Legalise Cannabis NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham has declared that the "pointless and damaging battle" to keep cannabis illegal must end, as he introduced what he described as a "modest and unthreatening" bill to legalise personal use across the state.
Speaking to fellow members in the Upper House, Buckingham argued that governments around the world have come to recognise the failure of drug prohibition, and called on NSW to follow their lead by allowing adults to grow, consume and give away their own cannabis.
"[Prohibition] is an outdated law. It is a failed model. We all know that," he said. "It is time for New South Wales to finally abandon that pointless and damaging battle and join the lengthening list of global jurisdictions that have realised that criminalising its citizens makes no sense."
Buckingham was clear that the Legalise Cannabis Party proposal stops well short of establishing any commercial industry. He said the bill would cap home cultivation at six plants for personal use, and allow growers to "share the harvest with friends".
"The bill is not risky," he said during the second reading of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Amendment Bill. "It proposes similar measures to those already operating smoothly in the Australian Capital Territory and is a long way from full legalisation or commercialisation. It is quite the reverse.
"This is a bill that protects and supports medical cannabis patients, that attacks the economic model of gangsters and criminals, and that will have no discernible effect on those who choose not to consume cannabis. The changes laid out in the bill are both modest and unthreatening.
"It is a bill that will save New South Wales the significant costs of law enforcement. It is a bill that takes a significant part of our population outside of criminal activity."
At one point during his address, Buckingham produced a sample of cannabis and told MPs "not to be afraid".
"This is my medicinal cannabis," he said. "This is a herb, a medicine and a recreation, and it should be legal in this country. It is good for you. It will be good for the economy, and it will save taxpayer dollars."
Turning to Upper House president Ben Franklin, the former Greens member said: "If I gave this cannabis to you now, Mr President, you would suffer a penalty of $10,000 and 10 years' jail, and so would I. If this was not my medicinal cannabis, I would lose my place in Parliament and I could go to jail for 10 years."
Buckingham went on to argue that legalising personal adult use would restore social justice by ending the disproportionate targeting of First Nations people, and would also help close the health gap between wealthier and lower-income Australians.
He told the chamber that patients on low incomes dealing with conditions including pain, epilepsy and PTSD are simply unable to afford medicinal cannabis prescriptions.
"It is about equity and compassion," he said. "People have called me threatening suicide because they can bear their pain no longer and simply cannot afford the only treatment that works for them. It is literally saving lives. It is cold comfort for them to hear that they need to wait until we persuade this Parliament to act.
"While my strong preference would be for medicinal cannabis to be added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the ability for pensioners and others to grow their own plants would be a giant step in the right direction."
He added: "Jurisdictions all over the world recognise that the war on drugs has failed. There is a massive opportunity for us to reduce harm and end prohibition."
At a gathering held before the bill's reading, Harm Reduction Australia's Gino Vumbaca pointed out that there are 900,000 cannabis users across Australia. Because the criminal justice system cannot realistically process that many people, he said, the law ends up being applied selectively — with disadvantaged members of society bearing the brunt.
"People like me, I don't really come before the law so I can get away with it, but if you happen to be young, indigenous, living your life on the street a little, you are more likely to come to the attention of the police and feel the pressure and the weight of that law," he told a gathering of reform supporters. "This is an important bill to change that.
"[There are] also people who have medicinal cannabis who are driving, who are subject to what is only an expansion of the war on drugs to net more people under the presence of cannabis or the use of cannabis rather than impairment of driving. We need to change that."
Vumbaca suggested that many MPs privately back cannabis reform but hold back from saying so publicly out of concern about how certain media outlets might respond.
"For some reason, they're under this belief that they'll get slammed by News Corp or the Daily Telegraph or Sky… and they can't be seen to be moving in that direction," he said.
"But I think the tide is turning and people are beginning to see that these laws are just wrong. They're simply punishing people for no reason other than they're making individual choices about how they want to live their life and they're not hurting anyone else."
The bill was adjourned ahead of a debate in 2024 but is expected to be referred to a parliamentary committee before any vote takes place.
It is also expected to feature in next year's Drug Summit, with party officials hoping it will be among the recommendations that come out of that process.
