Briefing to the Incoming Parliament 2020

The Drug Foundation works closely with Government, to help bring about meaningful change to the way New Zealand deals with drugs. Our latest Briefing to the Incoming Parliament, released in December 2020, was sent to every sitting MP elected in the October 2020 General Election.

While it's mainly a policy document, it also provides a good overview of the work we do and explains the rationale behind our strategy. You can download a copy of it here:

Briefing to the Incoming Parliament 2020 ( PDF 2.6mb )

Like everyone, we are concerned about the harm caused by drugs in New Zealand. Recent changes like greater investment in treatment, moves to legalise drug checking, and the new High Alert early warning system give us real hope for the future. However, we still have a long way to go.

As we see it, there are some relatively easy changes that could make a big difference. But we'll need to underpin those with deeper reform, if we're going to shift our framework to a health-based approach. Some recent flagship reports have made excellent suggestions for how the Government can move forward, and this briefing sets out our recommendations for putting those into action.

Here are our five high-level recommendations:

Replace the Misuse of Drugs Act with a new law that treats drug use and possession as a health issue to reduce drug harm among those that need it, and shift funding to back this up.
Remove criminal penalties for growing, using and sharing small quantities of cannabis. A large majority of New Zealanders support decriminalisation.
Improve our medicinal cannabis system so products can be made available, and are affordable. Provide a statutory defence from prosecution for those who grow plants for their own medical use.
Review the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to reduce the huge harm caused by alcohol.

Fund a full range of primary mental health and addiction services led by Māori, for Māori.
Strengthen alcohol regulations and replace criminal sanctions for the use of drugs with a full range of treatment and detox services – removing discretion from Police.

Strengthen the way the health learning area of the New Zealand curriculum is implemented, to equip young people with skills to think critically and make good choices about drug and alcohol use.
Remove the ability of schools to exclude students under the age of sixteen, and implement the recommendations of the Tomorrow’s Schools review.

Ensure a stepped increase in treatment sector funding to meet demand, including specific funding to respond to ongoing challenges from Covid-19.
Fund the development of health approaches across the whole spectrum of use, not just for people experiencing long-term harms from addiction.
Fund behaviour change messaging to reach all users, and implement a full range of alcohol moderation activities (for example as previously run by the Alcohol Advisory Council).

Respond to methamphetamine harm in communities by investing in community responses, reforming punitive drug laws, and funding research.
Build safer working environments by requiring all workplaces to have impairment policies and enact regulations on how drug testing should (and shouldn’t) be used in the workplace.
Keep people safely housed by investing in Housing First programmes and funding initiatives to reduce drug harm in temporary housing.
Make our roads safer by directing more resources to roadside testing for alcohol impairment and rethinking the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill.
Respond to ongoing harm from synthetic cannabinoids by funding the Acute Drug Harm Community of Practice and reforming drug laws.
Ensure vulnerable people are not unfairly evicted from residential tenancies for using methamphetamine.
Invest in drug checking to make sure anyone who needs to can access the service.
Establish a comprehensive package of drug indicators with a dedicated survey for drug and alcohol use.