David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My colleague says 'Tasmanian'. I look forward to the best Lismore blue and maybe some truffles—and we will get this to happen.

Reflecting on why we need this, it's because the war on drugs is over in much of the rest of the world. When it comes to cannabis, the war on drugs is over. It has comprehensively failed. Every year, governments pour billions of dollars into drug law enforcement, making supposedly 'big busts' and prosecuting people for having a joint in their pocket. We know, when we talk to the police and talk to the security agencies, that none of it has an impact on the supply or price of drugs—none of it. Maybe it has a one-week impact on price, but the illegal crime model is designed to have endless busts, endless policing and still have almost unlimited product available. The police know this; they tell us this. The only ones that benefit from the current policy settings on making cannabis illegal are organised crime figures, who so desperately want Labor and the coalition to vote this down so that they can keep their crooked-market model, sell illegal, unregulated drugs and make super profits—and, with that, have money to corrupt police and to drive other illegal organisations. We want to end that business model today. Of course organised crime are going to be cheering the coalition on when they vote this down; of course they will.

A core benefit of legalising cannabis is stopping the damage to people's lives by dragging them through the criminal justice system just because they'd rather have a joint or a gummy than a beer or tobacco. We know that the current law targets the most vulnerable people in our communities. Who gets shaken down in my home city of Sydney, as they are walking about the streets, on possession of cannabis suspicion by the police? It's young First Nations people. It's young men in Western Sydney who the police target because of the colour of their skin and because they are vulnerable and often because they are poor. That's who gets whacked in the current system. If you're wealthy middle-class or upper middle-class, Daddy's got the lawyer, you've got the social power—you're not going to be targeted. The Liberal party know this. The Labor Party know this.

Currently it's individual consumers of cannabis who are most likely to be targeted by this war on drugs, and, of the 66,285 cannabis arrests nationally in 2020-21, more than 90 per cent were consumers, not providers—consumers going to jail because they had a joint in their pocket. That's who's going to court and getting a criminal record, with, often, their life trajectory turned on its head because this lot, Labor and the coalition, don't realise it's 2024.

The global data shows that the likelihood of any significant increase of cannabis use following legalisation is extremely low. What legalisation gives is a far more relaxed, well-regulated opportunity, where instead of buying the strongest weed from 'Crusher' down in some dark apartment, where you don't know what it will be, it's possible to drop into a dispensary and get a bud tender to recommend something that will match your mood, with strength and dosage information available, to safely consume at home. I can tell you what the Greens would prefer. But we're going to see the coalition and Labor vote for Crusher—vote for the dark apartment, the lack of regulation and the unadulterated strength. It's to their shame that they do this.

We see so many positives with legalising cannabis. We don't pretend the drug is without harm; we just know that legalising it will radically reduce the harm. We can see from North America, from Europe and from countries in our region that there are different ways of legalising cannabis, and our model understands the best evidence. We don't want rampant advertising. We want to get rid of big pharma, big tobacco and big alcohol and have them play no part in this industry.

We want adult Australians to have the right to choose. We're the party who thinks adults have the right to choose what goes in their body, they have the right to know what they're consuming and they should expect a parliament to treat them like adults. I promise you today that the Greens will keep working until this is law, and we just get on and legalise it.