Labor and Liberal MPs at loggerheads over medicinal marijuana in drug driving reforms

HARSHER penalties for drug drivers are in limbo as the major parties argue over whether people should be allowed to drive while using medicinal cannabis.

A legal cannabis crop. Picture: Supplied

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HARSHER penalties for drug drivers are being delayed as the major parties argue over whether people should be allowed to drive while using medicinal cannabis.

State Government legislation which would impose longer licence disqualifications and higher fines on drug drivers cannot take effect until the dispute is resolved.

Labor and the Liberals are also at loggerheads over whether to allow police greater powers to search the vehicles of people who test positive to drug use behind the wheel.

MPs have reached an impasse in Parliament’s Upper House and referred the Bill to a deadlock committee for further negotiation.

If passed the laws would:

SUSPEND the licence of a first-time drug driver for three months, impose a $587 fine and incur four demerit points.

INCREASE the licence disqualification period to up to three years for repeat drug-driving offences.

IMPOSE a $5000 fine or one year in jail on motorists who have lost their licence for drug-driving and are caught driving unlicensed. They would also be disqualified from driving for three years.

Dignity Party MP Kelly Vincent added a clause to the Bill during debate, supported by the Liberals, that would allow users of medicinal cannabis to seek the approval of a doctor to defend any drug-driving charges if they were tested by police and brought before a court.

Road Safety Minister Chris Picton said that would “create an unacceptably wide loophole whereby a driver could point to their use of medical cannabis as a defence to any drug driving offence”.

Liberal road safety spokesman Stephan Knoll said the Opposition was prepared to negotiate further with the Government but argued the vast majority of the medicinal cannabis variants now prescribed by doctors did not have a psychoactive effect.

Mr Knoll also wanted the law to retain a requirement that police have “a reasonable suspicion” that drugs are present in a vehicle before being able to search it.

Most Acts require this.

Mr Picton said the Opposition was “depriving SA Police of an important tool in the fight against drugs, which was a recommendation from the Government’s Ice Taskforce”.

There are only six days left for MPs to come to a compromise in Parliament before it rises until the March election.

Between 2012 and 2016, 48 drivers and riders killed on South Australian roads tested positive to THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.