OPINION: Mental health issues barrier to relaxing cannabis laws for many

Should our cannabis laws be relaxed?

Is there a town or city in New Zealand ready to put its hand up and become the Amsterdam of the South Pacific?

The potential is looming.

Next year, New Zealanders aged 18 and over vote on a proposal for a legal cannabis market.

The radical overhaul proposes tightly controlled rules including special bars for cannabis consumption, special outlets for sales, and strict rules for homegrown cannabis.

Amsterdam has turned itself into a tourism mecca based around its cannabis cafe/retail industry.

Could it happen here?

It's arguably a tourist attraction that Hawke's Bay could do without, endowed, as the region is, with natural, healthy attractions.

But let's not look down our nose at it - there are plenty of regions in New Zealand that could reap the benefits of the green dollar.

The catalyst for the reform in New Zealand is to deflate the black market selling unregulated product, and, in the process, offer education and health support.

The counter-argument is: what black market?

Or what little is left of it - P superseded cannabis a long time ago as this country's black market drug-dealing mainstay.

The referendum at the 2020 election will gauge support for a bill that promotes a regulated legal market.

It will include:

• Allowing products to be bought only in a licensed premise from a licensed and registered retailer

• A ban on using cannabis publicly, allowing it only in a special licensed premise or on private property

• Controls on the potency of cannabis in available products

• A legal purchase age of 20

The bill would also be designed to avoid corporatisation of the cannabis market, and is separate from medicinal cannabis.

It has to be said, that in New Zealand, this could free up police to focus on other drug-related issues, like P.

But the reality is that many New Zealanders will take convincing to tick the yes box on a drug negatively aligned with mental health issues.

We have finally got around to having the conversation about cannabis. For many, cannabis and mental health issues are synonymous, yet the bill's downfall may well be that as far as public conversations and debate go, they remain out of synch.