Making the best use of police resources
Most in our society have accepted that our police have better things to do than arrest people who use cannabis. Our police have an incredibly tough job and do the very best they can with limited resources. Why do we waste those resources on people who simply want to enjoy what cannabis offers? Even worse, for people who need cannabis to deal with debilitating medical conditions?
And we do this despite research showing us that it makes very little difference. From a study at the University of Otago: “There was no evidence of a reduction in cannabis use following arrest or conviction for the possession of cannabis.” Furthermore, the price of cannabis has stayed steady for decades, meaning it has actually gone down in real terms!
The principal economist at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), Peter Wilson, told us in 2016 that a change in the legal status of cannabis could reduce drug enforcement spending by $180 million dollars, redirecting countless thousands of police man hours into solving serious crime.
Clearly, the police have better things to be doing. Since 2001, the number of sexual assaults reported to police has doubled as the stigma of being a victim lessens and more people come forward. The resolution rate for burglaries in 2016 was a stunningly low 9.3%. Cyber 
crime losses are rising rapidly in New Zealand, according to this article from Computerworld. This is where the police need to be focused: on crimes with victims.
The police themselves feel they are not serving the community as they should be. According to NZ Herald, in Police’s annual workplace survey, only 42.3 per cent agreed police delivered on the promises they made to the community, a drop of 9.2 percentage points from the previous year.
Police press for change
Increasingly, police are coming out against the status quo. Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) is a non-profit organisation of current and former police, judges, and prosecutors. They have chapters in countries around the world advocating against the War on Drugs. They are a major voice within the justice sector calling for change, believing that “both drug abuse and violence flourish under prohibition, just as they did during alcohol prohibition.”
In a recent addition of the Police Association’s magazine, Police News, in the section for staff to anonymously air their views on police operations, an officer wrote that New Zealand should follow the example of Colorado which has set up a regulated cannabis market. “Several American states have not only decriminalised cannabis, but have gone all the way and legalised it. Colorado did not fall apart when it introduced such legislation.” The author also compares alcohol and cannabis, and how under the influence of the former, he regularly encounters people too drunk to take care of themselves or who become aggressive. However, with cannabis: “People who are stoned are generally quite jovial.” Finally, they go on to how ineffective current drug laws are: “Another reason is, does punishing a user of a drug, any drug, actually impact on their decision to use that drug? I don’t think so.”
A recent survey by the Pew Center in the U.S. asked nearly 8,000 officers for their views on cannabis law reform. 1 in 3 officers said that cannabis should be legal for recreational use. This is still more conservative than the general population (where over 60% of Americans say cannabis should be legalised; up from just 31% in 2000), but represents a significant number of officers who have to enforce a law that they see as pointless.
The officer who wrote in Police News also mentioned another significant problem: discretion.
Discretion
Increasingly police have been using their discretion in choosing whether to prosecute cannabis possession cases. From the Police News piece: “Initially, I had a zero tolerance approach. Anyone I found with a tinny would find themselves before the courts. Now, however, I am more likely to tell them to get rid of it in a nearby drain and be on their way.”
While it’s a good thing that cannabis arrests are coming down, there is a huge and obvious problem with discretion: who you get on the day, how they are feeling, what priorities they have, and how they feel about cannabis, are all going to play into whether you end up in front of the courts or not. And that is tremendously unfair. Remember, we are not talking a speeding ticket here. This is a criminal conviction that is going to have major implications on your life.
And your race might play a part as well. According to a Stuff investigation, between 2010 and 2014, Maori made up 40% of prison sentences and 51% of convictions for cannabis offences, despite being only 15% of the population. Over-represented in the courts, Maori are, however, under-represented in pre-charge warnings, one of the techniques Police have to exercise discretion. Maori make up only 30% of pre-charge warnings, compared to 57% of Pakeha.
According to the author of the Police News column, there has been no organisational directive to minimise the penalties for cannabis offenders. However, “as individual officers we seem to have taken it upon ourselves to deal with this matter in a more liberal way”. So it really does depend on the cop in front of you whether you just lose your stash and potentially lose your job (and whatever other repercussions come along with a conviction)
Effect on relationship with the community
Criminalising pot is not only a waste of Police’s time, it also sends their relationship with the community up in smoke. People who would otherwise have no qualms with the 
police hate them for busting cannabis users. From The Daily Beast, quoting Washington DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier:
‘The police hate marijuana possession arrests, Lanier said, they’d just as soon dump the stuff down the sewer than handle all the paperwork and the court appearance, knowing it won’t stop anyone from smoking marijuana. “All those arrests do is make people hate us,” she said.’
Rather than safer communities, prohibition creates a large section of the population (300,000 and counting) who have a very real reason for being fearful and suspicious of police. If they were in need of police help, many would be reluctant to ask for it. This is particularly troubling for more vulnerable people in our society who often have more need of police assistance at points in their lives.
Summary
Cannabis prohibition has never been good policy. Cannabis use is not something that our police should ever have been wasting their time on. People who use cannabis have been telling society that for decades. Now the Police are starting to tell us that too. The hazy situation we have now where some police officers are exercising their discretion over cannabis and some are not just makes the injustice of a cannabis conviction sting even more. Legalising and regulating cannabis would end this unfairness and redirect police resources to far more meaningful work. Not only that, it would go some way to repairing the damage to the Police’s relationship with the community that has come with arresting people for cannabis. Legalise cannabis and let the police get on with solving real crime.
Sources:
Cannafornian, The (2017). Study finds police officers strongly support marijuana legalization. http://www.thecannifornian.com/cannabis-news/law/study-finds-police-officers-strongly-support-marijuana-legalization/. Date accessed: 23/11/2017
Computerworld (2018). Cyber crime losses rising rapidly, says CERT NZ. https://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/635510/cyber-crime-losses-rising-rapidly-says-cert-nz/. Accessed: 24/11/2018
Daily Beast, The (2015). DC Police Chief Stands Up to Congress Over Pot. https://www.thedailybeast.com/dc-police-chief-stands-up-to-congress-over-pot. Accessed: 23/11/2018
Fergusson, D., & Boden, J. (2011). Cannabis use in adolescence. In P. Gluckman & H. Hayne (Eds.), Improving the transition: Reducing social and psychological morbidity during adolescence: A report from the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor. (pp. 257-271). Auckland, New Zealand: Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee.
Available online: https://www.otago.ac.nz/christchurch/otago018744.pdf. Accessed: 21 August 2018
LEAP (2018). Drug Policy. https://lawenforcementactionpartnership.org/our-issues/drug-policy/. Accessed: 24/11/2018
New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (2016). The high cost of (not) stopping people getting high. http://nzier.org.nz/static/media/filer_public/96/47/9647693f-7878-4fa3-b0fe-a4092dfd329e/nzier_insight_61-high_cost_of_not_letting_people_get_high_-_final.pdf. Accessed: 24/11/2018
Make It Legal Canterbury 