After last September\u2019s general election in New Zealand, the center-left Labour Party struck a deal with the left-wing Green Party in order to forge a parliamentary majority: \u00a0The question of cannabis legalization had to be placed before New Zealand\u2019s voters. Now, the government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced that it may make good on this promise to the Greens in the coming year.<\/p>\n
While the prospect for cannabis legalization looks promising in New Zealand, the government is now debating whether to hold the referendum in 2019 or 2020. Officials are worried that holding the referendum in the 2020 general election could be a bad move politically, because of the stigma that still surrounds the issue. Justice Minister Andrew Little even admitted this was a consideration\u00a0in recent comments<\/a>\u00a0to Radio New Zealand.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the referendum to legalize cannabis in New Zealand\u00a0will be non-binding<\/a>, meaning that the government won\u2019t commit to following the will of the voters. So cannabis advocates still have plenty of work ahead of them.<\/p>\n Hearteningly, the balance of power is more favorable than it\u2019s been for many years. The Greens hold eight of 120 seats in New Zealand\u2019s Parliament, and make up one pillar of the ruling coalition with Labour and the populist party New Zealand First.<\/p>\n Green Party<\/a>\u00a0MP\u00a0Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick credited her party with providing the impetus for the referendum plan. Swarbrick herself has introduced a medical cannabis legalization bill before New Zealand\u2019s legislature.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something the Greens have campaigned on for decades, alongside the rest of our evidence-based policies, because the war on drugs is worse than an abject failure \u2013 it\u2019s multiplied harm,\u201d Swarbrick told Cannabis Now in an email.<\/p>\n Last October, New Zealand made a small step toward legalizing medical cannabis last year, when the Health Ministry allowed medical practitioners to prescribe CBD products \u2014 despite the government\u2019s position that cannabidiol is a controlled substance under the 1975 Misuse of Drugs Act (MoDA). Canadian-produced CBD oil has been\u00a0approved for import<\/a>. The price, however, is prohibitive and many patients are awaiting passage of the medical marijuana bill.<\/p>\n According to Swarbrick, a limited medical cannabis bill \u201chas passed its first reading and is currently before the Health Select Committee.\u201d She believes that the bill is on track to be passed into law by the end of 2018, if not early 2019. However, she says her political party is hoping \u201cthat the legislation is expanded to be more progressive and comprehensive.\u201d<\/p>\n Swarbrick is not optimistic about addressing the two most serious limitations of the bill. First, it contains no provisions for use of herbaceous cannabis or for home cultivation. Secondly, it does not actually establish the terms for a medical marijuana program, but mandates the\u00a0Health Ministry<\/a>\u00a0to do so. With the Swarbrick\u2019s broader version of the bill\u00a0voted down<\/a>\u00a0in January, the Select Committee is reviewing the more limited version.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not within the Committee\u2019s powers to completely re-write a bill, so it\u2019s unfortunately very unlikely that those delegated powers to the Ministry will be replaced,\u201d Swarbrick says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe will, however, continue the hard work alongside community organizations to ensure the bill is in the best shape, and as transparent in its intentions as possible,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n But the battle isn\u2019t over. Swarbrick does hold out hope for herbaceous use and home cultivation \u201cpotentially being explored and implemented by the Ministry of Health by way of its delegated powers.\u201d<\/p>\n Medical marijuana campaigner Rose Renton, who lives in the South Island city of Nelson, is among those who helped press the issue of legal cannabis in New Zealand \u2014 and may yet pay for it with her freedom. She faces up to 14 years in prison for supplying chronic pain sufferers and hospice patients with CBD<\/a> products she produced herself. Cultivation is among the charges she faces, as New Zealand news site Stuff\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0when she first appeared in court in October.<\/p>\n Locally known as the \u201cGreen Fairy,\u201d Renton presented a petition with nearly 18,000 signatures to Parliament last year demanding legal, safe and affordable access to medicinal cannabis. And the issue is personal for Renton. Her son, Alex Renton, was the first New Zealander to be treated with CBD oil. He\u00a0died in July 2015 after being hospitalized in a \u201cstatus epilepticus\u201d \u2014 a kind of prolonged seizure.<\/p>\n Renton told Cannabis Now that a medical necessity defense is among the options she is considering. \u201cMedical necessity has been spoken about,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are keeping our options open regarding defense still\u2026 I have patient affidavits, and an experienced pain specialist here in Nelson and a [general practitioner], who will happily support our defense. They all refer patients directly to me.\u201d Her next court date is in August, and trial looks likely in the spring.<\/p>\n Renton is being represented by activist attorney Sue Grey, who\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Stuff\u00a0in January that she hopes the case will result in a formal recognition that CBD is not covered by the country\u2019s prohibition law, MoDA.<\/p>\n Speaking to Cannabis Now, Grey described the problems with the status quo: \u201cThe limited available imported CBD products tend to be expensive, and few subsidies are available. Although we have had licensed hemp growers for many years, they have not been allowed to use their crop for medicinal purposes. The NZ government is currently in a catch-up mode. Meanwhile our sick and dying are waiting hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n Another Kiwi freedom fighter is California-born Rebecca \u201cRedwood\u201d Reider, who lives just north of Nelson in the city of Golden Bay. She figured out a loophole in New Zealand\u2019s law that allowed her to bring cannabis into the country.