The Opportunities Party Cannabis reform policy - TOP

The Opportunities Party is pleased to launch its REAL DEAL Policy for the regulation of cannabis cultivation and sale in New Zealand.

The central aim of the policy is to reduce harm from Cannabis use throughout New Zealand.

With Prohibition of Cannabis clearly an abject failure the REAL DEAL will take tens of millions of dollars in profits away from gangs and organised crime and use that money for drug education, addiction treatment and harm prevention.

TOP isn’t promoting cannabis use, it’s recognising the reality of New Zealand life today where 1 in 9 of all people have used cannabis in the past year and 1 in 4 of our 15-24 year olds have.

Right now, most of those people have to source their cannabis from career criminals who use the profits and customers to engage in further criminal activity.

TOP’s research suggests we can take $150m away from the criminals and use it to prevent harm in our communities. Police and justice resources will be freed up to deal with more serious crime and local communities will have a real say in how the new laws are administered.

Unlicensed cultivation and dealing will still be a crime but with regulated and taxable retail trade and two plants per person personal use allowance the criminals will find their multimillion dollar black-market dries up overnight.

For further information visit www.top.org.nz/top8