Legalise Cannabis party introduces personal use bills in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia
The Legalise Cannabis party yesterday introduced bills to legalise marijuana for personal use in parliaments in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.
The bills have been introduced to the states’ upper houses and will need support from major parties to become law.
It will not allow people under 18 to access cannabis, or permit driving while impaired by the drug.
New South Wales upper house MP Jeremy Buckingham said the reform would allow people over the age of 18 to grow up to six cannabis plants in their households.
It would also allow people to gift small quantities to other people but driving under the influence of the drug would remain prohibited.
“This is a historic move by the Legalise Cannabis Party across Australia to bring a coordinated reform for cannabis legalisation,” Mr Buckingham said.
He said the intention of the reform was to divert people who use cannabis from the criminal justice system, which has seen over 700,000 cannabis-related offences nationally since 2010.
Police also estimate cannabis generates $8 billion in profits for organised crime each year.
“The wider community wants cannabis law reform,” Mr Buckingham said.
“They’ve seen how successful medicinal cannabis has been and are sick of governments wasting billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on people who are going to before the courts for simple cannabis possession.”
‘Majority of Victorians support regulation’
Victorian Legalise Cannabis MP David Ettershank told ABC Radio Melbourne the public was on board with the change.
“The majority of Victorians support the regulation of cannabis, and a huge number of Victorians … regularly consume cannabis,” he said.
“Cannabis needs to be taken out of the world of crime and regulated intelligently.”
He said politicians across the political spectrum had expressed to him a desire to change cannabis laws.
“There’s a lot of politicians, again from both sides of the house, who use cannabis,” he said.
“What we need to do is to regulate, we need to educate, and then we need to normalise this, such that we minimise any adverse social outcomes as a result.”
Western Australian contingent acknowledges misuse potential
Western Australian Legalise Cannabis Party upper house member Brian Walker said the party would look to create a regulated market for cannabis products down the track.
“We want to move further and actually take it to the stage of actually being taxable so we can get some revenue as a government for that,” the former GP said.
He said that while cannabis could be associated with an increase in psychosis, tobacco and alcohol were more harmful.
“Cannabis is a healthy healing herb that can be misused,” Dr Walker said.
“Those two are much more dangerous when it comes to creating psychosis than cannabis, so then you have to ask, ‘Why are alcohol and tobacco freely available?'”
He said the experience in the ACT with cannabis reform had demonstrated that it would create minimal harms.
“Deaths haven’t gone up, people have behaved quite normally, there’s been no impact whatsoever,” Dr Walker said.
Sydney resident David told the ABC he was in favour of reform, based on his observations of other parts of the world where it has been legalised.
“I think it’s managed as a health issue much better when it’s done as a non-criminal matter,” he said.
“It calms you down, it stops people from causing trouble, it helps the body with issues,” another said.
