Page 2085 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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MRS GRASSBY (11.28): The amendments that the Government has to this Bill are very sensible. We do not want to make young people criminals for smoking a cannabis cigarette. We all know how serious it is for young people to have a criminal offence on their sheet. The stigma could stop them getting a job in the public service and in many professions. On-the-spot fines of $100 will discourage young people from smoking. If every time the police find people smoking cannabis they are fined $100 it will certainly mount up. The total could be vast. I think people will think a lot more seriously about their actions. We know that the courts are putting on only a fine of $40, which is nothing. No-one goes to gaol for this offence of having 25 grams, or five plants, and a $40 fine is nothing. We all know how easily that can be paid each time.
Drugs are serious, and to legalise any drug is serious. This Bill is not doing that. We have two legal drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, and the damage they do to society is much more dangerous than any other drug. We on the Drugs Committee have been told in our public hearings that alcohol and cigarettes are a far bigger problem to society than any other drug, yet we seem to be doing very little about them.
I feel that we should be spending money in schools on training our young people not to be using any drugs. Maybe the money we collect from these on-the-spot fines of $100 could be put into better education in our schools to teach our young people about the danger of drugs. Then there would be no need for us to be sitting here discussing a Bill such as this. This money could be spent on educating people that drug-taking is a serious path to take. On my trip overseas in the past break, looking at the drug problem in the US and Europe, everyone told me that it was education that was needed - not tougher laws for young people, only for traffickers. I agree with that. I do not think that making the law tougher for young people caught smoking a marijuana cigarette is going to stop them doing it. It will make them bigger criminals if you send them to gaol.
We have not gone soft on the law; we have left three-quarters of the law as it is, but made one part of it tougher by having on-the-spot fines of $100. I have had my office speak to the police about this Bill and they have said that they would prefer the amendment that the Labor Party has put up. Taking people to the courts for a $40 fine is nothing. They say that it has no effect at all. They agree that a $100 fine on-the-spot would be far better. We should be educating young people, they say, on not using drugs.
Mrs Carnell: Why?
MRS GRASSBY: Come on, Kate; we all know what you say. You say one thing here and another thing outside. I would prefer you to be more honest about how you feel, instead of reading speeches that are not true.
Mr Humphries: I take a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think Mrs Grassby said that Mrs Carnell is not being honest about this matter. I think that is unparliamentary.
MADAM SPEAKER: She said that she would prefer Mrs Carnell to be more honest. Mrs Grassby, I would like you to withdraw any improper inference from that, and continue.
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