Page 2094 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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answer, Mr Moore, to legalise it? This is an absurd argument. We know that there is gross hypocrisy in relation to cigarette smoking and the legalisation of that; but successive Federal governments have never had the guts to do what they should do, and that, of course, is to ban tobacco products. They make revenue out of it, but at the same time they piously stand up and complain about the evils of it. I do not accept it.
Mr Moore has just advised me that I do not have much time. The reason for this performance by the Government against our opposition to this legislation is that the Government members - all 10 of them - are running scared on this issue because they know that the majority of the electorate out there do not support what is being put forward. Your social agenda is not supported by the vast majority of the people of the ACT. You will find that out, my friends, to your cost, at the next election. Hence your criticism, which was particularly apparent from Mr Berry's comments, of our position. You want us to join you on this issue under a peculiar flag - this flag of convenience that you call social justice.
Mr Berry: I just want to show up the hypocrisy.
MR CORNWELL: Do not talk to me about hypocrisy, please.
Mr Berry: No, I could not teach you anything about hypocrisy.
MR CORNWELL: Do not talk to me about hypocrisy, Mr Berry. Your own stand on cigarettes is sufficient. Why have you not the guts to ban them coming into this Territory? You are the Minister for Health. Why have you not the guts to do it? No; you would rather stand up and pontificate piously.
Mr Kaine: He will equivocate about banning advertising.
MR CORNWELL: That is right. You will ban the advertising of them, but you have not the guts to ban cigarettes coming into this Territory. So, please, do not talk to me about hypocrisy. The real issue here is: Dealing with this question of cannabis is all too hard, so let us legalise it. In the meantime, of course, we will again talk piously about educating young people that they should not smoke it.
Mr Kaine: Where is your education program?
MR CORNWELL: We have not seen that, Mr Kaine; we have not seen their education program. That is another one that is in the pipeline. Like everything else in the health budget, it is all coming forward; it is somewhere in the pipeline. If you want to do something about this problem of young people smoking cannabis, I suggest that you give them a purpose in life; concentrate on something that is really important, and that is the provision of jobs in this Territory for those young people. Then they will have some decent purpose in life and perhaps you will not need to pontificate about educating them on something which I believe many of them are turning to in sheer desperation.
MR MOORE (12.06), in reply: I will make a couple of comments in reply, very quickly. I point out to members that the medical implications of cannabis use are well documented. The harmful effects of cannabis, which nobody is disputing, are set out very carefully in the report of the committee that I chaired and which I brought down last October. One of the things that were very difficult in sorting through the evidence is set out in that report. I refer to a paper by L.E. Hollister, "Health Aspects of Cannabis", in Pharmacological Reviews. I am sure that pharmacists will be very interested in it.
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