Police Cannabis Seizures Up Despite Looming Referendum on Personal Use

The Police had a bumper haul of cannabis in 2018, seizing over $15 million worth off weed from the population despite the looming referendum on personal cannabis use.

Figures released under the Official Information Act show officers seized just under 800,000 grams of harvested weed in 2018, with they claim would have fetched a street value of $15.5 million.

That amount was bigger than seizures of harvested weed for the previous three years. The data released this week also shows hauls of cannabis seeds, resin and oil have gone up since 2015, while the number of cannabis plants seized has declined.

With a binding referendum on personal cannabis use being held in tandem with the general election in 2020 and recent polls suggesting the country will vote in favour of it, one wonders what the point is in wasting police resources on cannabis enforcement when their teams that are working on many far more serious crimes are so under resourced? Besides cannabis enforcement makes the police look like villains in the public eye and causes them to loose the respect of the youth. Not to mention that much of that weed would have been for medicinal use by patients who may now have to get through the year without their medicine.

Source: Stuff.co.nz