Call for consistency in laying of drug charges
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster expects police officers to continue the trend of charging fewer and fewer people caught with small amounts of illicit drugs.
And while he hasn’t dug into why officers in the Eastern district – which includes Hawke’s Bay and Taira¯whiti – charge drug users at more than twice the national rate, he says regional consistency is “desirable”.
Coster’s comments follow figures revealed by the Herald showing large regional differences in charging rates for drug use/ possession where that is the most serious offence since a key law change in 2019.
The change clarified that police shouldn’t prosecute for drug use if a therapeutic approach would be “more beneficial to the public interest”.
The Herald has been tracking police use of discretion following the law change, and previous data showed police becoming less inclined to charge people for drug use/possession as their most serious offence.
In the four months since the election – when Health Minister Andrew Little sent a clear message that such people should almost automatically not be charged – police nationwide charged fewer than one in five people, or 18 per cent.
But the rate more than doubled for the Eastern police district (38 per cent), which was followed by Auckland City (30 per cent), Bay of Plenty (25 per cent), Canterbury (24 per cent), and Northland (22 per cent).
Police were least inclined to charge for drug use/possession as the most serious offence in Tasman (7 per cent), Waitemata (7 per cent), Southern (8 per cent), and Central (10 per cent).
Coster said there was ongoing work in general looking into consistency in charging decisions.
“In principle, I think consistent application across the country for like offences is desirable, but we have to be quite careful. Constabulary discretion is ultimately at the level of the individual.
“Sometimes there are local drivers in terms of the prevalence of a particular kind of offending that could lead to variations in practice.”
Coster said he expected police to continue the trend of charging fewer people, especially as more health services become more available.
Alternatives to being charged, such as health referrals, were an opportunity to break the cycle of behaviour without overpenalising someone for small quantities of an illicit drug.
“We now prosecute fewer or less than 20 per cent of the people identified with drugs where drug possession is the most serious offence, and that is equitable across Ma¯ori and non-Ma¯ori,” he said.
The last statistics provided to the Herald showed treatment of Ma¯ori compared with non-Ma¯ori regarding drug use/possession was becoming more equitable, but the proportion of Ma¯ori being charged nationally (22 per cent) was still higher.
The proportion of people caught with illicit substances who are then offered a health referral has also increased.
For the first year the law was in effect, police made a referral for about one in 10 people who faced drug use/possession as their most serious offence.
For the four months since the election, it was 44 per cent.
“Where health treatment is available and the circumstances suggest a charge is not required, then it’s a desirable thing to be offering,” Coster said.
“Some people who are using a drug recreationally will not identify as having a drug problem.
“They’ve just made a decision that that’s what they’re doing, so drug treatment will be appropriate in the cases where there’s an underlying addiction issue.
“In principle, health referrals are a good thing to be offering because we want demand for drugs to decrease because that’s good for our whole country.”
Little has called the data about regional differences “interesting”.
“The exercise of police discretion under this legislation is under review by both the Ministry of Health and the police, and I am awaiting that review. I expect it to explain the reason for regional difference.”
The review is expected in August.
For the four months following the election, 10 per cent of those nationwide facing cannabis use/possession charges as their most serious offence were actually charged.
For methamphetamine, the proportion charged was 54 per cent.
Police in the Eastern district were again most likely to charge people for cannabis use/possession (21 per cent), as well as methamphetamine use/possession (68 per cent).
The next regions with the highest proportion of those charged for cannabis use/ possession were Canterbury (14 per cent) and Counties-Manukau (14 per cent), while the lowest were Waitemata (2 per cent) and Tasman (4 per cent), followed by Waikato, Central and Southern districts (all on about
In principle, I think consistent application across the country for like offences is desirable, but we have to be quite careful.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster
6 per cent).
Bay of Plenty (65 per cent) followed Eastern as the district with the highest proportion of those charged for methamphetamine use/possession, with Northland (64 per cent) next and then Auckland City (63 per cent).
The lowest, at less than half the rate as Eastern, was Waitemata (30 per cent), followed by Southern (33 per cent), CountiesManukau (36 per cent), and Waikato (39 per cent).
Frontline officers were already trending towards charging fewer people before the election, but the trend seems to have accelerated since then.
For the 12 months before the law change, a third of people were charged.
This fell to 24 per cent for the 15 months after the law change, and then to 18 per cent for the four months following the election.
Before the law change, well over 80 per cent of those caught with methamphetamine were charged, but in recent months it has dropped to 54 per cent.
Charges for cannabis use/possession has roughly halved from about 20 per cent before the law change to 10 per cent in recent months.