[Jan Fisher]

Is it time to legalise cannabis?

The Australian Greens party is pushing ahead with a campaign to legalise cannabis, and why not?

There’s always been a bit of hysteria surrounding cannabis, but considering the great deal of evidence for its painkilling and stress-busting capabilities, should we rethink how it’s viewed in Australia?

Also, it’s great for people who have lost their appetite.

Let’s face it, it’s now available through prescription and possession is mostly only a fine in most states, is it such a leap to legalisation?

Even in the conservative US it’s available for sale in many states.

And ask anyone who works in emergency medicine, alcohol is a much more dangerous drug than cannabis and it’s widely celebrated in society.

So what’s the dope? Should it be legal?

[David Ryder]

Yes and it should never have been illegal.
It should be marketed, regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco.
As things stand it’s tax free income for criminals.
The government is missing out on billions of tax dollars.

[mikecrook]

More advanced countries such as Portugal and some Scandinavian countries, even some states in the US have decriminalised possession of cannibis and about time too. This has resulted in a significant reduction in all forms of harm from drugs.

However in Australia the evil that Nixon’s “war on drugs’perpetuates to this day. 50 years after the war started.the War on drugs has evolved into a war for drugs and entrepreneurs took advantage of the illegality of drugs to get people addicted. Lots of profit in that

The other industry created was the enforcement industry and their lack of success has shown that they are just as interested in continuation of the drug trade as it keeps them in a job and of course, many have moved from one industry to the next.
It is time for politicians to get real and do the right thing, as has Portugal.

[Sue Ridge]

I suppose that those who present at ED’s with alcohol problems would outnumber those who are affected by marijuana because there are more of them. Alcohol is legal, marijuana is not therefore more people use alcohol than those who use marijuana. To conflate the two could be a bit misleading. People with alcohol problems are most certainly not those who drink beer only, they have moved from beer to drinks with a higher alcohol percentage. The same as, according to a number of experts, some people who use marijuana will move onto other mind altering drugs and it’s that group that is the biggest problem when drug abuse is discussed. It’s this movement to a more harmful drug that concerns me. Just as we don’t know which of us will become alcoholics and move to a stronger drink, we don’t know which of us will become drug addicts and move to a stronger drug. Society can’t do much about the abuse of alcohol but society is in the position of saying no to legalising marijuana. In this way, by keeping it illegal, there is a chance to stop some people being consumed by drug abuse. Saving one life matters.

[52-KID]

Yes, I totally agree with legalisation and then control. Apart from all the reasons already mentioned, there are those of us who would be very happy to be able to obtain legal cannabis for pain relief. I know it is available now via prescription if you can find a person doing that, and it is apparently quite expensive (only going on hearsay on that). They’ve been talking about it for so long, it’s time to think hard and actually do something

[KSS]

No. The Greens have been smoking too much!

There is a big difference between medical cannabis and what is proposed here. There is a mountain of evidence of the harm cannabis does to the brain, especially in the young. Why would you sanction anything that causes brain damage? Not to mention the altered state it causes and the almost inevitable progression to higher intakes and alternative drugs. The alcohol argument is puerile and has no relevance. If alcohol were to come to market now it would be banned because of the harm it is now known to do even without addiction.

Medical cannabis does not contain THC the addictive element that gives the high other cannabis provides. There is good evidence that medical cannabis is helpful for a number of conditions particularly severe epilepsy and severe pain. I do think medical cannabis should be more widely available than it is and prescriptions for it more freely written.

[Author]

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