.

She says the cost to jail drug users is a waste of money. It should be spent on paying for health workers, rehabilitation centres and education on how to recreationally use cannabis safely or why not to use it.

Hickey supports legalising cannabis for another, more personal reason. She’s been taking medicinal cannabis for the past five years. She hopes if cannabis is legalised for recreational use it will help lower medicinal costs and increase varieties available on the market.

“I was dribbling and drooling five years ago,” she says. “I was getting to that point of having to take so many opiates I could barely function every day. Now I’m working, I’m studying. I’m doing what I do. I work, I go to court, I go to hearings. I don’t work full time because of the fatigue but I’m functioning. I have a life.”

Hickey was the first person in the country to trial a Canadian drug. It was free for six months then she had to pay $1040 a month. As more people were prescribed it, the cost came down to $430 a month.

“I take 3ml a day at night time and I don’t take pain relief during the day. At night time it just relaxes me. It normalises my sense of pain, it doesn’t get rid of it but makes it more normal.”

There are cheaper options but Hickey prefers a higher potency of cannabidiol, an active ingredient in the plant that may help treat conditions such as pain, insomnia and anxiety.

Proposed legislation ‘won’t fix racism’

Anglican minister and historian Dr Hirini Kaa has weighed up all the evidence and will be voting no in the referendum.

The medicinal argument confuses the focus of the referendum, he says, which is about recreational use. Kaa says if everyone votes no to recreational use, medicinal cannabis will still be allowed and prescribed by a doctor, and hemp will still be legal.

Cannabis issues are presented from a middle-class Pākehā paradigm, says Kaa, that carries fewer risks for them than other sections of society. He says for those living in poverty or dealing with systemic racism, cannabis is a lot more damaging and dangerous.

The proposed legislation also relies on the health, education and justice systems mitigating any harm, but those systems don’t currently work for Māori, says Kaa.

“It won’t fix racism in the justice system, we shouldn’t pretend it will,” says Kaa. “Our history of social policy in this country really worries me. It’s going to send a signal cannabis is accessible and okay to use.”

In May, a study was published in Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online called Cannabis, the cannabis referendum and Māori youth: a review from a lifecourse perspective.

The report says Māori have higher rates of cannabis use than non-Māori and are more likely to be convicted on cannabis charges, even accounting for the higher rates of use. The range of findings suggest rangatahi Māori are affected by racism from police, resulting in them being subject to increased police attention compared to non-Māori.

The recommendations include treating regular cannabis use and dependence as a health issue not a criminal problem; age restrictions for purchasing cannabis; equal partnership with Māori to support effective policy, regulation and services; and ongoing monitoring of cannabis use by youth.

Kaa agrees that a health approach to cannabis is better than the current punitive regime. But it’s not enough to sway his vote.

Professor Dr Papaarangi Mary-Jane Reid, National Māori Pandemic Group co-leader says high vaccination rates for non-Māori is an indicator of white privilege, enabling better protection for Pākehā (file photo).

He smoked his first joint when he was 14 years old. His older cousin, a heavy user, introduced him to the drug.

“They used it several times a day and thought it was harmless to give to a 14-year old,” says Kaa.

“It gets into our whānau, it’s insidious. It’s a creepy drug. It’s not good for us.”

He doesn’t use cannabis now but sees its effects on his wider whānau.

“They wait every day to have a smoke. They wait for the growing season. It might not be psychologically addictive in a clinical sense but it’s certainly in the context of poverty, hopelessness many of my whanaunga are in. It’s addictive in that context.

“I see my 15-year-old nephews who just want to smoke weed every day, so they can escape from their reality. This is the dangers of cannabis in our communities.”

Law could bring positive changes for Māori

Māori medical health expert Dr Papaarangi Reid is voting yes to the reforms.

In October, New Zealanders will vote in the cannabis legalisation and control referendum.

Reid says there is an understanding of cannabis amongst Māori. It’s widely seen and most families have got stories and experiences about the social and health aspects of the drug. This includes stories of the over-surveillance and criminalisation by police.

