Recent News

Bob McCoskrie
A new article has appeared the The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific this week.

Entitled New Zealand’s failed cannabis legalization referendum – implications for cannabis policy reform, it’s by Benedikt Fischer (a long-standing campaigner for legalisation) and Australian Wayne Hall.

In a short analysis, it concludes:

“Governments and lawmakers, rather, will need to develop and move forward reform initiatives in their respective political systems and demonstrate leadership and courage in persuading their citizens that cannabis legalization is a desirable and valid policy direction.”

An atrocious piece. Ignore the people – only MPs should have a say. The public are too dumb. Helen Clark made these same claims. (Ironically she was the one who ‘whipped’ her own MPs to vote for the prostitution law reform when she was PM.)

By the way, this sentence in the article is just fake news

“New Zealand’s current cannabis control approach is prohibition-based. Law enforcement has the discretion to make ‘no-charge’ where a health-based approach is more beneficial but this is not commonly exercised.” 

From the latest Salvation Army Report released just this week…

Prosecutions for cannabis offences declined by 15 percent between June 2020 (5223 offences) and June 2019 (6125 offences). In fact, prosecutions for cannabis have declined by 70 percent since 2010. In 2019/20, 45 percent of those charged with cannabis-related offences were Māori. However, the number of Māori being charged with cannabis offences has consistently declined, dropping by 57 percent between 2010/11 and 2019/20.

And last November, Radio NZ reported

40% reduction in cannabis prosecutions in the last 5 years. Statistics for the three months to September show prosecutions for Māori are down by 17%, and there’s been a 50% increase in warnings to Māori where there are two or more offences. Fewer than 20% of all people caught with cannabis were prosecuted, and 500 people have been referred to health professionals.

Bob McCoskrie
An excellent commentary in The Conversation – “NZ’s smoking rates dropped dramatically thanks to a hard-hitting campaign. Could we do the same to bring emissions down?”

Good to see that some researchers at Otago University still aspire for best health outcomes. This article’s headings could be changed to: “NZ’s smoking rates dropped dramatically thanks to hard-hitting campaign. Could we do same to bring *cannabis use* down?”

Yes. Here’s how. From the article….

“One of the key lessons from tobacco control is the need to intervene in multiple levels to reshape the entire system. This includes:

• interventions at the policy level (taxation on tobacco products, advertising and sponsorship bans)

• creating environments that support being smoke-free (no smoking in public places such as bars, playgrounds, workplaces; plain packaging)

• community action (community-based tobacco control programmes such as Aukati Kaipaipa)

• helping individual smokers to quit

• reorienting health services to promote tobacco control by requiring health providers to collect and report on smoking status.

• Combined, these interventions have reduced smoking rates from 36% in 1976 to 13% in 2020. We moved from a society where smoking was ubiquitous (remember smoking in planes, bars, restaurants and workplaces?) to one where smoking is no longer seen as a “normal” activity.
• Importantly, tobacco control interventions now enjoy a high level of support, including often from smokers. These wide-ranging environmental interventions created behavioural change and support for further interventions.

Making it easier for people to change

• Evidence from public health shows policy interventions that go hand in hand with supportive environments are likely to make the biggest difference in behaviour changes.”

Don’t tell the Drug Foundation though. It will wreck their funding model.

NewsTalk ZB 18 February 2021
Family First Comment: Go Kate 🙂
“Will we see this reported here in NZ? No of course not, it doesn’t fit the pro-cannabis agenda so prevalent here in mainstream media. Which is a shame, because when facts are presented as data, they deserve to be reported, not ignored.”

PR NewsWire 15 February 2021
Family First Comment: NEW STUDY JUST RELEASED:
“Adolescents who live in California may be more likely to use marijuana since adult recreational marijuana use was legalized in 2016, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs… There were greater increases in marijuana use prevalence after recreational marijuana legalization among youth in ‘low-risk’ groups, which is concerning.. the greater increases in these normally low-risk groups may be attributed to marijuana use becoming more normative due to legalization…”
Who would have thought?!!

Adolescents who live in California may be more likely to use marijuana since adult recreational marijuana use was legalized in 2016, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

“The apparent increase in marijuana use among California adolescents after recreational marijuana legalization for adult use in 2016 is surprising given the steady downward trend in marijuana use during years before legalization,” says lead researcher Mallie J. Paschall, Ph.D., senior research scientist at the Prevention Research Center of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Berkeley, Calif.

Paschall and colleagues analyzed data from over three million 7th, 9th, and 11th graders who participated in the California Healthy Kids Survey from 2010-2011 through 2018-2019 school years. The adolescents provided information on their grade, sex, ethnicity, race and lifetime and past-30-day marijuana use.

The researchers observed significant increases in the prevalence of lifetime and past-30-day marijuana use among nearly all demographic groups from 2017-2018 to 2018-2019 school years, after legalization of adult recreational use: an 18% increase in the likelihood of lifetime use and a 23% increase in past-30-day use. These numbers may reflect greater use of vaping products, and the overall increase was even more likely among those in demographic groups with historically lower rates of marijuana use.

