David Ettershank
latest National Durg Strategy Household Survey in 2019
cannabis arrests in Australia in the same year
policy to fully legalise
. In every state it scored at least 2 per cent of the vote and as much as 7.5 per cent in the Northern Territory.
Legalise Cannabis’ Victorian Western Metropolitan candidate , who is quietly optimistic about the election result in his region, said the party’s rapid rise was evidence that Australians and especially Victorians wanted cannabis legalised.
“This has been a pretty historic election in terms of putting cannabis into the mainstream,” Ettershank told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“We’ve spoken to thousands of people and the thing that amazed me is that there was an enormous number of people who — the people who look like grandparents or people in groomed suits — all had a common view about how stupid this law is.”
Victoria was the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise access to medicinal cannabis in 2014 but only the ACT has decriminalised it for recreational use.
The found cannabis was the most commonly used illicit drug in Australia and use was increasing. It found 11.6 per cent of Australians said they partook in the last 12 months.
“That’s what we’re tapping into. It’s not like this is an emerging thing,” Ettershank said.
“We’ve got more than 1 in 10 people telling the government over the phone that [they] used cannabis. It makes me think the real number could be higher.”
But on the flip side, there were 71,151 . 91 per cent of them were for personal consumption.
The Greens is the only other party to have a the use of cannabis for adults in Victoria, which they plan to do by 2024. They’ve argued that even just decriminalising it would save the government $250 million on its policing bill in 2023 alone.
But Legalise Cannabis isn’t just pushing for the legal right to recreationally hit a bong. It argues the issue touches many pillars of Australia, including healthcare and climate action.
Cannabis can be used for pain relief, insomnia relief and anxiety treatment via its non-hallucinogenic CBD compound (as opposed to the buzzy THC compound derived from the plant).
It’s edible too and parts of the plant like hemp seeds are extremely good for you.
Cannabis can also be used to produce a paper that’s *way* cheaper and better for the environment than what we currently have. A cannabis plant only takes a few years to grow, whereas a pine tree takes between 28 and 35 years to mature and also requires huge areas of land to grow.
cannabis can is a natural and highly effective insecticide, giving it huge agricultural potential.
Ettershank said even if Legalise Cannabis isn’t successful in Victoria, the movement was growing and they have high hopes for the NSW election in March.
“We’re a single policy party but I actually say we’re singularly focused,” Legalise Cannabis’ South-Eastern Metropolitan candidate Rachel Payne told PEDESTRIAN.TV. “You can look at cannabis in the space around healthcare, mental health [and] economic benefits.” And “This issue crosses class, gender ethnicity, political persuasion,” Ettershank said. “We’ve got ppl supporting us who are very conservative through to right out there on the left. “If we get elected, we are politically progressive, sensible and we will come into this with a very clearly defined set of issues around cannabis.” “Whatever happens here, I think this is certainly a big springboard and momentum generator.”95 years ago, Victoria criminalised cannabis. Billions have been spent trying to eradicate it, yet more than one in three of us have tried it. Since then thousands of Victorians have been convicted, fined, jailed. It’s time to legalise it. #legaliseit
— Dr Tim Read MP (@TimRRead) October 9, 2022
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