With New Zealand just weeks away from heading to the polls, Kiwis will be faced with a rather big decision - should cannabis be legalised?
While it sounds like a straightforward question, there are a lot of elements that people are unsure about when it comes to the cannabis referendum.
Instead of going into the October 17 decision with a hazy mind, Jono and Ben have run through the ins and outs of what is involved in the referendum.
They posed a list of questions, all of which have been answered and help you in your decision ahead of the referendum, and spoken to representatives from both the yes and no camps.
While it sounds like a straightforward question, there are a lot of elements trhat people are unsure about when it comes to the cannabis referendum. Photo / NZME
"A person would need to be 20 years or older to smoke cannabis. However, you can grow, possess and consume cannabis in a household.
"Each household can go between two to four plants."
Will all of the public buses be renamed the cannibuses?
"Great idea, but no. What a great name."
Can I smoke my grandmother?
"Again, no. That's what David Seymour wants to do with his bill. But more on that at a later date.
How much cannabis can you buy per day?
"You can buy up to 14 grams of dried cannabis from a licensed outlet."
Cannabis is widely used in New Zealand despite being illegal; 80 per cent of Kiwis try it by the age of 25, and the proportion of adults using it at least once in the past 12 months almost doubled from 8 per cent in 2011/12 to 15 per cent in 2018/19.
Chlöe Swarbrick argues why cannabis should be legalised in New Zealand. Photo / NZME
Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick told Jono and Ben she'll be voting yes as the current guidelines don't work and believe the monetary benefits of taxing cannabis could be highly beneficial for the health sector.
"What we have been doing for the past 40 years simply hasn't worked. New Zealand has one of the highest usages of cannabis in the developed world.
"It's about recognising this problem exists and it's time to be adults about it.
"Why don't we get some regulations around it, some education and put that tax into education, harm reduction, mental health and addiction.
"My plea to New Zealanders is recognise this isn't a discussion about whether you support or like cannabis because cannabis exists regardless - it's a discussion about how we regulate cannabis.
"My argument is and what the research shows is that the approach we've taken over the past 40 years ... is that we haven't stopped people from using it. We've made the problem far worse.
"If you want to make sure we have increased community wellbeing, that we are properly funding mental health and addiction services and that we take this out of the hands of the criminal black market and focus police time on stuff that actually matters, then you should vote to control and regulate cannabis."
Mental health professional Aaron Ironside explains why legalising cannabis could be damaging. Photo / NZME
However, mental health professional Aaron Ironside told Jono and Ben he's concerned youth will be more exposed to cannabis.
He says the current laws and guidelines already address the criminality and medicinal element and questions whether the referendum brings any added benefits.
"A mental health professional what I see is the effects of addiction, the effects of psychosis.
Unfortunately, the most vulnerable people for cannabis are young people. The question is does this law do anything to help them? It doesn't. It locks them out of the legal shops, what it does do is people will be growing cannabis in their back yard, making cannabis that little bit easier to get hold of, as if it needed to be easier.
"And when the shop won't let you buy from them you're forced to go back to the tinny house, to the black market."
"Does it make sense to sell cannabis to adults to raise tax money to fund programmes that teach teenagers not to do what the adults are doing.
"This is not about medicinal, that's already legal, and the criminal problem is already being addressed because we changed the misuse of drugs act so now it's written into law that you are not to get a conviction for personal use. You're to be treated as a health concern.
"So the two big issues most of us are worried about, medicinal and criminality, have already been dealt with, so we don't need a new law. One that will create new problems, won't make the black market go away, but will expose young people to marijuana."
Who will win out?
Recent polls have shown that the October 17 vote will be close.
The "yes" vote tended to be higher up until about a year ago, when the "no" vote took the lead.
A Research New Zealand poll in March had 43 per cent in favour of legalising cannabis, with 33 per cent opposed. But in August that had changed to 39 per cent in favour and 46 per cent opposed.
Polling of 1200 people from September 17 to 21 by Curia Market Research has 36 per cent in favour and 49 per cent against legalisation.