“I was somewhat surprised to see relatively greater increases in the prevalence of marijuana use among younger adolescents (7th graders) relative to 9th and 11th graders, among females versus males, among non-Hispanic versus Hispanic youth, and among Whites versus youth in other racial groups,” says Paschall. “In other words, there were greater increases in marijuana use prevalence after recreational marijuana legalization among youth in ‘low-risk’ groups, which is concerning.”

Paschall says he can only speculate as to the reason, but that the greater increases in these normally low-risk groups may be attributed to marijuana use becoming more normative due to legalization, along with relatively greater overall declines in marijuana use among youth in historically ‘high-risk’ groups during the study period.

The study also indicated greater increases in the frequency of past-30-day marijuana use among older adolescents, males, African American and Asian youth who were regular users. There were notable increases in marijuana use frequency among adolescents in 2018-2019, which may reflect national increases in the use of vaping products.

The researchers suggest that recreational marijuana legalization may present increased opportunities for adolescents to obtain marijuana and that the increasing availability of non-smoking products such as edibles may prove appealing as well.

Paschall and his colleagues also write that states and communities that have legalized adult recreational marijuana use and sales could benefit from implementing both stricter controls on the availability of marijuana to adolescents and evidence-based prevention programs.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/teens-may-be-more-likely-to-use-marijuana-after-legalization-for-adult-recreational-use-301227489.html

The legalisation of marijuana continues to be a social disaster in Colorado.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) have just released their bi-annual “Monitoring Health Concerns Related to Marijuana in Colorado” report. The report finds there have been significant increases in past-month and daily or near-daily use among adults, marijuana-impaired driving, exposures in children under the age of five, and use of high potency forms of the drug among high school students.

Also, despite constant statements to the contrary, after an initial reduction in use, regular youth marijuana use among those under 15 rose 14.8% in 2019 versus 2017.

According to the report, there were significant increases in the use of high potency concentrates among high schoolers in Colorado. Since the last release of this report, marijuana vaping among high schoolers rose 70 percent while the use of marijuana “dabs” has risen 49 percent. Among high school students who reported use of marijuana in the past month, the use of dabs saw a significant 156 percent increase.

According to CDPHE, there has been a dramatic increase in the annual frequency of accidental exposure of children (aged 0-5) to marijuana with a total of 37 reports in 2016 versus 95 in 2019. The number of accidental exposures in 2019 represents the highest such total to date. Marijuana edibles (which are abundantly found in kid-friendly forms) account for the largest proportion of marijuana exposures.

In a similar vein, the report found that since 2017, emergency department discharges with marijuana-related billing codes among children aged 0-9 years saw a significant, 66 percent increase.

Since the release of 2017 data, daily or near-daily use among Colorado adults has increased 20 percent (7.6 percent in 2017 versus 9.1 percent in 2019), and nearly half (48.2 percent) of adult marijuana users in the state consumed the substance on a daily basis. This is concerning as daily use of today’s higher potency marijuana has been shown to increase the risk of developing severe mental illness such as psychosis up to fivefold.

Media Release 1 February 2021
A longitudinal study led by the University of Queensland in collaboration with Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne has found that regular cannabis use has harmful effects regardless of the age a person starts using it.

The research – published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review – followed 1792 Australian high school students aged 15 in 1992, and investigated their patterns of cannabis use across twenty years.

It found that by the age of 35, those who had regularly used cannabis in their early 20s were far more likely to engage in high-risk alcohol consumption, not have a job, and be daily smokers. They were also 20x more likely to use illicit substances, and 60% more likely to not be in a stable relationship. There was also a higher risk of depression.

The study authors said: “Two-thirds of people who use cannabis regularly started use in their early 20s. Because adult-onset is a lot more common than adolescent on-set, most of the harms associated with cannabis are in fact in the group who begin later on. Those who began regular use as a young adult accounted for the highest proportion of subsequent illicit drug use and tobacco use in the population, and a much higher proportion of high-risk drinking.”

Dr Gary Chan, the study’s lead author, said the key message of this study is that as well as for teenagers, there is an elevated risk of a range of adverse outcomes for those who started using cannabis regularly in their early 20s, and that the risk was still high, even if the participants had stopped using it as much by their 30s. Dr Chan said many previous studies had documented the harms associated with regular cannabis use in teens, but few have looked at the adverse consequences associated with use from young adulthood. Overall, regular use of cannabis – more than weekly and especially daily use – was found to have harmful consequences, regardless of the age people began using it.

“While many studies, including the Christchurch Health and Development Study and the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health & Development Study, and also the US Surgeon-General have all pointed to the risks of cannabis use for adolescents, this Australian study finds adverse outcomes also for those who started using cannabis regularly in their early 20s. There is a basic public health message which the New Zealand government should be strongly pushing – regular cannabis use is harmful, regardless of when an individual initiates its use,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

According to the latest Ministry of Health data, use of cannabis in New Zealand in the past 12 months is most prevalent amongst the 15-34 year old age group. In 2019, only 23% of high school students reported having ever using marijuana in their lifetime, dropping from 38% in 2001.
ENDS

Cosmos 27 January 2021
More bad news for pot tokers: a study led by the University of Queensland (UQ) has found that regular cannabis use has harmful effects regardless of the age a person starts using it.

