Amendments to NSW cannabis possession legislation could be underway as the government faces ongoing pressure to reform its drug laws.
New South Wales residents will be allowed to gift friends cannabis and grow up to six cannabis plants for their own use under a proposed law being introduced in New South Wales parliament in November. The law will also allow people to carry up to 50 grams of cannabis on them.
Legal Cannabis MP Jeremy Buckingham, who helped draft the proposal, hopes the reforms would help reduce the number of First Nations people charged under laws he says are racist.
“It is clear that cannabis prohibition is a racist law,” Buckingham told Guardian Australia.
“It is clear it is being used to target young Aboriginal Australians.”
Government data revealed Aboriginal people were 10 times more likely to have a cannabis-related interaction with police than non-Indigenous people. The data also showed that between 2020 and 2022, 54,174 people were caught by police with cannabis, 19,232 of those people being Aboriginal.
Buckingham believes the statistics prove the “laws are being used against First Nations people”.
“In a lot of instances, this is a ‘crime’ that is the first interaction First Nations people have with police.” he said.
Buckingham will present the bill to Parliament in the final sitting week of the year so it can be referred to a committee for further discussion before the government’s expected drug summit in 2024.
Despite a pre-election commitment to holding a drugs summit some time next year, Premier Chris Minns has not given a timeframe or more specific date.
The Uniting Church, which runs the safe injecting room in Sydney’s Kings Cross, is now also calling on the Minns Government to declare a date for the drug summit.
Emma Maiden, Uniting’s Head of Advocacy, said the decriminalisation of drugs in NSW would have a “profound impact” on lowering the rate at which First Nations people are incarcerated and remove the stigma for drug users who are seeking support.
A 2022 poll by drug law reform group Unharm found half of Australians supported the legislation of adult use of cannabis. In 2023, a national survey conducted by the Greens showed 98 per cent of Australians supported the party’s legislation to legalise cannabis in Australia.
