Page 4573 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
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Mrs Carnell: Yes.
MR CONNOLLY: "Yes", says Mrs Carnell.
Mrs Carnell: And, therefore, you can approve it or not.
MR CONNOLLY: But I cannot, Mrs Carnell. There is no point in my approving that a person use five reefers a day. That is just silly. We do not know how effective they are at smoking it, if that is going to be the chosen method of ingesting it. On Wednesday that was fine; maybe now it is not. We do not know the precise quality of the drug we are talking about. You can do experiments on random samples of cannabis; but, again, you are not certain that the whole amount is of that purity. All you can say when you do a purity test is that the sample you tested had that level of purity or that level of active ingredient. If you are going to clinically trial potential medicinal use of cannabis, you clinically trial on the prepared extract, the active ingredient of Delta 9 THC. That is the way we should proceed. We should proceed with caution.
We would adopt that approach, and then we would say that a committee of this Assembly next year, if they are keen on advancing this issue, should advance this issue, should put up all the proposals and should look at Mr Moore's original proposal, which we have been very critical of in the very short time we have had to see it. We have raised problems, and I would continue to raise problems, about international treaties. Yes, international treaties approve research, and clearly the existing research provisions are consistent with Australia's international treaty obligations. But what about a law passed by this Assembly which says that cannabis is lawful and may be sold at any outlet in the ACT, and any person may consume any amount of cannabis, provided that the National Health and Medical Research Council does a long-term study of the medical effect of that cannabis on the population of Canberra? Would that be a law consistent with our international treaty obligations?
Mr Moore: Absolutely.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Moore says. "Absolutely". My advice is, "Absolutely not". Something between the two extremes is where our treaty obligations would be consistent or inconsistent, and Mr Moore's law in its first strike is probably towards one end of that spectrum. I am not saying that it is; I am saying that you cannot say that your ritual law is consistent with our treaty obligations. Let us look at all of those issues.
I understand that the Federal Police Association have said, "Just leave it alone. Once you have rescinded it, just leave it alone. Do not pass any more amendments". Mrs Carnell was interjecting furiously, "We have consulted. Everybody is happy". They tell me that their advice is, "Once the Assembly has rescinded this motion, leave it alone". I do not know what they told you. I do not know whether what they told you is what you told your party room colleagues. We never know about these things, Mrs Carnell, on this subject. If we want to look further, let us do what we have done in the past. Let us get an Assembly committee to have a look at it; let us hold hearings.
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