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Cannabis referendum: Health experts lay out the case for voting 'yes'
"If the referendum is successful, it will result in public health legislation with world-leading goals and aspirations that could serve as a model for other countries"
Newshub (NZ)
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Four of the country's top medical experts are urging voters to tick 'yes' in the cannabis referendum, saying it's not a vote for the drug, but against a status quo that is failing to protect vulnerable Kiwis. The non-binding referendum, underway now, is asking voters if they "support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill". Recent polls have had the vote split down the middle, with one showing the 'no' camp in the lead, and two others putting 'yes' narrowly in front. In an article for the New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ) four health experts put forward the case for ending prohibition saying that the cannabis referendum is a "once in a generation opportunity to place evidence-informed controls around a substance that is widely used and unregulated." -
Get premium dagga delivered to your door - legally (probably)
South Africans have a right to grow cannabis for personal use on private property - and the club has used this loophole to create the service
Cape Talk (South Africa)
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Growing and smoking dagga at home or in private is legal. For now, buying and selling dagga, however, remains against the law. Cape Cannabis Club (C3) gets around this by employing professional growers who do so in a private space on behalf of members who each lease a specifically dedicated area. Members sign an agreement that allows C3 to grow “premium” dagga for them at its facility. The dagga remains the property of the member and, once grown, it’s couriered to her home. Schindlers Attorneys, a law firm in Johannesburg, scrutinised C3 to ensure legality. The firm was instrumental in the 2018 Constitutional Court case which led to the legalisation of the recreational use of dagga. -
How a Canadian decriminalization model can improve on Portugal
In the Portugal system, people with drugs on their person may still be stopped by police or arrested
Filter (US)
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
On August 17, 2020, the director of public prosecutions in Canada issued new guidelines under which federal prosecutors are to resort to criminal prosecution for possession only in the “most serious” cases – that is, where accompanying circumstances or conduct are deemed to pose a risk to others. It’s a potential, tentative de facto decriminalization. Recommended responses to possession of smaller quantities comprise addiction treatment (including Indigenous cultural or abstinence-based recovery centres), counseling, or restorative justice (including Indigenous restorative justice programs) among others. Some media outlets instantly announced that Canada was decriminalizing. Others, including Filter, have been warier. -
Should N.J. legalize marijuana? The voters will decide
A question on November’s ballot asks residents if they support changing the state Constitution to allow recreational use of the drug
The New York Times (US)
Monday, October 5, 2020
For two years, New Jersey lawmakers had failed to mobilize enough support to pass a bill to fully legalize marijuana. Instead, they agreed in December to put the question directly to voters: “Do you approve amending the Constitution to legalize a controlled form of marijuana called ‘cannabis’?” A dominant conversation in the nation now centers on race and policing, giving a core argument among supporters of legalization new potency in a state where Black residents are more than three times as likely as white residents to be charged with marijuana possession. A poll in April found that 64 percent of New Jersey voters supported legalizing the possession of marijuana for personal use; 61 percent of respondents said they intended to vote “yes” on November’s ballot question. -
Revealed: Drug law change sees sharp fall in drug users prosecuted; bias against Māori remains
Police acknowledge unconscious bias and have programmes to remedy the disproportionate application of drug laws on Māori
New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Friday, October 2, 2020
A "watershed" change to drug laws last year has seen a significant drop in police prosecutions for drug use and an increase in warnings and alternative resolutions. But new police data shows little change to police bias against Māori, which appears to be strongest when it comes to policing cannabis use. The revelations will embolden supporters of legalising cannabis, who say it would even the legal playing field and quash the biased application of the law against Māori. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment bill came into force in mid-August last year amid hopes that it would lead to better health outcomes for people with drug-use problems. The change set into the law that police shouldn't prosecute drug users if a therapeutic approach would be "more beneficial to the public interest". -
Colorado governor to mass-pardon 2,700-plus marijuana convictions
Action will be automatic for those who qualify
The Denver Post (US)
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis plans to mass-pardon 2,732 convictions of low-level marijuana possession through an executive order after signing a bill earlier this year that gave him that authority. “This really catches Coloradans up with where the law is today,” he said. House Bill 1424, passed by the General Assembly earlier this year, included a provision that allows the governor to pardon those who have convictions on their criminal records for possessing up to 2 ounces of marijuana — the current legal limit for medical marijuana users. Polis’ pardon, however, will only apply to convictions in state courts through 2012 of up to 1 ounce for recreational use, consistent with Colorado Amendment 64, passed by voters in 2012. -
Gone to pot: New Zealand cools on legalising cannabis
With a crowded election cycle, non-committal politicians and a pandemic to worry about, public support for a yes vote in the referendum is eroding
The Guardian (UK)
Thursday, October 1, 2020
It is believed to be the first country in the world to put the legalisation of recreational cannabis to a national public vote. But amid a pandemic, an election concentrated almost entirely on the Covid-19 crisis, and a simultaneous vote on euthanasia, New Zealand’s upcoming marijuana referendum has not captivated the mainstream public attention that it might have in an ordinary year. New Zealand would join Canada and Uruguay on the list of countries legalising the sale and use of cannabis for adults if more than half of voters approved it – but public backing for the measure has eroded in polling during 2020, reversing growing support in recent years. (See also: Jacinda Ardern admits past cannabis use. New Zealanders shrug: ‘Us, too.’) -
Mexico, plagued by cartel wars, on cusp of legal cannabis 'green rush'
Mexico finally outlined rules in July covering cannabis for medical use, and the sign-off is expected in coming weeks
Reuters (UK)
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Senate majority leader Ricardo Monreal expects a law to be passed before December for recreational use of the drug, allowing regulated private firms to sell it to the public. Indeed the legal cannabis industry is already a multi-billion-dollar global trade, and some big players, including Canada’s Canopy Growth and The Green Organic Dutchman, and a unit of California-based Medical Marijuana Inc, told Reuters they were eager to tap the new Mexican market. While a growing cannabis industry promises to be a money-spinner, it faces resistance from campaigners who are worried that regulations for both medical and non-medical cannabis will heavily favor big, often foreign corporations. -
‘It’s personal to me’: Dr. Bonnie Henry on why we can’t afford to ignore B.C.’s overdose crisis
The total number of illicit drug deaths in the first eight months of this year has surpassed the total for all of 2019
Global News (Canada)
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
B.C.’s top doctor says the province’s two public health emergencies — the overdose crisis and COVID-19 pandemic — continue to intersect in ways that are proving increasingly deadly. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry called for better access to a safe supply of drugs as the closure of international borders due to COVID-19 has led to an illicit drug supply that is increasingly toxic. On Sept. 16, Henry signed an order that gave more health professionals the ability to prescribe safer pharmaceutical alternatives. Physical-distancing measures due to the pandemic have contributed to a higher frequency of people using drugs alone at home. To date, more than 1,000 people in B.C. have died of an overdose in 2020. -
Cannabis: A rush to corporate capture?
The South African domestic market for cannabis and related products will be worth around R27 billion in three years. Will the ordinary growers benefit?
Food For Mzansi (South Africa)
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Finance minister Tito Mboweni expects the newly legal cannabis industry to pour an estimated R4 billion into the government’s dwindling tax coffers while simultaneously unlocking the country’s stagnant rural economy, he said in a tweet earlier this year. But will this potential windfall benefit ordinary people? Many South Africans are excited about the opportunities presented by this new market, since the Constitutional Court decriminalised the use, possession, and cultivation of the plant for private and personal consumption in September 2018. But there is a strict and costly bureaucratic red tape preventing most people from penetrating it.
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