Auckland Students’ Thoughts on the Cannabis Referendum

This week Craccum took to the Quad to find out what University of Auckland students think of the upcoming weed referendum. Should cannabis be legal? Why, or why not? Four different students tell us their thoughts.

Mary*, 19, studying Commerce and Arts

“Yes, I think it should be legal because of the economic benefits for our country. From an economic perspective its dumb not to. Think about how much money the government could make from taxing it. Also, alcohol is legal which has way more negative benefits from what I understand than cannabis. It seems like alcohol is related to a lot of aggressive crimes but from my research cannabis doesn’t have the same link. But yes, it also could be a danger for people driving on it.”

Jane*, 20, studying Arts

“I totally believe weed should be legal. The biggest reason for that belief is that we have so many people in prison for crimes related to cannabis, and it’s a way of limiting people’s potential in life and disenfranchising whole groups of people in society. I think we should decriminalise it. Thousands of people get put in prison every year over weed, but most people would use weed in their life. Does that mean everyone deserves to go to prison because of it? Making that one decision could potentially ruin your life forever and I don’t think it should be that way.”

Alex*, 20, studying Science

“I don’t think it should be legal. There’s many other forms of pain management and non analgesic interventions that can be used for pain. There also isn’t enough research on its effect on mental health and that’s really important because that’s a really big issue in New Zealand. It shouldn’t be legal for medical or recreational use because it’s too dangerous and hasn’t been proven to be safe.”

John*, 21, studying Commerce

“Where I’m from weed is already legal so I think New Zealand should do the same because nothing really bad has happened. Politicians against it scare people by saying it’s dangerous but we haven’t seen any real bad effects. It’s actually safer because now people know their weed isn’t going to be bad. And it’s great because it creates a whole new economic aspect, like jobs and we can tax it.”

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of each student