An actual real legal high

An actual real legal high

I thought I would smell J-Day before I would be able to see it. Like the police burning off a colossal stash of confiscated plants, I imagined Dunedin’s J-Day creating a haze of smoke so large that it would hot box the wider Octagon, a blaze so impressive that it would send a great political stream of smoke wafting into the Dunedin City Council, leaving its workers mildly baked for the day. I envisioned a guerrilla festival and Dunedin’s passionate stoners taking a stand against the law. So as I strolled towards the Octagon, I looked to the sky for marijuana smoke, I sniffed at the air for that potent dank and I scanned for dread locked stoners making the holy exodus up George Street for the event.

Maybe my imagination got the better of me. It was my first time at J-Day, and before you ask, no I didn’t get high. Like any good Dunedin flat party, I heard J-Day before I saw it. While I was expecting to hear Peter Tosh’s ‘Legalize it’ or maybe Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ jamming. Instead I heard the faint Castle Street breed of grungy DNB rumbling in the distance. I arrived in the Octagon, I laid my eyes on J-Day for the first time. I can only describe it as a relocated, more elaborate and larger version of the weekly 4:20 protests on campus.

This year’s J-Day marks the 25th anniversary of the event since its inception in 1996. The event was formed in response to prohibition of cannabis in New Zealand and advocates for a full scale recreational legislation, along with the medicinal use of the drug. I eventually spotted Abe Gray, the founder of Dunedin’s Cannabis Museum, Otago’s NORML president and the figurehead of Dunedin’s 4:20 campus protests. I approached Gray who was more than keen to chat about the event.

“Cannabis is a very controversial, private thing. Most people keep their use secret, so J-day is a day for people who support law reforms to come out in public and show their support, not hide it away”. Gray spoke to me through an impressive Gandalf-esque beard. It seemed to exhibit the hippy within, while his tidy comb up top conveyed, a well-read, articulate knowledge on the topic of cannabis and law reform. 

Gray believes that the prohibition of cannabis not only results in shady dealings, unnecessary arrests and the costs of enforcing the laws but also the stigmatisation and marginalisation of cannabis users. “Because it’s illegal people hide it away and they can’t talk about it after consistent decades of negative propaganda about how harmful it is, when in reality all of the harm is caused by prohibition… and when we compare it to alcohol which we tolerate widely, especially in Dunedin, it is much safer and much friendlier as a widespread socially used intoxicant”.

The effects of availability of marijuana has on alcohol consumption are still a clouded body of research. In this context, marijuana is not treated as a gateway drug, but a replacement drug. While studies focusing on the phenomenon have been carried out in Colorado and Washington (where the recreational use of marijuana has been completely legalised), the effect of readily accessible marijuana on alcoholism is still not well understood. Even minor changes in the consumption of alcohol can have profound societal effects on health and safety and their associated costs, so further research will become increasingly relevant in a western political trend of marijuana legalisation

The event was marked by an absence of the police who probably had better things to do than watch people smoke weed and chill on the grass. Gray told me the police had visited him at the Cannabis Museum to make sure they weren’t planning on repeating what they had done in the years past. The last two years the protesters marched to the police station at 4:20pm and hot boxed it. “And so they were just checking to make sure we weren’t going to do it again. They don’t want any trouble. Instead of us saying “we don’t want any trouble”, they’re like “we don’t want any trouble”, because they know that the public is on our side”.

So if the police aren’t interested in showing up to a protest in the heart of Dunedin where at least a hundred people are partaking in illegal activities in front of the public, do they really care? Maybe not. In a place rife with alcoholism, where the police station and hospital are the busiest places on a Saturday night after the Octagon and Castle Street, it seems like there are bigger issues to deal with than people smoking weed and hanging out. The fact that Dunedin’s innocuous student cannabis culture is seldom identified as a problem or even talked about at all stands testament to this. No one burns couches, vandalises property, gets in fights or causes really any mischief at all when they’re stoned. 

As a wide-eyed fresher exploring North Dunedin flats, I couldn’t believe the relentless supply of bongs unashamedly sitting on coffee tables and kitchen benches. As much as alcohol is a deep rooted part of Scarfy culture, so too is marijuana. The bong is often an iconic piece of any smoker’s flat. I’ve encountered affectionately nicknamed bongs: “the Purple Kidney”, “Chief Keef”, “Gatorade Gaz” and “Blue Elephant Sprinkler”.

There seems to be a weekly Friday afternoon mission to score in North Dunedin. First the inquiring texts get sent out- “anyone know where to score?”, and then later the affirmation- “Damon is in, good sized tinnies”. The film Scarfies immortalised marijuana as an integral part of Scarfie culture. 

Following the birth of US President Richard Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’ in 1971, there was a global trend in prohibiting recreational drugs. The political movement declared drug abuse as America’s public enemy number one. The campaign held an unobtainable goal of ridding the world of drugs. In the public realm, drugs were demonised and subsequent educational campaigns communicated a simple message to young people: “Drugs are bad, mmkay”.

