A proposal to surround a statue of Queen Victoria with a mock jail cell inside Melbourne's parliament building as part of 4/20 pro-legalisation events was shut down at the last minute after parliamentary officers ruled the activity out of bounds.
Activists Will Stolk and Alec Zammitt, operating under the Who are we hurting? banner, had teamed up with Legalise Cannabis Victoria MPs David Ettershank and Rachel Payne to construct a makeshift cell around the monarch's statue inside the state parliament.
The group had chosen Queen Victoria — widely believed to have been a regular cannabis user — as a symbol to draw attention to the harsh laws that continue to affect thousands of Australians.
The plan was quickly revised after parliamentary staff ruled the activity could not go ahead.
The campaigners shifted their protest to the steps of Parliament House, where they assembled a jail structure around artificial cannabis plants instead.
Legalise Cannabis MP David Ettershank acknowledged the proposal had not been properly communicated to the Parliamentary Office, saying the refusal to allow the statue to be used was "as much my fault as anyone else's".
"They freaked out at the prospect of having a cage set up around a valuable marble statue," Ettershank explained. "We're certainly not having a go at the Parliamentary Office as they are usually very good. It was as much my fault that it didn't happen."
Those involved pointed out that, were Queen Victoria alive in Melbourne today, she would be "arrested and treated like a second-class citizen".
"After 12 births, Victoria was understandably a regular consumer for pain relief, as are many Victorians," Ettershank said. "But here in the garden state she would be forbidden from driving and hauled before the courts for growing her own plants.
"That is no way to treat anyone."
Beyond drawing attention to the social harms of ongoing prohibition, Stolk and Zammitt said the mock jail was also intended to push back against outdated social stigmas surrounding cannabis.
"It's a statement," Stolk added. "It's a call for a more informed and compassionate approach to drug policy."
Legalise Cannabis MP Rachel Payne said the action also exposed the inconsistency within Australia's cannabis laws, which she said fall hardest on First Nations, culturally diverse and working-class communities.
She argued that resources would be better spent addressing alcohol-fuelled violence than pursuing people for cannabis possession.
"More than one in 10 Australians regularly use cannabis, which is significantly less harmful than alcohol. Too many crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol," she said.
"What a waste of police resources, arresting people for possession when our officers should be doing real police work and keeping Victorian women and men safe from violent crime."
Payne also said elected officials are failing to reflect public opinion, with a growing number of Australians now supporting decriminalisation.
The protest was the latest in a string of high-profile stunts by Stolk and Zammitt timed to coincide with 4/20. They have previously projected pro-legalisation slogans and cannabis imagery onto the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge — actions that led to charges which were subsequently dropped — and driven tanks through central Sydney.
The pair also delivered a four-foot cannabis plant to Legalise Cannabis NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham, wheeling it through Parliament House past startled security guards.
