Page 3700 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I do not support legalising nor decriminalising Marijuana for personal use however, I believe the removal of criminal sanctions would be the appropriate course for the ACT.
I commend my report.
MRS GRASSBY (8.21): Mr Speaker, I served a very short time on this committee. As there was a change of government, I found myself on all the committees, being the only member of the Labor Party who was available. A lot of very hard work had been done by the former members. I congratulate them on the work they had done, as well as the secretariat on the work it had put in in this field.
I firmly believe that the policy of the Labor Party is to decriminalise the use of small amounts of marijuana. I can see the point in this. Clogging up courts for simple things like this does not help at all. However, the Labor Party does have a very firm policy that people who are profiteering from drugs, either selling or growing, should be given very stiff and long sentences. I would be very much in support of this. The report suggests to the Government that money that has been made from profiteering in drugs be taken away from individuals who have profited from them and that they be given stiff gaol terms.
Some very good things have come out of the report. We have suggested that services be set up for women and young people who wish to get off drug use. I understand that there will be further work done in the next report in this field.
One of the things I particularly was very worried about in the preparation of this report is the fact that you can be pulled over by the police and tested for drink-driving, but how can you test somebody for being under the influence of marijuana? That is difficult. I think we have managed to cover that in the report. There are ways that this can be done. It is bad enough having people drinking and driving; but I think it would be a lot worse to have somebody very much under the influence of drugs, being very high, driving a car. They could cause a very bad accident.
It is a difficult subject to get into. I, like everybody, I think, believe that we have enough with cigarettes and alcohol. However, there are people who do not drink alcohol and who do not smoke cigarettes but who find a marijuana cigarette - possibly one a day - very relaxing, just as some people who go home and have one drink at the end of the day find it quite relaxing. We did talk to a lot of people, and there was a lot of work done before I was on the committee, which I read. The evidence shows that the amount of harm that is done to the body from a cigarette of marijuana smoked each day is nowhere near the amount that is done if somebody has a couple of drinks at the end of the day to relax.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .