What the fuck happened to that cannabis referendum?

What the fuck happened to that cannabis referendum? Massive talks to Chlöe Swarbrick about what went wrong and what happens next.

They say that the grass is greener on the other side and, in October of last year, New Zealanders were given the chance to find out for themselves. But to the dismay of the rest, 50.7% of the voting population said yeah, nah. The cannabis referendum was, quite frankly, a shit show. Misinformation flooded social media, the Prime Minister refused to take sides, and many conveniently forgot about existence of weed under the status quo.  

Massive sat down to talk with Green party member Chlöe Swarbrick to expand on what went wrong here and what the fuck happens now? 

To all those that feel disgruntled, the question lingers: will there be another chance to change our weed laws?  Chlöe says, “I don’t think there will be another referendum, I’ve been pretty clear about my position in the beginning which is that this shouldn’t have gone to referendum... The biggest petition that has ever been tabled in parliament, was half a million New Zealanders in the 1980s, asking for homosexuality to stay a criminal offence.”  

Given the disappointing result of the referendum, Chlöe is working to try to create a regime that will, at the very least, decriminalise cannabis. “Everybody, even those who were opposed to legalisation said it shouldn’t be a criminal issue, so now it’s time for them to put their money where their mouth is,” she says.  

“I could tell you for a fact that there are by far a majority of parliamentarians in our 120 membered parliament who hold those opinions but, for fear of controversy or whatever else, will never say these things publicly… [They] have used cannabis, they’ve smoked weed, and they’re on record admitting to that. They haven’t gone to prison, but [they] still oversee a law that generalises and prosecutes people for doing the same thing that they did. 

“I guess that blatant hypocrisy, amongst other things, is what really makes me mad,” she concludes. 

Chlöe is one of the very few politicians who has been transparent with their thoughts towards cannabis. At this crucial time, Kiwis were left without voices from other prominent leaders.  “Interestingly, there was actually a huge amount of information that was produced by the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor which really got into the detail on what a public health approach would look like and how it would be beneficial as opposed to the status quo,” Chlöe notes. “When people don’t have time to read a proposed 160-page draft law, which is what people were voting on - and I doubt the majority of New Zealanders’ read that - they look to people who they would usually trust to tell them whether this is the right or the wrong thing to do.” 

Chlöe is advocating for pro public health, which she explained was a difficult thing to advocate for when people were more concerned about the presence cannabis may have if legalised. In regard to public health, those who need CBD for medicinal reasons were the people that the referendum results let down the most. 

Jamie*, who suffers from severe chronic pain due to endometriosis, voiced that getting free, legal and accessible CBD would be lifechanging. However, the current flaw in the law only allows them to get their regular cannabis from the black market or from the street. The concern here is that this sourcing of cannabis isn’t regulated, making it hard to know what other substances it has been mixed with and how much CBD is in it. 

Jamie says, “Having a cone or eating some weed oil is the only medicine that helps my endometriosis symptoms without the multitudes of side effects that pharmaceutical prescriptions have. I have already been supplied with an opioid addiction via the public hospitals. I don’t want to take pills upon pills for pain when a simple and common plant is available.”  

“The illegality of it weighs on me - I struggle between codeine dependence, buying weed illegally, and suffering indefinitely. My GP refuses to give me a CBD clinic referral, and besides, I can’t afford the $200+ a month prescription.” As they succinctly summarise, “It’s fucked either way. I’m fucked either way.”  

Communications student Robyn, questioned the logical thinking of voters that backed the End of Life Choice bill but not the cannabis one. “I’m not against euthanasia, but why was euthanasia passed and cannabis wasn’t?” She goes on to say, “Wouldn’t you think to legalise the last potential drug to relieve someone of pain before legalizing them to have an assisted death? I just don’t understand this logic.”  

During the three-part informative series ‘On Weed’ that ran on Three prior to the referendum, journalist Patrick Gower explored the current Kiwi businesses with legal medicinal cannabis licenses. These companies had been gearing up for the bill to pass. However, since the results, there hasn’t been much said about what has happened to them. “My understanding is that those people are obviously just having to figure out how they’re going to operate within the black letter of the law, it’s basically just a lost opportunity,” Chlöe says.  

It’s not just politicians that struggle to pick a side as to where they sit with cannabis legalisation. Last year’s MAWSA Executive voted to have a ‘neutral stance’ on the matter. President of MAWSA, Tessa Guest, says that “The thinking was that although many students would be in support, and although most of the executives were in support, we didn’t want to take a stance that didn’t reflect the opinions of other students, and we didn’t have any gauge on how many students that might entail.” 

On the other cheek, it seems as though there wasn’t much clarity surfaced by the government regarding what the referendum was actually about. “This debate wasn’t meant to be about whether you like, use, or support cannabis, the referendum was about what kind of approach do we want to have to something that exists,” says Chlöe. “A lot of people think that when something is illegal, it’s out of sight, out of mind.” 

The young Green MP believes that moral panic can be whipped up in the general public when people don’t necessarily have all of the facts in front of them, which is a huge gap to have in a democracy. Although the referendum was a lost opportunity, Chlöe remains positive towards there being a future opportunity for change to the law, “which I would hope the intellectual and moral integrity of politicians would be called to task on”. 

“We need to treat this genuinely as a public health issue as opposed to a criminal issue.”