Alexander Heilpern, nephew of Drive Change campaigner David Heilpern, has had drug-driving charges dismissed by a New South Wales magistrate after a case that drew attention to medicinal cannabis laws on the road.
He was charged with the offence in June after a random breath test detected medicinal cannabis in his system. No evidence of impairment was presented to the court.
After entering a guilty plea at Mullumbimby Local Court last week, magistrate Karen Stafford chose to show leniency, citing the devastating effect of the Northern Rivers floods on the defendant and the fact he had already served a one-month immediate licence suspension.
The court was told that the floods had destroyed Heilpern's home and left both him and his wife with injuries, making access to a driver's licence especially critical to their circumstances.
"Your home was destroyed in the floods and in the wreckage your partner's legs were crushed, your foot was also injured," Stafford told him. "You spent a month off the road suspended for this offence. Given these circumstances, you're not convicted and I dismiss the charges."
Stafford also considered the fact that Heilpern had completed a traffic offenders program and gained insight from it. She described the offence as "objectively at the lower end of the scale" and noted that "there was nothing about (his) manner of driving that concerned police".
At the UIC Symposium in May, former magistrate David Heilpern said in an interview that the medicinal cannabis industry will never be financially viable in Australia without drug-driving reform.
