The police in New Zealand spent more than $600,000 to relaunch a nationwide cannabis eradication program. A year ago, in January 2021, the same operation had been called off since the leaders of the country’s 12 police districts no longer supported the program.
The program aims to target large-scale cannabis operations in New Zealand.
Six police districts are involved in the relaunch of the eradication operation. The other six districts won’t participate in the nationwide program but will continue to manage local cannabis eradication projects.
The police department published a briefing in December 2021 detailing this program. The program, called Operation Emerald, began in January and will continue until next month. Operation Emerald aims to target large-scale culture operations in New Zealand.
“Running a nationally coordinated operation provides efficiencies in terms of negotiating a fixed-wing plane and helicopter contracts, deploying staff, provision of training for staff, and administration of the budget,” the briefing states.
The original operating budget for the eradication program was $575,000 allocated thanks to core police funding. The budget has since risen to $635,000 due to rising costs, the police said.
Greens’ MP Chlöe Swarbrick rejects the program.
Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick, who supports the legalization of cannabis in New Zealand, said the only “successful seizure” the police made was to discover three plants grown by a couple in Coromandel.
The couple explained that the police flew a helicopter over their property and seized their plants while they were having dinner. The couple added that “the money budgeted by the police for the eradication program would have been better spent on criminals who cause real damage rather than medical growers and very small growers of one or two plants which cause little to no damage.”
“New Zealanders going about their business harming nobody have had a police chopper drop into their family dinner simply because parliament continues to prefer and enable people to get legally fully blackout drunk with all the social harms that come with that instead of moderately using an evidentially less-harmful substance that 80 percent of us will already have used by the time that we’re out of our teens.” explained Chlöe Swarbrick.
“The failure of the program runs so deep that even the prohibition cheerleaders can’t see the irony in their argument that cannabis is now much stronger than it ever was – precisely because of these actions, which continue to drive cannabis production and consumption underground, into unregulated spaces,” added Chlöe Swarbrick.
In 2020, the citizens of New Zealand rejected a cannabis referendum, with 53% people against it and 46% in favor.
