Legalisation of Cannabis

Ashlee Jones

ID 1154530

Critical Thought and Expression CUPR002-12A

Essay question:
Should Cannabis be decriminalised in New Zealand?

Word count- 540

Tutor: Teresa Julian

Tutorial time: Wed 2-3pm

Cannabis should be decriminalised in New Zealand.
Cannabis is the third most popular recreational drug in New Zealand, after alcohol and tobacco (Ministry of Health, 1996). The purpose of this essay is to discuss and argue why cannabis should be decriminalised in New Zealand. This essay argues that cannabis should be made legal in New Zealand. To address this purpose, this essay discusses three main factors related to why cannabis should be decriminalised in New Zealand. Firstly, it defines the meaning of cannabis and decriminalise. Secondly, it discusses the issues that keeping cannabis illegal is expensive and that prohibition doesn’t help. Lastly, it argues why cannabis should be decriminalised by referring to the issues discussed in the second paragraph.
According to Ministry of Health (1996), ‘Cannabis is the generic name for several preparations of the plant cannabis sativa. Its primary psychoactive constituent is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)’. Cannabis has three common forms: marijuana, hashish and hash oil.   The most common being marijuana, which has a THC content of between 0.5 and 5 percent, but sometimes varies between 0.1 and 10 percent. Decriminalise means to abolish criminal penalties, in this case, to abolish the criminal penalties against cannabis in New Zealand.
So, why should cannabis be decriminalised in New Zealand? The first issue to support the decriminalisation of cannabis is that the cost of keeping cannabis illegal is expensive for the government. According to the Marijuana Legalisation Organisation (1999-2007), marijuana should be legal in New Zealand because it would save our government lots of money. New Zealand currently spends billions of dollars trying to chase peaceful or harmless people that just happen to... [continues]

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