If Reducing Harm Is The Goal, A Cost-benefit Analysis Shows Cannabis Prohibition Has Failed

Alexander
Gillespie, University
of Waikato

The case for a referendum on
New Zealand’s hashish regulation was already pressing in 2015 when
the supposedly extra urgent difficulty was whether or not we should always change
the flag. As I argued
on the time, prohibition had failed and was costing society
excess of the drug itself.

As with alcohol,
tobacco, prostitution and playing, regulation – not
prohibition – appeared the smarter approach ahead. Nothing has
modified because the hashish legalisation and management referendum
looms on October 17. If something, the proof from 5
wasted many years of struggle on hashish is much more
compelling.

First, tens of hundreds of New Zealand
lives have been disproportionately broken – not via
use of the drug, however due to its
criminalisation.

According to figures launched
below the Official Information Act, between 1975 and…