Qld Labor members’ call for cannabis to be legalised stubbed out

Queensland Labor members have urged the state government to legalise the possession of small quantities of cannabis for personal use and complete a full review of its approach to drug law enforcement.

The updated state policy platform, decided by members at the party’s state conference late last year but only recently finalised and released publicly, has laid out a swathe of proposed drug reforms for its parliamentary wing to pursue.

Both Labor and the LNP dismissed calls from the Productivity Commission to decriminalise MDMA and cannabis in 2020.Credit: Reuters

But amid mounting calls for the decriminalisation of low-level drug possession and use, the state Labor government said that at this stage, it had no intention of acting on any of the suggested reforms.

Under the heading “Labor in government will”, the 2022 state policy platform details a diversion and health-based approach to personal drug use, while increasing penalties for commercial-scale trafficking.

This would include legalising the possession of small quantities of cannabis for personal use, festival pill testing trials – something the government has already been quietly working towards – and establishing a “full review” of the state’s enforcement approach to personal drug use.

While voted on by everyone from grassroots members to senior party and parliamentary leaders, the policy platform is more akin to a wishlist for the party when in power, with inclusions that may not be pursued due to time constraints or political and public opposition.

In a major 2020 report, the Productivity Commission found criminalisation over decades had failed to reduce drug use and supply.

“Even in those jurisdictions where supply has been legalised, most evidence suggests there has been no long-term increase in usage or drug-related harms,” the report said.

The commission said legalising and regulating the supply of lower-harm drugs, such as MDMA and cannabis, would boost the state budget by $1.2 billion, funnel $4 billion out of illegal markets and into health systems, and address prison overcrowding.

Queensland locked up twice as many people for such drug possession and use than the rest of the country combined, the report found – a fact put down to policy rather than higher usage.

Both Labor and the LNP ruled out the reforms at the time and are yet to revisit the calls. A five-year state mental health, alcohol and other drug plan released in October makes no mention of any changes to the government’s approach.

While many other countries – including Canada – and more than 20 US states have legalised cannabis, progress in Australia has been slow. Only the ACT has followed suit, while a recent push in Victoria was quashed by the major parties’ longstanding tough-on-crime stances.

In a recently released submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry considering drug law enforcement, the body for non-government Queensland groups working in the alcohol and other drugs sector also called for decriminalisation.

“The removal of criminal penalties for possession ... [is] a prudent strategy to reduce the investment required over time to process people through the criminal justice system and to increase opportunities for people to access treatment when they need it,” the Queensland Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies said.

“The introduction of medicinal cannabis, as well as recent research trials on psychedelic medicine, clearly demonstrate the positive therapeutic effects of some currently unregulated drugs, and reinforces the arbitrary nature of the distinction made between licit and illicit drugs within existing drug control conventions and legislation in Australia and internationally.”

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