After in the New South Wales election,聽 (LCP) has upper house MPs in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.
represents NSW, is in Victoria听补苍诲 听补苍诲 聽are in WA.
LCP is one of many parties which have been trying for decades to have cannabis properly re-classified as a non-opioid, including Buckingham鈥檚 former party, the NSW Greens听补苍诲 the .
But with upper house seats in three states and unprecedented diversity on the cross-bench around the country, the LCP is hoping form will finally meet function. It tabled the聽聽in three state parliaments simultaneously on June 20, a first in legal聽history.
The bill seeks to amend the聽聽to make it legal for adults to possess, cultivate (a maximum of six plants) and share small quantities of cannabis for personal use.
It is substantially , which came into effect in 2020聽making the ACT the only jurisdiction where it is legal for personal use.聽It is still illegal to sell it, expose children to cannabis or grow hydroponically in the ACT, with a two-plant per adult limit.
Cannabis used to be legal: it was only outlawed because of strategic alliances with Britain and the United States at the United Nations.
Australia鈥檚 first cannabis seeds came ashore with botanist Sir Joseph Banks. Marked 鈥渇or commerce鈥, they were intended for industrial hemp production.聽Banks had acquired seeds from India (to which cannabis is native) for use in rope and sail production, a happy side effect being it soon became .
It wasn鈥檛 until prohibition of the 1920s things took an authoritarian turn, and it was all on the basis of an outright lie.
At the behest of the US, in 1925 the League of Nations established the聽, a transnational drug control treaty designed to of opium and the coca plant.
Cannabis was a last-minute addition in the prohibition. The request was by the Egyptian government, which claimed 鈥溾 was causing widespread insanity. The motion was backed by Turkey.
It was an unfounded, untested claim, which the United Nations immediately ratified, thereafter grouping cannabis with opioids.
In response, Australia鈥檚 federal Health Department Director General聽Dr John Howard Lidgett Cumpston聽聽the Prime Minister鈥檚 office that opium was the only drug of concern, and there was no need to outlaw cannabis.
But the damage was done, giving law-and-order politicians,聽police and, ironically, organised crime itself, currency they would otherwise never have had.
The Ronald Reagan-style 鈥渏ust say no鈥 PR rhetoric soon did its work and, in 1928, Victoria became the first state to legislate against recreational cannabis use. NSW followed suit in 1935 and it is now illegal everywhere except the ACT.
Ironically, the in 1996 and legal recreational use legal in聽2012.
The hard line on both medical and recreational cannabis in Australia has become a tool for social control: its continued illegality based on the 鈥渋t鈥檚 an opioid鈥 lie becoming an .
Even where legal in Australia, accessing medical cannabis remains rigged against the patient.聽Apart from draconian driving laws, medical cannabis is , ensuring yet again that those in most need .
(There is no such problem accessing PBS-listed opioids, even in the midst of a .)
The is worth more than $700 million annually. Crackdowns on doctors who write too many opioid scripts have only caused further harm to vulnerable patients, either opioids or cannabis for debilitating, chronic, medically diagnosed pain.
If the current trilogy of legalise cannabis bills do succeed, they will not only again make legal history, they will make a lot of very sick people very happy.