Page 1942 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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A person shall not administer, or cause or permit to be administered, to himself or herself a prohibited substance.
It ranges across the whole gamut of prohibited substances and does include cannabis. The AMA recently took a position at their national conference where they urged law reform on cannabis. Certainly the ACT, like South Australia, is well ahead in this area; but we have not dealt appropriately with use. The AMA, a body that most of us would consider fairly conservative, have taken a public health approach. I was fortunate enough to be there through the debates that raged in the AMA, and I have received a letter from the member of the AMA who chaired the debate to say that they are surprised at the very positive response they have had from the community. Basically, there has been no negative response since they urged cannabis law reform.
The AMA is not unique in this; they have joined an approach taken by the Public Health Association of Australia. So we can see that there is an overwhelming health attitude taken to drug law reform. Indeed, it is not only the health people who have taken this attitude, but also those who look at the law. The New South Wales Law Society and the New South Wales Bar Association have come out very strongly with a similar approach, as have the Young Liberals and Young Labor, and a similar approach was supported in this chamber by the majority of members when we dealt with the original amendment to the Drugs of Dependence Act to deal with this issue.
The first part of the amending Bill I have introduced is to bring the personal use of marijuana into the same expiation notice system so that there is a rational approach. This is an anomaly that I ought to have dealt with in the initial instance, and, in so far as I did not, I apologise to members and now seek to correct that. The second part of the amending Bill that I shall deal with today is a reduction of the fine from $100 to $40, and the third is to delete police discretion in terms of whether or not they charge a person or issue a fine.
To deal with the second amendment, to reduce the fine from $100 to $40, the purpose of the legislation in October 1992, to create a system of expiation notices for the personal use of cannabis, was to minimise the harm associated with this form of drug use. Whatever harm was created by taking cannabis was exacerbated by the fact that many people were charged, taken to court and convicted, leaving them with a criminal record for life. This system not only did not address the problem but also created more harm. Magistrates, realising this, often refused to convict, on the basis that that action had little to do with the misdemeanour. The court's time was taken up with nonsensical proceedings, instead of dealing with real criminal activity that affected other people. So we had the introduction of the expiation notice. Like South Australia, we were keen to see a system that did not prejudice the disadvantaged or the young.
You may recall, Madam Speaker, that the fine was pegged at $100, which contrasted with the system in South Australia, where the fine is $50. Let me hasten to add that the South Australian system has a two-tiered arrangement, depending on the level of use; but it starts at a $50 fine. Unwittingly, I think, we have created another problem by having the fine at this level. Those whom we wanted to keep out of the courts are now fronting up and gaining a record simply because they do not have the means to pay a $100 fine.
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