Page 4944 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 28 November 2018
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The AMA referred to the federal AMA position statement on cannabis use and health from 2014. They pointed to the relevant part of the position statement on page 9 of that document:
The AMA does not condone the trafficking or recreational use of cannabis. The AMA believes that there should be vigorous law enforcement and strong criminal penalties for the trafficking of cannabis.
But, importantly:
The personal recreational use of cannabis should also be prohibited. However, criminal penalties for personal cannabis use can add to the potential health and other risks to which cannabis users are exposed. The AMA believes that it is consistent with a principle of harm reduction for the possession of cannabis for personal use to attract civil penalties such as court orders requiring counselling and education …
So real concerns were raised by the AMA about the effects of cannabis on people and the potential consequence of legalising cannabis for personal use. I think we should take a pause to consider what they have said.
The Victorian parliament recently conducted a bipartisan inquiry. I note that they did not recommend removing penalties, which are actually criminal penalties in Victoria. I do not support that. We do have a more liberal regime here in the ACT, which the Canberra Liberals support. The Victorian inquiry said, as recommendation 23, that the government should:
… investigate international developments in the regulated supply of cannabis for adult use, and advise the Victorian Government on policy outcomes in areas such as prevalence rates, public safety, and reducing the scale and scope of the illicit drug market.
What they basically said is, “We need to have a closer look at this. We need to look at it further. We need to gather the evidence base so that the government can make a considered decision.” Something the committee could do is gather that evidence base and listen to people like the AMA to understand the consequences of what this bill proposes.
In the Canberra Times today, a headline is: “More detail is needed as ACT moves to legalise cannabis”. I will quote from Dr Caldicott, who you may know. He is a senior lecturer at the ANU College of Health and Medicine. He said:
… the devil would be in the detail.
It is very important what the legislation looks like …
We don’t know whether it has to be 50 grams of certain plants of specific strain, whether or not there’s going to be a central seed depository for people who want to grow it. There’s none of that detail there, and these are important points that we need to discuss.
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