“It’s a medium for the racist criminal justice system,” says Reid. “It is a gateway for the police to get into our homes and to search us.

“It is a social harm. But the over-criminalisation and scrutiny by police and the racism of the criminal justice system makes it a racist tool to use against Māori.”

Reid believes there are a lot of positive outcomes for Māori in the law being changed. She wants to see tailor-made Māori health education and treatment programmes. In the proposed legislation there is provision for Māori and Treaty of Waitangi principles.

“It’s widely used already as a recreational drug,” says Reid. “Let’s manage that, make sure we can control the risks and harm.”

Reid says stopping access to the drug young people is a good first step because the impacts of cannabis on the developing brain isn’t clear cut amongst health professionals. There is some concern on young people’s learning and mental health such as psychosis.

“Certainly there is an association but medical experts don’t know if these illnesses were going to develop in that person anyway,” says Reid.

“People who are vulnerable to mental health conditions may have those made worse or prompted by drug use. But other people with mental health conditions would also say they find cannabis quite a calming drug.”

Production provides ‘hope’

Porourangi Tawhiwhirangi consults for an education business teaching young people how to cultivate hemp in Ruatoria, a high deprivation East Coast community.

Hemp crops are being grown legally for multiple uses and are differentiated from illegal cannabis by the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a psychoactive compound found in the plants. Hemp has less THC, cannabis has more.

Tawhiwhirangi also grows illegal cannabis for his own use. 'Green fairies' use it to make popular tinctures. He is open about his cannabis growing because the referendum is an opportunity to legitimise his skills.

“We’ve had to duck and dive, act like ninjas, hide from police and be labelled criminals just doing this to survive,” says Tawhiwhirangi.

One of the first New Zealand companies to earn a medicinal cannabis licence, Rua Bioscience started its business in Ruatoria to help the community. It won’t be dealing in recreational products.

Tawhiwhirangi says the reason he started growing cannabis at 19 years old was because one of his family members needed $30,000 for a private operation.

“Cannabis users or growers aren’t scum of the earth unemployed people,” he says. “We’re just people who had to take an opportunity to make ends meet.

“It pushes people like me and others to try and get a side hustle going to just be able to make ends meet, send those kids to school with everything they need, get them on their school trips, get the rego on the car. When people ask why we keep growing cannabis it’s like, why not? Look at where we are.”

Dr Hirini Kaa, who is from the same region as Tawhiwhirangi, doesn’t buy into the sales pitch he hears from his whanaunga (relatives) on the coast. He knows it’s not a popular stance he’s taken.

“Fixing cannabis laws is like putting a sticking plaster on it,” says Kaa. “This isn’t a panacea. It’ll make us feel better. It won’t address the fundamental problems.

“This referendum will allow and increase access and give a signal about the place of cannabis in our communities. It is dangerous in its own right.”

Young people will see their parents legally using cannabis and think it’s okay, Kaa argues.

“We’re opening our communities to greater access,” he says. “I don’t believe the safeguards which look great are actually going to work.”

There isn’t a lot of evidence about the impacts of cannabis on Māori, says Kaa. General population or overseas data is often used to understand the harms but it doesn’t accurately reflect the experiences of Māori.

“The dangers of cannabis are significant for Māori communities, for vulnerable communities,” says Kaa. “We’re vulnerable because of our history, legacy and continuation of colonisation not because of something we did wrong.”

Tawhiwhirangi says the biggest harm around cannabis is misinformation. He supports cannabis education and is not pushing for more people to smoke it.

“When you look at who is growing cannabis here, sh.., it’s the nanny and papa over there, it’s uncle and aunty,” he says.

“This is the reality of it. There are no gangs here growing cannabis, it's all families.”

Many in the area see hemp as a cash crop for people to learn a trade, use their unproductive land and make some money. Tawhiwhirangi says locals have got intergenerational hopelessness and are struggling with benefit dependency. Hemp production will provide some hope.