Is Cannabis Prohibition About To End? No, the thing that wrong with the current picture of cannabis law reform is that Labour isn’t in it. What? Yep. The Justice Minister, Andrew Little, when questioned about the Government’s likely response to a “Yes” vote in the forthcoming referendum, made it abundantly clear that the straight person at this particular student party is Labour.
OKAY, SO LET’S get this straight. In last year’s
post-election negotiations, the Greens asked for – and got – a referendum on
ending cannabis prohibition. Which means that if New Zealanders vote “Yes”, then
the Greens will sponsor a change in the law to give effect to that result.
So far, so good.
It gets better, though, because NZ First have been keen
supporters of referenda forever. (They don’t call them populists for nothing!)
So, if New Zealand votes in favour of dope, then the NZ Firsters will 1) let
loose a very long sigh, and then 2) call in the law draughtsperson.
Great!
Yes, it is, but you ain’t heard nothing yet. When asked if
the National Party would honour the result of the referendum, Simon Bridges
replied in the affirmative. Simon says that if pot is what Kiwis want, then pot
is what Kiwis will get.
So, that’s game-over, isn’t it? If a majority of Kiwis vote
to end cannabis prohibition, then a majority of the House of Representatives is
pledged to making it happen. Time to dust-off that old hookah-pipe!
Or, as stoners used to say, way back in the day: “Solid!”
But, wait a minute, aren’t we missing something here?
No, it’s not David Seymour. As a good libertarian, the Act
Party’s sole parliamentary representative (assuming he’s still there after the
2020 election) is bound to vote in favour of ending cannabis prohibition. The
state, after all, has no business criminalising behaviour which is, to all
intents and purposes, victimless.
No, the thing that wrong with this picture is that Labour
isn’t in it.
What?
Yep. The Justice Minister, Andrew Little, when questioned
about the Government’s likely response to a “Yes” vote in the forthcoming
referendum, made it abundantly clear that the straight person at this
particular student party is Labour.
Huh?
Oh yes, it’s Labour. And if that surprises you, then you
haven’t been paying attention. Labour hasn’t had a progressive position on the
issue of cannabis law reform since Noel Rayner persuaded the Otago Regional
Council of the Labour Party to vote in favour of legalising marijuana way back
in the 1980s. Hell, if Rob Muldoon hadn’t called a snap election in 1984, it’s even
possible that Labour’s Annual Conference might have passed Noel’s remit. Labour
was a pretty liberal outfit in the early 1980s: anti-nuclear, pro-gay rights,
open to all kinds of progressive ideas. So, who knows?
What has become clear in the intervening thirty-five years
is that while Labour has remained a progressive champion of LGBTQI rights, it
has grown increasingly conservative on the issue of drugs.
Partly, this is a reflection of Labour’s uneasiness with
everything Green. Nandor Tanczos’ energetic promotion of cannabis law reform
and the response it elicited from the young and the marginalised in the 1999
election seriously freaked Labour out.
These were not the sort of people Helen Clark, Michael
Cullen and Phil Goff wanted to be associated with. The slow but relentless
pushback against Tanczos from the conservative establishment – especially
secondary-school principals – further convinced Labour that, when it came to
legalising pot, political discretion was the better part of principled valour.
Labour’s ultra-cautious approach was confirmed by the Greens
themselves when, in election after election, cannabis law reform was allowed to
slip down the party’s list of priorities.
The other explanation for Labour’s conservative line on
drugs emerges from the party’s dramatically changed relationship with the poor
and the marginalised. Where once the Labour Party had been the sword and shield
of the disadvantaged in New Zealand society, by the turn of the twentieth
century it had become, in effect, their case-worker.
The poor and the marginalised were now a client-class to be
monitored and managed: the responsibility of precisely the same managers and
professionals who had come to dominate the NZ Labour Party. Drug-taking was
just one among many dysfunctional behaviours in need of middle-class intervention.
Far from promoting the liberalisation of drug laws, Labour
contributed significantly to the dramatic expansion of the state’s powers of
intervention in the lives of those Kiwis deemed to have deviated from the “caring”
agencies’ expectations.
No surprise, then, that Labour is resisting the popular
movement in favour of liberalising New Zealand’s drug laws – especially those
relating to cannabis. The dog’s breakfast that is the coalition’s bill on medical
marijuana is not the fault of NZ First, it’s a reflection of the impulse to
control that grips so many members of the Labour caucus. National’s bill is
better than Labour’s because its MPs are not so deeply enmeshed in the
professional-managerial norms of the welfare state’s bureaucratic machinery.
Cannabis law reformers should, therefore, be on the their
guard against any attempt to bring the referendum forward. Such a move would be
an admission by Labour that it wants no part of the mobilising effect a well
organised reform campaign could unleash. An effect which would very likely
increase the Green vote in ways prejudicial to Labour remaining the dominant
partner in the next progressive government.
Similar vigilance will be necessary when it comes to
determining the nature of any public “education” campaign prior to the
referendum. Much will turn on who is given the job of overseeing the debate
between prohibitionists and reformers. Whoever is given this job must be able
to resist the subtle and not-so-subtle pressures of the forces seeking to
uphold the status quo.
That it should be Labour standing in the way of cannabis law
reform tells us much about the political forces currently shaping our society.
Lenin argued that all politics could be reduced to just two words: Who? Whom?
On this particular issue it is vital to keep as clear as possible the
distinction between those parties determined to exercise control over people’s
private pleasures and those who are intensely relaxed about New Zealanders
having fun.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Thursday, 2 August 2018.