Simple economics demonstrates how reducing the supply of any product without decreasing its demand will result in price increase. While this may lower the sales of many products, this is not the case for drugs. During the New Zealand shortage of marijuana earlier this year, many Dunedin students were reportedly paying $25 for 0.7 gram tinnies (the usual going rate being $20 for 1 gram). While price increased, demand remained constant, as did consumption. 

The War on Drugs has been a hopeless failure with devastating, unintended consequences ranging from widespread violence in Latin America, Asia and Africa to skyrocketing rates of incarceration for low level drug offences. While New Zealand didn’t play an role in the movement, our laws and attitudes towards prohibition followed suit.

Knowledge surrounding the societal harm caused by drug prohibition is now widespread. Prohibiting drugs breeds seedy black markets often controlled by shady gangs which in turn breeds violence and higher rates of incarceration, all of which come at the expense of the taxpayer. Consequently attitudes on drug policy held by both international leaders and even our own Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne have evolved from hardline policy to harm reduction. As the world’s public and policy makers have better understood the societal detriments that prohibition causes, many governments have moved towards decriminalising or legalising marijuana. 

The American State of Colorado is one success story following it’s full scale recreational legalisation of marijuana. Following the state’s 2012 law reform, gangs were reportedly undercut by legal markets which forced them to move to other states where it was still illegal to earn good money for their product. The economic benefits brought about by legislation are unavoidable. The Colorado Cannabis Industry employs over 25,000 people, and much like Amsterdam the state has seen increases in a new breed of tourist visiting to smoke weed. And that’s not to mention the money saved on the costs of law enforcement prohibition requires. While the case of Colorado is still a relatively new one, it has again exemplified that society doesn’t crumble when marijuana is legalised. 

The various successes associated with legalising marijuana is now widespread knowledge thanks to the the news media and internet. As Gray rightly points out “most young New Zealanders are not watching New Zealand television, they’re not listening to national radio, they’re receiving [their news] online”. So how is this knowledge permeating into New Zealand politics?

Slowly, but promising one might argue. The rather liberal Peter Dunne, leader of United Future and our Associate Minister of Health, is responsible for New Zealand’s drug policy and the topical issue of medical cannabis. While herbal marijuana is widely advocated by NORML as a form of medicine, the government is currently grappling with the issue of medicinal products derived from elements of the cannabis plant. While the argument surrounding legalisation of marijuana is still controversial and polarising, there is momentum towards reforming the Misuse of Drugs Act.

This law reform, which Dunne himself supports, aims at streamlining the application process to obtaining medicinal cannabis products. It is a long winded legal process, and the products offered are limited and expensive. Earlier this year Helen Kelly, a high profile former trade union boss, was denied legal access to imported inhaler based cannabis medicine to alleviate pain brought on by terminal lung cancer. Kelly, a respected figure in New Zealand, captured widespread support for her application. Her story was yet another emotional and harrowing case of a patient suffering under seemingly unmerciful bureaucratic application processes and legal hurdles.

Following the media’s spotlight on Kelly’s condition and application, NZ polling company UMR ran a poll on the topic of medical cannabis and legal marijuana. The poll surveyed 750 people and to the question “Do you support or oppose the use of marijuana being allowed for medical purposes?”, 72 percent supported the statement, 13 percent were opposed and 15 percent were undecided. While this result demonstrated a clear support for ‘medicinal marijuana’, it may reflect the media’s sympathetic framing of Kelly’s story. It would be interesting to repeat the poll later this year, with a more sophisticated line of questioning. What was also noticeable was a the dead even split - 46 percent supporting and 46 percent opposing on the topic of the legalisation of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. The same poll question was was run in 1997, resulting in 56 percent opposing, 36 percent supporting, and eight percent undecided.

California’s medical marijuana program in 1996 eventually led to de facto legalisation in 2011. Once we begin a reform of laws in New Zealand dealing with medical cannabis products it will be impossible to ignore the wider issue of recreational legalisation. The results of the UMR polls continues to reflect the growing mainstream support for legalisation in New Zealand, and a changing attitude towards drug policy. The issue of legalisation presents complex legal, health, social, economic arguments. Just because legalisation has worked overseas, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work here in New Zealand. Considering our country’s notorious rates of drug abuse and alcoholism, we will need to take measured steps to introduce legal marijuana to ensure policy most effectively minimises societal harm. We will need to be sensible, mature and forward-thinking to best deal with the issue.

But for now, the future is promising. There is no doubt that J-Day supporters will be cherishing the dialogue taking place on the topic of medicinal cannabis. These kinds of conversations are small steps towards some form of legalisation in the future. So perhaps one day a 4:20 protest will no longer be protest, but a celebration, Abe Gray’s South Dunedin Cannabis Museum will sell legal marijuana, and maybe New Zealand’s international reputation as a ‘green’ country will take on another meaning.

This article first appeared in Issue 14, 2016.
Posted 11:45am Sunday 29th May 2016 by Sam Fraser-Baxter.