Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a former police officer, I know only too well the devastation that driving while impaired by drugs can have on people, their families, first responders and communities. It can be devastating. As a member of parliament, I have been made aware of some remarkable improvements in the quality of life when people have been prescribed medical cannabis by a doctor for certain conditions. In both of these jobs, I've witnessed the real and serious repercussions that a loss of a drivers licence can have on a person. It can cause isolation and cut them off from vital services.

In Australia, we have a dichotomy, where thousands of patients are finding relief due to the introduction of medical cannabis as a result of the work of advocates, researchers and government but, in finding this relief, these people discover a new problem. You see, patients prescribed some form of medical cannabis products are not allowed to drive under state and territory laws. Indeed, regional magistrate David Heilpern from Northern New South Wales resigned for this reason. He enforced a law where people who had consumed cannabis and driven a car many days after consuming it would front the court and lose their licence. Often, as a result of this, they would lose jobs and, eventually, relationships because, as the law stands today, someone with any trace of tetrahyrdocannabinol, THC, in their system, who may not have any impairment and present no risk to themselves or other road users, can face prosecution. Up to 75 per cent of patients using medicinal cannabis, nearly 50,000 Australians, are at risk of prosecution when they drive.

A law that penalises people on the basis of safety when there is no impairment can only serve to undermine vital traffic laws. The University of Sydney's Lambert Initiative has published world-leading research on cannabis effects on driving, including magnitude and duration of impairment following various doses of formulations of THC and CBD. Lead researchers informed me about the lack of high-quality scientific evidence around medicinal cannabis effects on drivers. Every study to date has been performed using healthy volunteers. When cannabis is used to alleviate a debilitating medical condition under careful supervision, they believe it may have minimal effects on driving. A controlled clinical trial examining this could provide clinical evidence to inform debate and pave a rational path for legislative reform that may allow patients a reasonable exemption to drive under certain conditions.

These laws penalise regional patients who don't have access to public transport and who have to travel long distances to go to work, to go shopping and to access services. These existing laws are a major barrier for patients who need and benefit greatly from medicinal cannabis but can't take it because it means they can't drive. Every month there are about 10,000 new approvals to the medicinal cannabis scheme across Australia. Every year in New South Wales alone, there are 100,000 roadside drug tests. These result in about 10,000 court appearances and, as more patients turn to medicinal cannabis and regional transport remains inaccessible, these numbers will get higher.

Other drugs are known to impair driving performance but our legislative approach is very different. Patients using opioids or benzodiazepines are permitted to drive so long as they don't feel impaired. The legislative approach of Australia is the most severe of any country in the world that has legal access to medicinal cannabis. Unlike alcohol, there is no simple correlation between blood or oral fluids, THC concentration and impairment. We urgently need more research like that proposed by the Lambert Initiative to inform change that is safe, that is fair and that maintains confidence in our traffic laws and addresses what is and will continue to be a growing problem.

House adjourned at 20:00