TVNZ One News 12 September 2020
A 1 NEWS-Colmar Brunton poll has found more Māori are in support of ticking the ‘yes’ box at the upcoming cannabis referendum than the general public.
Voters are weighing up a new law that sets out how people can produce, supply and consume the drug, but it’s an issue that’s still highly divisive.
“I have some questions… we have to be real about the impact,” social worker Ngahau Davis says.
A recent 1 NEWS-Colmar Brunton poll found 56 per cent of Māori say they’ll vote for cannabis reform at the election.
Davis says legalisation will hit places like Moerewa, in the Far North.
“When it’s in communities like mine where you have limited opportunity, high unemployment, high social deprivation… and the only thing that makes you feel good, taking a trip without leaving the farm, is dak,” he says.
“The evidence shows the younger you use marijuana, the more effect it has on brain development.
“It’s the first thing people wake up in the morning that makes them feel good and it’s the last thing they take before they go to bed. And it’s not about use, it’s about the chronic abuse of it.”
“I’m a social worker… If this is where we’re going to open up, is it a Pandora’s box? Why would we do that?” Davis says.
READ MORE: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/m-ori-more-supportive-cannabis-yes-vote-than-general-public-new-poll-shows