CNN Health 20 January 2021
Family First Comment: “Studies in adults show a strong association between overuse of weed and suicide attempts and death. A study of adult same-sex twins found those who were dependent on marijuana were nearly 3x more likely to attempt suicide than their twin who was not dependent on weed.”
This study shows that young people are at high risk also.
Thank goodness NZ voted No 👍😄

Stuff co.nz 19 January 2021
Family First Comment: Police have quietly shelved their annual cannabis eradication operation in a move that has blindsided staff and the police minister.
“New Zealanders voted to reject legalisation of cannabis – it’s an illegal drug and it causes significant harm in our communities. There’s a lot of organised crime involved in this. Police should explain what the justification is for not cracking down on this.”  – National MP Simeon Brown

Police have quietly shelved their annual cannabis eradication operation in a major change that has blind sided frontline staff and the police minister.

For more than 20 years, officers have taken to the skies with the New Zealand Defence Force as part of a national operation to find back country cannabis plots.

However, Stuff can reveal top brass at Police National Headquarters, which provides more than $700,000 a year to fund hundreds of hours of flight time for helicopters and planes used in the operation, have decided to scrap it.

One of the reasons the operation has been grounded is a lack of appetite from the leaders of the 12 police districts.

That’s despite the operation netting tens of thousands of plants every year, and police previously saying it prevented hundreds of millions of dollars worth of socio-economic harm.

No official announcement about the change had been made to frontline staff before Stuff began asking questions about it on Tuesday.

However, police confirmed the move in a statement on Tuesday evening.

A spokeswoman said the decision was made jointly by staff at a national and district level.
READ MORE: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/123986572/police-slash-annual-cannabis-operation-blind-siding-frontline-staff-and-officials?cid=app-iPhone

Family First commentary – 20 January 2021
An in-depth analysis of media coverage of the euthanasia and cannabis referendums has found that while both sides of the euthanasia referendum were given reasonably fair and balanced coverage, the YES position in the cannabis debate received a heavily biased share of the media coverage during the campaign period – especially from some particular media outlets and journalists.

The analysis looked at more than 400 New Zealand-based media articles and opinion pieces as they appeared online during the cannabis and euthanasia referendum campaign period between May and October 2020. For the euthanasia referendum, there were 123 (75 news items and 48 opinion pieces) and for the cannabis referendum, there were 281 (203 news items and 78 opinion pieces) – more than double the coverage than was given to the euthanasia debate.

The objective of the analysis was to assess the extent to which the set of articles and op-eds, as a whole, provided balanced coverage of both sides of debate – consistent with the New Zealand Media Council’s first principle of “accuracy, fairness and balance.”

In the cannabis referendum analysis:

• More than a third (36%) of all headlines promoted the YES position, while only 18% promoted the NO position.
• Advocates promoting the YES position were quoted twice as often as NO advocates.
• More than half (126) of the 203 articles did not quote anybody from the NO side of the campaign, compared to only 64 articles not quoting someone from the YES side. While the NO position was mentioned in 44% of stories, it was typically deep in the story or a very small focus of the overall article.
• 51% of all Op-Eds were YES-biased while only 27% presented a NO position.

In the euthanasia referendum analysis:

• Across all 123 news and op-ed pieces on the Euthanasia Referendum, the coverage came out overall as balanced and reasonably representative of views on both sides.
• Opinion pieces were somewhat more likely to represent the NO-vote – whereas news items leaned a little more towards representing the YES-vote overall.

“As these reports clearly highlight, there can be no doubt that the YES position in the cannabis debate received a heavily biased share of the media coverage during the campaign period. The media also seemed far more concerned about the outcome of the cannabis debate than they were the euthanasia debate, with more than double the amount of coverage. A cynical observer might wonder whether that was because the outcome of the euthanasia debate appeared to be settled in the polling, whereas there was concern that the legalisation of cannabis wasn’t so certain,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ who commissioned the research.

“It is disappointing that a number of media outlets and journalists pushed one side of the cannabis debate so biasedly. The media should report the debate – not lead it. It also shows just how miraculous it was that the NO vote still succeeded.”

All the articles obtained were based on the list provided by NZ Politics Daily, a comprehensive, nonpartisan list of articles, columns, and analysis relating to New Zealand politics and government, produced by the Democracy Project at Victoria University Wellington. This list was used to maintain the neutrality of the analysis and to avoid any accusation of searching for articles that leaned to one side or the other of the debate.

The analysis has been audited by an Emeritus Professor who specialises in research methods and statistics.

READ: CANNABIS MEDIA ANALYSIS

READ: EUTHANASIA MEDIA ANALYSIS