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Canna~Fangled Abstracts

Indigenous people in Aotearoa New Zealand are overrepresented in cannabis convictions

By March 17, 2022March 21st, 2022No Comments

. 2022 Mar 17;19(1):28.

doi: 10.1186/s12954-022-00613-9.

Wetini Rapana 1, Taylor Winter 2, Ririwai Fox 2, Benjamin C Riordan 3, Rajas Kulkarni 1, Waikaremoana Waitoki 4, Damian Scarf 5
Affiliations 

Abstract

Background: Previous work has demonstrated that cannabis laws have had a disproportionate impact on Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2019, the New Zealand Government amended cannabis laws, providing police with the power to determine whether a therapeutic or health-centred approach would be more beneficial than a conviction. In the current study, we use population level data to assess whether this law change has ameliorated the bias in cannabis convictions for Māori.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), a large government database hosted by Aotearoa New Zealand’s national statistics office. In the IDI, we selected individuals who (1) were between 18 and 65, (2) were Māori or Pākehā (New Zealanders of European descent) and, (3) had any cannabis charges that proceeded to the courts.

Results: Māori ethnicity was a significant predictor of the odds of receiving a cannabis conviction for Māori males (Odds: 1.56), with a marginally significant effect for Māori females (Odds: 1.57). Further, for Māori, there was no reduction in the number of cannabis charges before vs. after the amendment to cannabis laws.

Conclusion: The current study demonstrates that the bias in cannabis convictions for Māori remain. Given this, the New Zealand Government must follow other countries around the world and move forward on cannabis law reform.

Keywords: Cannabis; Cannabis policy; Decriminalisation; Drug policy; Population data; Racism.

References

    1. Abel S. Cannabis policy in Australia and New Zealand. Drug Alcohol Rev. 1997;16:421–8. – DOI
    1. Browne R. Black and Indigenous people are overrepresented in Canada’s weed arrests. VICE; 2018.
    1. Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill. 2020.
    1. Cheng D. Revealed: Drug law change sees sharp fall in drug users prosecuted; bias against Māori remains. New Zealand Herald; 2020.
    1. Cheng D. Are police “racist”? Data reveals huge differences across ethnicities from police use of drug laws. New Zealand Herald; 2021.

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