Page 3810 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 25 September 2019
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jurisdictions in Australia to decriminalise the personal possession of small amounts of cannabis. The government intends to continue taking well-considered steps to improve our drug laws, such as those being considered today. The parameters of the government amendments to the bill are largely consistent with the existing scheme of decriminalisation of personal use of small amounts of cannabis.
One public concern is whether further decriminalising cannabis will lead to more people using the drug. The national drug strategy household survey 2016 indicated that 82.1 per cent of people would not use cannabis even if it was legal. In addition, illicit drug use amongst young people has been declining for some time, with the Australian secondary schools alcohol and drug survey showing 17.4 per cent of ACT school students aged 12 to 17 reporting using illicit drugs in 2017, which is down significantly from 37.5 per cent in 1996.
The government aims to provide an appropriate scheme for those individuals who are already using cannabis and who may continue to do so, acknowledging that outright prohibition can bring people into contact with the justice system unnecessarily and prevent people from seeking help when they need it.
One of the most complex questions to resolve has been the interaction between what is proposed in this bill and the commonwealth Criminal Code, which makes it an offence to possess cannabis. Where, however, there is state or territory law that deals with the same conduct, the commonwealth law allows police and the courts to apply the law of that state or territory in deciding how to deal with the offender. That is how the ACT and other jurisdictions have already been able to decriminalise personal cannabis possession. It is also the basis of our current simple cannabis offence notice scheme.
Through engagement with the commonwealth, the AFP and legal advisers, it has become clear that removing an offence for cannabis possession from the ACT law entirely would simply mean that the prohibitions on possession of cannabis in the commonwealth Criminal Code would then apply as the primary law here. This would potentially place Canberrans at risk of being arrested and prosecuted under commonwealth law.
To deal with this, the government’s proposed amendments will instead see the ACT maintain an offence in our law for cannabis possession but provide an exception for people who are aged 18 or over, possess amounts of cannabis consistent with the bill and do so in the ACT.
This means that although it will be an offence to possess cannabis in the ACT, in practice, the offence would not apply to an adult who possesses a small amount of cannabis in the ACT. This approach maintains an ACT-specific legal framework for dealing with cannabis possession; therefore it provides an alternative to the commonwealth law being applied by default.
This does not entirely remove the risk of people being arrested under commonwealth law, and we are being up-front with the community about that. The ACT’s legislation attempts to provide a clear and specific legal defence to an adult who possesses small
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