In a statement issued April 16, the Australian Greens unveiled a \u201cNational Plan to Legalize Cannabis for Adult Use.\u201d This is the first time a party with a substantial presence in Parliament \u2014 nine Senate seats and one in the House of Representatives \u2014 has embraced full marijuana legalization in Australia.<\/p>\n
In the statement,\u00a0posted to the party website<\/a>, Greens leader Richard Di Natale says: \u201cThe war on drugs has failed. Governments around the world are realizing that prohibition of cannabis causes more harm than it prevents. It\u2019s time Australia joined them and legalized cannabis for adult use.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to get real about cannabis,\u201d he continued. \u201cAlmost seven million Australians have tried or used cannabis socially but right now just having a small amount of cannabis in your possession could get you a criminal record. Cannabis accounts for most illicit drug arrests across Australia<\/a> and each year cannabis consumption and arrests are growing. Prohibition has failed. Using cannabis remains illegal, but this has not stopped Australians from using it.\u201d<\/p>\n The proposal calls for using tax revenues from cannabis sales to fund drug treatment and education programs. An Australian Cannabis Agency would be created to oversee taxation and regulation of the industry. Cannabis would be sold only by licensed shops, and only to those 18 or over. All sales staff would be required to undergo training in \u201cresponsible sale of cannabis.\u201d Advertising would be banned, plain packaging mandated and a \u201cbig cannabis\u201d industry avoided by promotion of small-scale production. Up to six plants could be grown for personal use.<\/p>\n Di Natale, himself a former doctor, called for an approach that treats \u201cdrug use as a health issue, not a criminal issue.\u201d He said that his party\u2019s plan to legalize marijuana in Australia \u201cwill reduce the risks, bust the business model of criminal dealers and syndicates and protect young people from unfair criminal prosecutions.\u201d<\/p>\n He wrote: \u201cAs a drug and alcohol doctor, I\u2019ve seen that the \u2018tough on drugs\u2019 approach causes enormous harm. It drives people away from getting help when they need it and exposes them to a dangerous black market.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement cited a recent\u00a0survey by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare<\/a>\u00a0that found 35 percent of Australians have used cannabis. There were 79,643 cannabis-related arrests in the country in the 2015-16 period, up 6 percent from 2014-15.<\/p>\n Di Natale encouraged multi-party unity around a common-sense strategy. \u201cI call on political parties of all stripes to join the Greens in committing to just legalize it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The proposal won immediate support from the\u00a0Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation<\/a>, whose president, Dr. Alex Wodak, stated: \u201cBanning cannabis hasn\u2019t reduced its use or availability yet it has distracted police from following up more serious crimes, harmed a lot of young people and helped make some criminals rich. Regulating cannabis will give government more control and increase government revenue, which can be used to fund drug prevention and treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n Wodak\u2019s foundation and the Greens have teamed up to launch a\u00a0Just Legalize It<\/a>\u00a0website to promote the idea.<\/p>\n However, it might not be easy to get the two big blocs that dominate Australia\u2019s parliament on board. These are the ruling center-right coalition bloc (made up of the\u00a0Liberal Party<\/a>, which is actually conservative, and the\u00a0National Party<\/a>, which is more conservative) and its main opposition, the center-left\u00a0Labor Party.<\/a>\u00a0Neither of these have ever broached cannabis legalization.<\/p>\n However, both these blocs supported a program initiated in 2016 to legalize cannabis for medicinal use.\u00a0Radio Australia<\/a>\u00a0reported<\/a> in January that the country\u2019s burgeoning medical marijuana industry is about to get a big boost, with the federal government to allow exports of cannabis-based medicines. Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government will introduce legislation to lift current restrictions on cannabis exports.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would like to be, potentially, the world\u2019s number one medicinal cannabis supplier,\u201d Hunt said.<\/p>\n These ambitions seem to reveal a contradiction between a corporate model advocated by the dominant parties, with user access restricted to approved medical patients, and the broader but more grassroots paradigm promoted by the Greens.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> which model of marijuana legalization in Australia would you like to see?<\/p>\n The post An Australian Political Party Endorses Pot Legalization<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued April 16, the Australian Greens unveiled a \u201cNational Plan to Legalize Cannabis for Adult Use.\u201d This is the first time a party with a substantial presence in Parliament \u2014 nine Senate seats and one in the House of Representatives \u2014 has embraced full marijuana legalization inContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[271,50,4025,3100,4026,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25570,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25569\/revisions\/25570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: An Australian Political Party Endorses Pot Legalization<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"