A short history of cannabis prohibition in Aotearoa, 1927 to 2026

Cannabis has been controlled by law in New Zealand for almost a hundred years. It started as an afterthought in a 1927 act written to keep up with international treaties, hardened into one of the harsher drug laws in the world, and then, over the last decade, split in two: a regulated medicinal scheme on one side, and a recreational ban that survived a referendum by 67,000 votes on the other. Here is how we got here.

1927: prohibition by paperwork

The Dangerous Drugs Act 1927 was not a response to anything happening in New Zealand. It was passed to bring the country into line with international drug conventions, and the minister responsible admitted in the House that there was no evidence of widespread drug use here. Indian hemp went onto the schedule next to opium. From then on, cannabis could only be imported, made, sold or possessed under licence, or on prescription from a doctor or chemist.

In practice the Act barely touched cannabis for twenty years. Almost every drug prosecution between 1927 and 1947 was for opium smoking. Cannabis stayed on the pharmacy shelf as a prescription medicine well into the middle of the century.

1955 to 1965: the door closes

In 1955 New Zealand agreed to a World Health Organization request and stopped importing medicinal cannabis altogether. Then the 1960s arrived. Worried about a new local drug culture, the government sent police officer Bob Walton to the United States in 1964 to study American enforcement. He came back and helped set up the country's first dedicated drug squads.

The result was the Narcotics Act 1965. It banned cannabis outright, reversed the onus of proof in drug cases so the accused had to prove their innocence, and set a maximum penalty of fourteen years for possessing more than an ounce. Cannabis's last vestige as a medicine was gone.

1975: the law we still live under

By the early 1970s even Parliament thought the 1965 Act was too harsh. The Blake-Palmer Committee's 1973 report led to the Misuse of Drugs Bill, which passed unanimously on 9 October 1975 and came into force on 1 June 1977.

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 introduced the three-class system we still use: Class A, B and C, ranked by assessed harm. For the first time the law distinguished cannabis from heroin. Cannabis plant and seed went into Class C, cannabis oil and hashish into Class B. Possession, use, cultivation and supply all stayed criminal. Fifty years and dozens of amendments later, this Act is still the backbone of New Zealand cannabis law.

1979 onwards: organised reform

NORML New Zealand was born at the Nambassa festival in 1979 and incorporated in 1980, affiliated with the American organisation of the same name. Through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s it was the steady voice for reform, backed by university branches. Otago NORML in particular became known for its J-Day gatherings and for public actions like the 2003 demonstration outside Dunedin Police Station.

That pressure produced results, slowly. Health Select Committee inquiries reported in 1999 and 2003. In 2011 the Law Commission reviewed the Misuse of Drugs Act and made 114 recommendations, which later became Labour and Green policy. Public opinion moved with it: by the mid-2010s about 80 percent of New Zealanders supported medicinal cannabis and around 60 percent supported some form of wider access. Cannabis arrests fell by nearly half between their 1990s peak and 2014.

The Daktory

The most visible direct action of the era came from Dakta Green, born Ken Morgan, a former National Party electorate chairman who became NORML's activism coordinator. He toured the country in Mary Jane the Cannabus, a converted Bedford bus, and from late 2008 to 2012 he ran The Daktory, a warehouse in New Lynn, West Auckland, that operated in open defiance of the law as a members' club where people could use and learn about cannabis away from gangs and tinny houses. It grew to more than 2,000 members, was the subject of the documentary Inside NZ: High Time?, and cost Green 23 months in prison. He revived the idea in Wellington in 2018. That venue was raided twice in 2019 and closed in 2020.

2004 to 2017: small steps

Reform arrived in pieces. Industrial hemp was legalised in 2004. Sativex, a cannabis-derived mouth spray, became the first cannabis medicine approved in New Zealand in roughly sixty years. The Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 passed 119 votes to nil and chose regulation over prohibition for lower-risk substances. In 2015 the National government's new National Drug Policy was built on "compassion, proportion and innovation", and the minister responsible called prohibition an abject failure. That same year Alex Renton, a critically ill young man in Wellington, received the first ministerial approval for a natural cannabis product in forty years. By 2017 doctors could prescribe CBD without special sign-off, and cannabis reform was an election issue for every major party.

2018 to 2020: the medicinal scheme

The Labour, New Zealand First and Green coalition formed in 2017 promised medicinal cannabis law within 100 days and a referendum on personal use. The Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Act passed on 11 December 2018. It gave palliative patients a legal defence for using cannabis, even illicit cannabis, and set the machinery in motion for a proper scheme.

That scheme went live on 1 April 2020 under the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Regulations 2019, run by the Medicinal Cannabis Agency inside the Ministry of Health. It licenses cultivation, manufacture and supply, and sets a Minimum Quality Standard covering cannabinoid accuracy, contaminants and labelling that every product must meet before a doctor can prescribe it. Before 2020, patients needed a case-by-case ministerial exception. After 2020, any doctor could prescribe a product that met the standard. Medicinal cannabis remains prescription-only: you cannot buy it online or from anyone other than a pharmacy, and you cannot import it for personal use.

17 October 2020: the referendum

Alongside the general election, voters were asked: "Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?" The Bill would have legalised sale, use, possession and home growing for adults aged 20 and over, through licensed outlets, with potency limits and a ban on advertising.

The final result, released 6 November 2020: 50.7 percent No, 48.4 percent Yes. A margin of 67,662 votes out of almost 2.9 million, on a turnout of nearly 82 percent. The referendum was non-binding and the government did not advance the Bill.

Where things stand in 2026

Recreational cannabis is still illegal. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 still applies, cannabis is still Class C and cannabis oil is still Class B. What has changed is enforcement and medicine. A 2019 amendment affirmed police discretion not to prosecute simple possession where a health approach would be more beneficial. Drug checking services were legalised permanently in 2021, a world first. And the medicinal scheme has grown every year since it opened: more products, more prescribers, more patients, and an ongoing argument about access, range and price.

So the arc is this. A prohibition imported in 1927 with no local evidence. Four decades of increasingly harsh criminal law. Four decades of organised pushback. A medicinal system that treats cannabis as a regulated health product, and a recreational ban that survives by a whisker and is enforced less every year.

Where Whakamana fits

Whakamana Cannabis Museum opened in Dunedin in October 2013, founded by Abe Gray, who had spent the previous decade with Otago NORML on the J-Days and the protests in the paragraphs above. It was set up as a place where the history, the science and the culture could be looked at honestly, without the sales pitch and without the panic. The museum moved to Christchurch in 2019 for the referendum campaign and reopened in Auckland in 2024, sharing a building with a medicinal cannabis clinic and a patient community. Most of what is in this post is on our walls at 19 Beresford Square. Come and see it. 

Timeline

Sources include the Dangerous Drugs Act 1927 and Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 as published on legislation.govt.nz, Te Ara, the New Zealand Law Commission's 2011 review, NORML New Zealand, the Ministry of Health's Medicinal Cannabis Agency, and the Electoral Commission's official 2020 referendum results.

Related: Plan your visit to Whakamana Cannabis Museum and About Whakamana.