Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It does. It just gets better and better, Senator Scarr. I can now carry one gram of heroin, which is potentially five times the lethal dose, but ACT Policing have said there is a real concern because the health services just aren't there. That is a recipe for complete, total and utter personal disaster in the first instance, but that personal disaster is then going to have flow-on effects to other people. In the meantime, the ACT police have pointed out that drug use can also be a driver of crime. Who would have thought? Quite frankly, blind Freddy could have told the ACT government that drug use is a driver of crime.

But, perhaps more importantly, these decriminalised drugs themselves are incredibly harmful. The ACT Law Society themselves have said:

… we do not support the decriminalisation of any quantity of ice, given the threat such poses to public safety.

They then referenced a position from the Australian Medical Association which said:

1. There is clear medical evidence that methamphetamine, and particularly crystal methamphetamine ('ice'), is a very harmful drug at the individual, community and societal levels.

2. Methamphetamine is not a 'recreational', 'soft' or 'party' drug and should never be referred to as such. Every effort must be made to avoid normalising methamphetamine use or minimising its harmful effects.

3. Acute methamphetamine psychosis is one of the most damaging health consequences of methamphetamine use. Acutely, it presents a major safety issue for health care staff and the intoxicated patient and his or her family.

But, because it wasn't subject to scrutiny, guess what? We haven't been able to explore this. But in the first instance I would probably, as a lawmaker, have listened to the Deputy Commissioner of the AFP. I probably would have listened to ACT Policing. I probably would have listened to the ACT Law Society. And I definitely would have listened to the Australian Medical Association. But, for some baffling reason—I say 'baffling' ironically, colleagues—the Labor-Greens government in the ACT has decided it is actually a good idea to release ice onto the streets of Canberra, and that's going to happen in two weeks. We also know—this is evidence again—that ice-induced psychosis leads to violent rages. According to the ACT government's own advice—you've got to love this, because this is their own advice on the dangers associated with ice:

High doses of ice and frequent use can cause 'ice psychosis', which can last a few days, causing: