by Alexander Gillespie
Professor of Law, University of Waikato
The case for a referendum on New Zealand’s cannabis law was already urgent in 2015 when the supposedly more pressing issue was whether we should change the flag. As I argued at the time, prohibition had failed and was costing society far more than the drug itself.
As with alcohol, tobacco, prostitution and gambling, regulation – not prohibition – seemed the smarter way forward. Nothing has changed as the cannabis legalisation and control referendum looms on October 17. If anything, the evidence from five wasted decades of war on cannabis is even more compelling