<\/p>\n As she related to Cannabis Now, \u201cMy lawyer [Sue Grey] found a loophole in the MoDA, allowing possession of a one-month supply of a controlled drug purchased abroad legally for medical purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n Although this loophole was added to the law with pharmaceuticals rather than cannabis in mind, Renton flew to Hawaii in August 2016, where she purchased state-legal medicinal cannabis for the chronic pain she suffers from. Then she flew home, and declared the cannabis to the customs agents at the Auckland airport. \u201cIt was pretty surreal actually,\u201d she recalls, \u201cwith the media and cameras waiting at the airport.\u201d She had alerted the press beforehand so they would be there to document it in case there was trouble. There wasn\u2019t. She was allowed in with her cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cMy case added fuel to the fire,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople were fascinated by this exception allowing them to bring in cannabis legally.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In response to the media coverage, however, the Health Ministry changed its interpretation of the law, arguing it is only U.S. federal law that should be recognized \u2014 not the state medical marijuana laws.<\/p>\n Earlier in 2016, Reider had also faced charges for importing cannabis-infused chocolate bars into New Zealand. That case resulted in \u201cdischarge without conviction\u201d \u2014 basically meaning that the charge is dropped, despite a formal finding of guilt. This was another win for Reider.<\/p>\n Reider notes that when the formerly ruling right-wing\u00a0National Party<\/a>\u00a0was chucked out of power in last year\u2019s election, Labour and its coalition partners pledged that a medical marijuana law would be passed within their first 100 days. And indeed, the bill was submitted by the new government shortly after it took office. But this rush may help account for its shortcomings. One provision included to appease advocates would immediately (even before the Health Ministry program is up and running) remove penalties for medicinal cannabis use by terminal patients.<\/p>\n Reider finds this provision to be \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople deserve compassion throughout their lives, not just the last 12 months,\u201d she told Cannabis Now. \u201cAnd how do you know they\u2019re gonna die? Cannabis can extend life, so this opens a real paradox.\u201d<\/p>\n Reider, who works as a journalist and coordinator of\u00a0Organic Winegrowers NZ<\/a>, also expresses hope that parliament will respond to pressure to fix the law before it passes, noting that an impressive 2,000 written comments were submitted by the public to the committee reviewing the legislation.<\/p>\n In 2001, a Green Party parliamentarian named Nandor Tanczos, who was a dreadlocked white Rastafarian, first pushed the cannabis decriminalization cause forward.<\/p>\n At his urging, parliament\u2019s Health Select Committee opened a \u201cCannabis Inquiry\u201d that did indeed bring back recommendations for decriminalizing the plant. But in horse-trading after the 2002 election, the Greens were bumped from the Labour-led coalition, and cannabis decriminalization did not come to pass.<\/p>\n Despite the failure, Tanczos still inspired a generation of cannabis activists, including Abe Gray, a U.S.-born man who is now the curator of the\u00a0Whakamana Cannabis Museum<\/a>\u00a0in the South Island city of Dunedin. When Gray first moved to New Zealand, \u00a0he taught botany as a teaching assistant at Dunedin\u2019s University of Otago and became a \u201ccannabis protester.\u201d He says he was surprised to find his campus activist group \u201ctargeted by undercover police operations, when I thought I was coming to a Rasta utopia.\u201d<\/p>\n With Gray\u2019s efforts at his Whakamana Cannabis Museum, he\u2019s hoping to work against the New Zealand government\u2019s long history of anti-cannabis rhetoric.<\/p>\n The name\u00a0whakamana<\/i>\u00a0(the \u201cwh\u201d is pronounced like an f) is actually a Maori word, \u201clinked to indigenous protest movements,\u201d Gray says.\u00a0Mana<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cchiefliness,\u201d or status, respect.\u00a0Whaka<\/em>\u00a0means restoring. So the compound term means restoring the\u00a0mana\u00a0of the Maori people.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we\u2019re restoring the\u00a0mana\u00a0of the cannabis plant by refuting the propaganda of prohibition,\u201d Gray explains.<\/p>\n With the Green Party back in government, the long activist efforts in Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand) may be about to pay off.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think New Zealand will legalize cannabis?<\/p>\n The post New Zealand\u2019s Push to Legalize Medical Marijuana Picks Up Momentum<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
After last September\u2019s general election in New Zealand, the center-left Labour Party struck a deal with the left-wing Green Party in order to forge a parliamentary majority: \u00a0The question of cannabis legalization had to be placed before New Zealand\u2019s voters. Now, the government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announcedContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4561,50,136,1302,4562,4563,687,139,4564,1112,81,4565,4566,4567],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26881,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26880\/revisions\/26881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Green MP Speaks on The Country\u2019s Path to Legalization<\/h4>\n
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Activists Test the Limits of the Law<\/h4>\n
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\u2028New Zealand\u2019s Decades of Cannabis Activism<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: New Zealand\u2019s Push to Legalize Medical Marijuana Picks Up Momentum<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"