The “Land of the Long White Cloud” would be an apt nickname for any country that embraces cannabis, but that’s not how New Zealand got its unofficial moniker. “Long white cloud” is the English translation of Aotearoa, the indigenous Maori name for the country. According to legend, Kupe, the first Polynesian to set foot on New Zealand, thought he was approaching land after seeing a huge cloud hovering in the sky. His wife shouted “He ao! Il ao!” (“A cloud! A cloud!”), and things progressed from there.

Prior to British colonization in the early 1800s, cannabis did not exist on any of New Zealand’s over 700 islands. The plant material – but not the plants themselves – arrived in the mid-1800s and immediately became popular with the people. “Cannabis cigarettes” were widely available and promoted as a treatment for asthma and bronchitis. In the 1880s, cannabis was used as a dental anesthetic and recommended to treat neuralgia, corns and chilblains. Chlorodyne, which contained cannabis extract, was used to treat coughs in children.

In the early 1900s, cannabis continued to serve as a medicinal remedy for several ailments. Balms, tonics, tinctures, cannabis resins, etc., were prescribed by medical professionals, and residents could obtain them with a simple trip to the local pharmacy. Unfortunately, New Zealand has not been immune to the 20th century migration away from herbal medicines. Drug policies hitting the shores of the United States, England and Australia landed on the island nation’s beaches in the early 1900s. Between 1912 (the year the Sherley Amendment banned allegations misleading on labels in the United States) and 1925, the same international anti-drug policies that pushed natural remedies radically changed New Zealand’s legal and social climate around opium, heroin, cocaine, morphine. , and cannabis. Fortunately, New Zealand still allowed prescription cannabis use, and recreational use was not an issue.

In the mid-1900s, everything changed. A growing number of New Zealanders have embraced recreational use, and the country bowed to pressure from the World Health Organization and stopped importing cannabis. Nonetheless, police continued to see an increase in recreational use. To combat the problem, the country created a drug enforcement agency in the mid-1960s. Unlike the United States, cannabis remained available in some pharmacies until the mid-1970s, when the infamous Misuse of Drugs Act went into effect nationwide. New Zealand’s trans-Tasman government relationship with Australia has only exacerbated the war on drugs. Legislation labeled marijuana a “high-risk” drug and criminalized possession of the plant, and the government reclassified cannabis as having no medical benefit.

Public opinion about cannabis and its status as a highly addictive drug spanned the 1970s and 1980s, fueled in large part by the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program in the United States.

Public prejudice and, therefore, legal prohibition began to change worldwide after the discoveries of the endocannabinoid system by researchers such as Raphael Mechoulam, Lumir Hanus and William Devane in 1992. California legalized medical cannabis in 1996, and other states followed. In 2003, the New Zealand chapter of the National Marijuana Law Reform Organization (NORMAL) successfully lobbied the Labour-Greens to include 114 cannabis reform recommendations in the political party platform.

A year after adult use began in Colorado in 2014, New Zealand’s health minister approved a cannabis oil treatment for a 19-year-old patient who had been in an induced coma for fifty-four days to control a persistent epileptic seizure. The event marked a historic moment for the country, as cannabis had not been legally prescribed for over forty years. Fast forward to 2017, and a poll commissioned by The Drug Foundation found that 59% of Kiwis support medical legalization. Just a year later, the government amended the Misuse of Drugs Act to incorporate many long-awaited changes, including no prosecution for terminally ill patients who used cannabis to relieve their symptoms. The amendments also removed CBD from the list of controlled drugs, reopening the door to the legal import of cannabis.

Most recently, the Medical Cannabis Scheme came into effect in April 2020 with the entry into force of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Regulations 2019. At its core, the purpose of the scheme is to improve patient access to the legal medical cannabis. As half a century ago, plant medicine is available by doctor’s prescription.

In October 2020, a referendum calling for the legalization of adult use failed by a slim margin of 2%, so possession of any amount of cannabis without a doctor’s prescription still carries a risk of fine, imprisonment or both.

Today, the Land of the Long White Cloud has a thriving licensed and regulated medical cannabis program. The country is one of nearly fifty nations in the world with reasonably broad medical programs.

Lance C. Lambert spent years cultivating brands and telling stories, primarily in the mainstream digital media and marketing space before making the leap into the legal cannabis industry in late 2013. In 2021, he planted his knowledge and his passion above all in Broz Greenwhere he is responsible for growing the company’s footprint in his country and in emerging markets around the world.