2020 election: school principals divided over cannabis legalization

The president of the Federation of Directors, Perry Rush, has sparked a storm of protest from some of his own members after backing the legalization of cannabis in next month’s referendum.

Rush, director of Hastings Intermediate Decile 3, told Television NZ’s question-and-answer program on Sunday that he would vote yes in the referendum.

“We do not want young people to be criminalized for their cannabis use. We believe that cannabis is a health problem, not a criminal problem,” he said.

But today he said he had “gone too far” and received “a bit of criticism” from other directors for his comments.

“To be completely honest, that is my personal opinion. The position of the federation is that it is a matter of conscience for the directors,” he said.

“That is something I have to take responsibility for. I went overboard. My comments were not an indication of the NZPF’s position. [Principals’ Federation]. “

His comments came as a surprise because most of the directors’ previous public statements have opposed legalization.

Patrick Walsh of Rotorua’s John Paul College wrote in June that legalization would be “a disaster for our young people.”

Principals at King’s High School in Dunedin and St Joseph’s School in Taranaki have come under fire after they made comments against legalization in parent newsletters, and St Paul’s College in Ponsonby posted a sign that read: “Legalize is normalize, say no “.

“There is a perception that cannabis is not harmful, but it is, especially for young brains,” he said.

“We know that it affects memory, attention and the ability to solve problems, and those effects can be permanent.

“There is also some evidence that it affects judgment and concentration, and of course young people are not always the best at exercising judgment, so anything that affects their judgment can affect their safety.”

Auckland Grammar School Principal Tim O’Connor said he was “surprised that an organization like NZPF found it appropriate to share an opinion on a pending referendum, which was supposedly on behalf of all principals.”

“His presentation was misleading. The cannabis legalization and control referendum and the end-of-life election referendum are matters on which each member of the communities of voting age must make a decision,” he said.

Elim Christian College principal Murray Burton said that most of the Federation of Principals schools are elementary and middle schools, but he believes high school principals “would be quite dismayed” if the drug were legalized.

“We take a pretty hard line with vaping, like we used to do with smoking in school uniform,” he said.

“Although we could draw the boundaries very carefully, I think a change like that [legalisation] It would mean that he would be all over the school, it would be an incalculable distraction. Do we really need to have that? “

Although the government has proposed a ban on selling cannabis to anyone under the age of 20, Walsh said that his experience when the legal drinking age was lowered to 18 in 1999 was that it made alcohol much easier for students to come by. under 18.

“The government guaranteed us at that time that there would be a very strict regulation to ensure that alcohol did not get into the hands of people under the age of 18,” he said. “I just don’t have much faith in that.”

But Nelson College principal Richard Dykes, who led a fight against vaping at his previous Glendowie College school, said he was actually undecided about the referendum after speaking to principals in Canada, where cannabis was legalized in 2018.

“We asked the directors there that question: have they noticed any changes? They said no, they haven’t,” he said.

“They said that students for whom it was already a problem, it was still a problem. For those for whom it was not, it is not still a problem.”

And surprisingly, Rush has some support for legalization. Former federation director Whetu Cormick said he was among the 73 percent of Maori who participated in TVNZ’s Vote Compass tool who supported legalization, compared with 50 percent of support from all who have used the tool. .

“Why do the Maori support it? Because it is they who end up in jail,” he said.

He cited data from the Drug Foundation showing that 51% of the prisoners have been expelled from their schools and that 55% of the students expelled due to drugs were Maori.

“It’s wrong, of course, because it’s illegal, but a lot of those children come from families where this is just the norm,” he said.

“Right now, because it’s illegal, we don’t have a systematic approach to educating and allowing kids to have that rich conversation about the pros and cons.”

But Haley Milne of Kia Aroha College in Ōtara said she supported the “decriminalization” of cannabis, so that people would not be jailed for possessing it, but did not support its “legalization”.

Other principals, including the president of the Secondary Principals Association, Deidre Shea, declined to comment on the issue because it was “a personal matter.”