Page 3252 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 1994
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Mr Moore talked a lot about prohibition and about the availability of cannabis, or marijuana, as it is more commonly referred to in Canberra. I am aware of the case studies in the United States that he referred to in relation to its medicinal use. I am aware of the exemptions given there for cannabis use as a medicinal soother for health purposes. The exemption is certainly something that could be looked at not only in Australia but in Canberra as well. In fact, I am surprised that you cannot get exemptions for that type of thing within Australia if it is prescribed by a doctor. In that case, there would be a medical reason for someone having that prescribed, just as there would be medical reasons for people being prescribed certain drugs which you can get only at a chemist, on prescription, some of which are of value to drug addicts. Members would be aware of a number of instances of chemist shops in Canberra being burgled and various drugs being taken by addicts who use drugs that would normally be available to patients on prescription. So, perhaps there is room for cannabis to be used for those types of medicinal purposes.
However, cannabis, used as a drug, does have some very bad side effects. It is far more dangerous to your lungs and it causes lung cancer to a much greater degree than cigarette smoking does. This Assembly, certainly since its inception, has been gradually whittling away at the smoking lobby and at people being able to smoke, willy-nilly, wherever they like. There have been very good reasons for that. To legalise marijuana would be merely to introduce another very dangerous drug, in terms of what it can do to people's metabolism and in terms of lung cancer. Marijuana, taken as a recreational drug, is quite dangerous to people as well. I had the opportunity on a couple of occasions, as a prosecutor, to prosecute people who had been driving under the influence of marijuana - not alcohol, but marijuana. Those instances involved driving in an incredibly erratic and highly dangerous manner. Luckily, it was in the early hours of the morning, when there was no-one else on the road; and, luckily, it did not cause any accidents involving injury to innocent victims or to the drivers themselves who were affected by marijuana. The ability of those people to drive a motor vehicle would have been akin to that of someone driving with a blood alcohol level of about 0.3 or 0.32, based on similar cases that I saw where people had that amount of alcohol in their system.
Certainly, marijuana is a drug that is well and truly abused. It is something that is potentially, and actually, far more harmful to people in all respects than perhaps even cigarettes. However, I certainly agree with Mr Moore that for some people, in the cases he cited, it does have some medicinal benefits. That is something that can be looked at. Whilst I am not endorsing any calls by anyone in any way to relax the laws in relation to the prohibition of marijuana smoking, I do not think that Mr Stevenson's idea about the commercial production of hemp should be dismissed out of hand. They are two very separate issues. His idea has some merit and is deserving of further investigation.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Heritage and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.16): Mr Deputy Speaker, the value of cannabis as a source of fibre for cloth, paper production and cordage has, as others have pointed out, been demonstrated over a long period of time. There is no question about that. Certainly, Mr Stevenson has given a good demonstration of that today in his attire. I am informed that the use of hemp fibre is increasing in Europe, including Britain, where low-drug forms of cannabis have been legalised. I am also informed that research has been undertaken in Holland into the potential of cannabis fibre
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