Kiwis - world’s top stoners
For almost nine years students of the University of Otago in Dunedin aka ‘Dunsterdam’ have come together twice the week smoking weed in public under the Wanut Tree on the University’s Union Lawn as an act of protest against the prohibition laws of cannabis. The academic students club is called ‘Otago Norml’. In their promotional video you can get an impression of their events, which attract as you can see foreign backpackers from all over the world, such as Amsterdam does.
But it’s not only backpackers and young students who smoke weed! According to the United Nations 2012 Drug Report NZ has one of the highest rates of cannabis consumers. Up to 9.1% to 14.6% of New Zealanders use cannabis. Compared to the worldwide average use which is about 2.8% to 4.5%, the use is way above average. The statistics are alarming, between 18 and 24 years nearly every third adult uses cannabis in New Zealand. Try out the the interactive-map of the use of drugs in 2012 on the Web Site of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Select in the right corner the drug group cannabis and you can observe that the cannabis use in New Zealand is nearly as high as in the United States.
I was shocked, how could such a developed country have that high numbers of drug abuse? I always thought of the New Zealanders as a laid-back nature loving society, but keeping in mind their high use of cannabis this thought now has developed a really weird connotation. Please don’t get me wrong, certainly there are a lot of New Zealanders who never did drugs and as you can see on the interactive-map a lot of countries struggle with drug abuse aswell. Nevtheless, in my opion topics like this one can’t be ignored.
Nowadays especially the Internet provides information through websites such as ‘webehigh’ about current prices, specialities in certain regions and even about the so called smoking tolerance level. Certainly smoking and growing cannabis is illegal in New Zealand but as the police never stopped one of the 420 smoking events of Otago Norml in public there is something definitely wrong about the cannabis policy! 1999 the first Rastafari Nándor Tánczo member of the Green Party joined the Parliament and at that time it was likely to be that cannabis would be legalized. Now, there even is a Cannabis Party which promotes the legal use.
At that time the American Abe Gray emigrated to New Zealand, to use his words ‘to enjoy pure nature and the weed’. Since then he has run the only Cannabis museum in New Zealand in Dunedin. In an interview with the British Youtuber Psychotraveller he presents the museum and his ideology. If you want to watch it, please be careful, the information which he provides may not be 100% correct.
Gray’s aim is it to release the New Zealanders from the pressure of illegal cannabis use and to prohibit their exposure to gang members who mostly sell cannabis, so that they are not involved in more criminal acts and exposed to other hard drugs sold by them. This argumentation is a typically used by supporters of the legalization of cannabis.
More over, he suggests that the marihuana industry may help rural regions economically and could provide an alternativity for dairy farmers which doesn’t cause pollution of environment. Suprisingly some farmers already made the change. New Zealander John Lord never intended to sell cannabis, but now is one of the biggest cannabis producers in the US.
Building an industry on the basis of the drug addiction potential of one’s own society does not appeal to my undestanding of sustainability.
More over, a legalisation might attract pot-heads from all over the world and could damage in the long run New Zealands image!
Finally I would love to ask you one question: Should New Zealand be known for it’s cannabis industry? I would be glad to hear your opinions!
