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NSW Greens Senator David Shoebridge is the first federal parliamentarian to have brought on a parliamentary vote on the question of legalising cannabis before Australian parliament, and there is a hell of a lot of people in the community that are thankful that he has done so.

“We’re taking a big step today away from treating cannabis as part of the failing war on drugs and instead putting forward a model where cannabis use will be safer, where we reduce harms and we answer the growing community demand to just get on and legalise it,” the federal Greens justice spokesperson said during his 27 November second reading speech on the bill.

At the end of 2024, the legalisation and regulation of cannabis is a no-brainer. Twenty four US states have legalised it, and so have the entire nations of Uruguay, Canada, Thailand and Malta. The highest courts in Mexico and South Africa found it unconstitutional to prohibit home use.

And of course, cannabis has been decriminalised in the ACT, as personal drug possession, use and limited homegrow are no longer criminal offences in the capital.

Shoebridge added on Wednesday that while the law might not change this time round, the Greens will be continuing to progress the reform for several reasons, which include cannabis use being common, as is support for its legalisation, the harms caused by the prohibition are detrimental to the community, including brushes with the criminal justice system, and product will become safer.

The rising progressive forces on the crossbench in the Senate all voted in favour of this life affirming reform.

But as the current term of parliament has taught us all to expect, both major parties chose to shoot down the rights-forward bill because the duopoly, or the united conservative political stance taken by both Labor and the Coalition, only favours policy and law providing authoritarian creep these days.

Sensible drug policy

“I’m excited about the model for legalisation that we have on the table today,” Shoebridge told the chamber. “It’s a model for home grown, for those who want to. It’s a model for community co-ops, growing a plant for safe consumption and sale.”

“If passed, it would be the first time to put quality control, strength and labelling requirements on cannabis products so that people know what they’re buying,” the senator continued, as he checked off a list of chief concerns amongst cannabis advocates from all walks.

Shoebridge then spoke of the green wave that’s sweeping other jurisdictions globally, as they’ve tapped into a “sustainable industry”, that creates thousands of jobs, rolls back organised crime, produces a new stream of tax revenue and opens paths of assistance for those with problematic use.

The Greens senator pointed out that in the ACT, where decriminalisation came into effect on 31 January 2020, the sky has not fallen in. But instead, the Labor Greens initiative has meant that numerous ACT locals, and in particular young people and First Nations people, have not been hassled over the possession of a bit of grass.

“We recognise that there has been important cannabis law reform in the ACT,” Shoebridge underscored. “I remember hearing the cries of fear from the Coalition… that somehow or other the ACT would become a crime mecca…. what a bizarre failure that particular attack has been”.

Liberating the herb

Introduced on 10 August last year, the Legalise Cannabis Bill 2023 sought to make the adult recreational use of cannabis a lawful pursuit, and to do this it would establish the Cannabis Australian National Authority (CANA), which is an agency that would have been charged with keeping the Register of Cannabis Strains, as well as regulating certain activities related to the plant.

CANA would be responsible for issuing licences for growing, selling, manufacturing, operating cannabis cafés and importing and exporting cannabis products.

This would establish a viable alternative to the social consumption of alcohol in terms of socialising, enjoyment and relaxation, as it involves the rather innocuous drug, cannabis, that doesn’t encourage aggression in people in a the manner that alcohol can.

The Shoebridge bill further had the scope for commercial cannabis business, as well as more organic boutique operations. People would have been able to consume lawfully at home or at licensed cannabis venues. And individuals would be able to grow up to six plants at home.

Advertising of cannabis products would be prohibited, while packaging would clearly outline ingredients and strength.

“Organised crime is looking to the Coalition and Labor to save its business model today, and we want to break it,” Senator Shoebridge continued in the chamber.

“All of this can be achieved if we just agree to allow adults the right to choose – if they want a beer, a gummy or a cannabis drink on a Friday night after a full-on week at work, or maybe a Thursday night after a full-on week in the Senate.”

However, the dinosaurs of the major party duopoly couldn’t see further than their embarrassment of having to deliberate upon a piece of legislation marked “Legalise Cannabis”.

Legalise it, don’t criticise it

Forty one percent of all people in Australia over the age of 14 have tried pot at one stage, the National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022–2023 tells us, and 11.5 percent of people living on this continent had used cannabis, the most popular drug on the planet, over the last 12 months.

The percent of the population that regularly use cannabis has long hovered at just over the 10 percent level, and for the use of a drug that does not cause the same levels of harm as alcohol, almost 60,000 arrests were conducted on persons who were holding a personal amount of cannabis over 2020-21, according to that year’s Illicit Drug Data Report.

Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash literally did go into convulsions about a piece of legislation marked with the words “Legalise Cannabis”, and she went on to whip up a moral panic in respect of health concerns regarding a herb that she suggested triggered concerns over “serious injuries or fatalities and disproportionate adverse impacts on Indigenous communities in Australia”.

Cash’s reefer madness hardly adds up though, as it’s fair to say that the extra police attention illegal cannabis generates is often the most detrimental harm the plant can bring a person, especially in terms of the overpolicing of First Nations people.

In these circumstances, the harms resulting from a brush with law enforcement can often be a lot longer lasting and more hazardous than any other adverse reaction in relation to a plant, which the authorities cannot control the circulation of, might result in.

And as for an example regarding how cannabis policing does disproportionately affect First Peoples, the NSW cannabis cautioning scheme allows police to issue those in possession of a personal amount of cannabis with up to two warnings prior to arrest, yet this discretion results in 12 percent of Aboriginal adults being cautioned compared with 44 percent of non-Indigenous adults.

“A core benefit of legalising cannabis is stopping the damage to people’s lives by dragging them through the criminal justice system just because they’d rather have a joint or a gummy than a beer or tobacco,” Shoebridge further put it to the chamber, right before the duopoly did its thing.

“Who gets shaken down in my home city of Sydney, as they are walking about the streets, on possession of cannabis suspicion by the police?” the Senator asked.

“It’s young First Nations people. It’s young men in Western Sydney, who the police target because of the colour of their skin and because they are vulnerable and often because they are poor.”

“That’s who gets whacked in the current system.”