Page 362 - Week 01 - Thursday, 13 February 2020
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2. The advice considered by Government included information that the ACT Health Directorate provided on the health risks of cannabis consistent with 2017 large scale research evidence reviews conducted by the World Health Organisation and the US National Academies, the Oxford Specialist Handbook on Addiction Medicine (2016), and the Oxford University Press book Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know (2016).
The Government also considered the findings of the ACT Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Health, Ageing and Community Services’ Inquiry into Drugs of Dependence (Personal Cannabis Use) Amendment Bill 2018.
3. The information provided by Minister Hunt on the health effects of cannabis was largely consistent with information sourced by ACT Health Directorate, and is the advice considered by Government alongside the advice received from community stakeholders.
4. ACT Health Directorate undertook policy analysis of the potential population health effects of the legislation using existing available studies of the health impact of cannabis de criminalisation. This included review of:
• Evidence of the impact of reduced cannabis penalties on cannabis use rates;
• Theoretical mechanisms of policy impact — for example economic theory of supply and demand for criminalised products;
• Data on cannabis use in the ACT, including cannabis use rates following earlier decriminalisation measures;
• Consideration of the social determinants of health, which indicate, for example, that reduced socioeconomic circumstances, which can result from a criminal record, contribute to poorer health outcomes over the long term.
• Consideration of the potential health impacts of the legislative amendments including:
o Making it illegal to store cannabis within reach of children;
o Making it illegal to expose children to second-hand cannabis smoke, or to smoke in a public place;
o The potentially reduced stigma for cannabis users that may encourage them to come forward for treatment; and
o The high numbers of people who have already tried cannabis in the ACT, or who use it already, finding it easier to source.
Evidence reviewed by ACTHD did not demonstrate a causal relationship between reducing criminal penalties for personal cannabis use and any long-term, population-wide increase in cannabis use.
In its submission to the ACT Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Health, Ageing and Community Services, the Australian Medical Association (ACT) stated: “It is often thought that criminal penalties are a deterrent to cannabis use and, therefore, an effective way to prevent the health impacts and other harms associated with cannabis use. These beliefs have little foundation.”
Similarly, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), concluded from a review of changes to cannabis personal use penalties in European Union (EU) countries that: “The legal impact hypothesis, in its simplest form, predicts
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