Inquiry into drug laws in Victoria recommends exploring legal cannabis

VICTORIA will explore legalising cannabis as part of wide-ranging drug reforms recommended in a lengthy report released on Tuesday.

VICTORIA could follow in the footsteps of US states Colorado and California by legalising recreational cannabis use.

The parliament’s drug law reform inquiry released a 680-page report on Tuesday considering 230 submissions and recommending 50 changes for how to tackle illicit drug use.

Within the report is a section dedicated to cannabis and, specifically, “adult use” of the drug. The report notes that cannabis is “the most popular of the recreational illicit drugs” but also “one of the less harmful substances when compared to other drugs such as alcohol or heroin”. It delares legalising cannabis is “an area ... worthy of further investigation”.

The inquiry recommends recreational cannabis be researched by a new government advisory council. Members of the committee visited Colorado, California and Uruguay during their overseas study tour. Uruguay was the first country to legalise the sale of marijuana across its entire territory in 2017.

Other recommendations include further evaluation of prison alcohol and drug programs, pill testing at festivals, the development of guidelines for GPs around prescribing opioids and reviewing Victoria’s current needle and syringe program.

Cannabis remains the most popular drug among Victorians.

Dr Alex Wodak, who helped establish the first medically supervised injecting centre in 1999 and is the director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said today was about addressing a “miserable failure”.

He said the focus has for too long been on treating drug dependence as a crime, rather than a health issue.

“We’ve relied almost exclusively on efforts to cut the supply of drugs, probably well intentioned, but the market force is very powerful,” he told AAP.

“The next step has to be redefining the drugs problem as a health and social issue.”

Fiona Patten started the inquiry in 2015. Today she said she wished the report went further but was pleased with many of the recommendations.

“While I would have liked to see the report go further, I believe that this report and its recommendations accurately reflect community attitudes to drug policy today,” the Reason Party MP said.

“We now understand that drug use is a health and social issue that law enforcement cannot solve. We need root and branch change.”

Jarryd Bartle, a criminal justice policy consultant and sessional lecturer at RMIT in Melbourne, said the report is a step in the right direction, albeit “not revolutionary”.

Overall take away: 👍 not revolutionary but strong indications we are moving in the right direction. Hopefully this stuff gets taken up. /fin

— Jarryd Bartle (@JarrydBartle) March 27, 2018

“Overall the report is a good, comprehensive summary of evidence-based drug policy and I hope it will be used in the future to guide lawmakers,” he told news.com.au.

He said it was “great to see that committee recognise that problematic drug use is primarily a health problem, not something our criminal justice system is well suited to address” and that he was pleased to see the recommendation for increased diversion programs for people found in possession of drugs.

“(It’s) a slight wink towards potentially implementing a Portugal-style decriminalisation model in the future,” he said.

The report found the most commonly used drugs in 2017 were cannabis (9.9 per cent), pain killers or opioids (3.4 per cent), cocaine (2.5 per cent), ecstasy (2.4 per cent), sleeping pills (1.7 per cent) and methamphetamines (1.5 per cent).

It also found that Victorians in their 40s were much more likely to use cannabis recreationally in 2016 than they were in 2013 and that use increased among those aged 60 or older, too.

Read the full report here.

— with AAP