Page 3245 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I suggest that that is an important thing to look at, although not necessarily so important from a government's point of view. Why do we mind if private industries want to invest millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars in a business? That is their business. Our job is, first of all, to make sure that we give them the opportunity to cultivate, develop and use this incredible plant. I know that some people have concerns about how you would license the cultivation of hemp. Could it not be that, after getting an official licence, someone might say, "Boy, in the middle of this lot we are going to grow illegal cannabis right under the eyes of the authorities who granted this licence."? When you start to research hemp, you find out that it is not any problem at all to investigate and to inspect crops, and it would be very difficult to grow illegal cannabis as part of a commercial crop.
There are a couple of major differences between the legal strains of cannabis hemp and the illegal strains in physical appearance and how they are grown. First of all, the illegal hemp - we have all seen on television police taking bundles of it away from the various farms they have raided - is a very leafy product. The legalised strains do not have much leafage at all. The illegal stuff is usually grown with plants about 18 inches apart; the legal stuff is grown with the plants about four inches apart. It has just one short growing season. It grows to between 12 and 20 feet. It is not like waiting around for a tree to come on. Cannabis hemp can benefit the ground in which it is grown, unlike some crops which tend to denature the surrounding environment.
We know that at present it is illegal to grow and possess cannabis in the ACT. I quote from a letter from our Attorney-General, Terry Connolly:
The use of cannabis is regulated by the Drugs of Dependence Act 1989 which is the responsibility of ... the Minister for Health ... I am advised that the Act provides that certain people may apply to the Minister for authorisation to conduct a research program in relation to a prohibited substance.
I suggest that we need to go a little bit further than allowing someone to apply to conduct a research program. We simply need to remove the specific strains of legal hemp from the illegal list. As I said, I am not suggesting that hemp should be legalised within the ACT, but just the strains that are legalised within - - -
Mr Berry: How do you test it? Who wants to be a tester?
MR STEVENSON: It is very easy to test. You would collect, say, 500 of the plants before harvesting and assay them. If they had anywhere near the higher drug content - - -
Mr Berry: I can think of another way of testing them.
MR STEVENSON: No, Wayne, you do not smoke them to test them. You just get a headache if you smoke this legal stuff. Indeed, if you were able to take some hemp, you would find it of some benefit. It was used for thousands of years to help head pain. Before you cultivated this, it would be checked. You would remove the licence of anyone who grew a product that had an appreciable drug content, and they would be out of it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .