Introduction to the media issue: Should Australia legalise the recreational use of cannabis?
The Issue at a Glance
What they said...'Marijuana causes impairment in every performance area that can reasonably be connected with safe driving of a vehicle'
Drug-Free Australia
'It's time to stop pretending that consumption of this plant, consumed each year by literally millions of Australians, should still be seen as a crime'
Greens senator David Shoebridge
On August 10, 2023, Greens Senator David Shoebridge introduced the Greens Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 to Federal Parliament. The bill seeks to permit the adult recreational use of cannabis.
If it achieves the support of both houses, the bill will create the opportunity for a legal commercial cannabis market, as has existed in Canada since October 2018.
Canada is one of eight countries in the world to have done this. On May 9, 2018, Senator David Leyonhjelm, of the Liberal Democratic Party, introduced a bill to allow states to remove Commonwealth barriers to the legalisation, regulation, and taxation of cannabis. Both major parties and One Nation did not support the bill. The bill lapsed at the end of parliament on 1 July 2019 after the second debate on 15 October 2018.
On February 24, 2016, the Australian parliament made amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Act that legalised the highly regulated commercial growing of cannabis for medicinal and scientific purposes.