Cannabis Legalisation Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 15 June 2022.)

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (18:02): I rise to very briefly indicate my support for the Cannabis Legalisation Bill 2022. This bill seeks to legalise cannabis and cannabis products to regulate the sale, supply and advertising of cannabis and cannabis products, and to make related amendments to the Controlled Substances Act.

The Greens have long supported the legalisation of cannabis within a world regulated market that prioritises public health, that ends criminalisation of cannabis for users, and that creates government revenue that can be reinvested into public services. It is high time—if you will excuse the pun—that we saw a harm minimisation approach adopted to drugs, so I certainly support this bill and urge other members to come on board as well. I thank the member for putting it forward.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (18:03): I rise to speak on the Cannabis Legalisation Bill 2022. I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the Hon. Tammy Franks for her advocacy across a number of things that she and I believe in very deeply, such as live music and medicinal cannabis and other things.

Unfortunately, we will not be supporting the bill today as the opposition, but I do not pretend that the status quo on cannabis is perfect or beyond review, and I can see that there are many opportunities in a rational health-based approach, including legislation under the right framework at the right time and with the right safeguards.

Again, the Hon. Tammy Franks, you have been a great friend and I will miss you. With that, I seek leave to insert the rest of my speech in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

The bill before us today would legalise and regulate the sale, supply, advertising and production of cannabis for recreational use by adults. It would create a licensing agency, issue commercial licences for production and retail, set rules for labelling and packaging, restrict advertising and give the minister wide powers to appoint authorised officers and enforce a new range of offences.

Schedule 1 would amend the Controlled Substances Act to carve out activity that is lawful under this new scheme.

On paper, that looks 'comprehensive'. In reality, it is a very large step with far-reaching consequences, without the groundwork that other jurisdictions have spent years doing.

Let us look quickly at that experience.

Canada legalised recreational cannabis nationwide in 2018. By 2023 the sector was valued at around $10.8 billion, up from $6.4 billion when non-medical use was first legalised.

Legalisation has reduced cannabis-related arrests and shifted many consumers into a regulated market. Adult use has increased, but use among 15 to 17 year olds has not risen, which suggests some success in keeping legal supply to adults.

In parts of the United States, such as Colorado and Washington State, legalisation has brought strong tax revenues and economic gains. A recent study found that early legalising states collected higher marijuana tax revenues and saw increases in GDP, jobs and house prices.

So the 'for' case is real. A legal market can reduce arrests, shrink the illicit trade to some extent, raise revenue and create jobs.

But the 'against' case is just as real.

Evaluations from Colorado, using federal and state road safety data, show that after recreational marijuana was legalised, traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for marijuana increased by about 109 per cent, from 55 deaths in 2013 to 115 in 2018, while all traffic deaths increased by around 31 per cent.

The presence of THC does not prove causation, but the trend should give any transport minister pause.

International reviews report more emergency department visits for cannabis-related problems, including psychosis, in jurisdictions that moved to full legalisation.

In Canada, hospitalisations linked to cannabis among older adults have risen sharply, and an Ontario study found that people needing acute care for cannabis-related problems had a higher later risk of dementia, although the causal links are still being studied.

In Uruguay, the first country to regulate recreational cannabis nationally, the system is deliberately restrictive and built around public health. Adults can grow at home, join cannabis clubs or buy through pharmacies, but advertising is banned and the state controls price, potency and supply. Progress has been mixed. The framework exists, yet supply has often been limited, pharmacy participation patchy and a large share of users still rely on the illegal market.

So legalisation has clear benefits, but also clear costs. The research is still evolving and serious public health experts argue for careful design, not a rush to roll out a commerciaI market.

Here in Australia we have our own experiments.

South Australia has long used expiation notices for simple cannabis offences, and the Northern Territory has a similar infringement scheme, so many low-level cases are dealt with by fines rather than full criminal proceedings.

The Australian Capital Territory goes further. Since January 2020, adults in the ACT can possess up to 50 grams of dried cannabis and grow up to two plants per person, four per household, for personal use.

Supply remains illegal, public use remains illegal and drug driving remains illegal. A statutory review in 2024 reported that possession charges fell sharply and stayed low, and there has been no clear surge in problematic use so far, though the data window is still short.

Nationally, the Alcohol and Drug Foundation has called for decriminalisation of personal possession and use within a public health model that focuses on treatment and harm reduction and uses strict rules to protect young people.

New South Wales and Victoria have both held major inquiries. The NSW inquiry recommended decriminalisation and, in time, a regulated legal market for adult use.

In Victoria, a recent inquiry into a bill for personal adult use made a series of recommendations, but the Allan Labor government has rejected legalisation ahead of the 2026 election.

At the federal level, a Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 was examined and then defeated in the Senate late last year.

So South Australia is not operating in a vacuum. Other jurisdictions are moving cautiously, mainly toward decriminalisation and limited personal use, not full commercial markets.

Looking at this evidence, I draw a few conclusions.

One, criminalising low-level users has not stopped cannabis use and has pushed many people, often young men, into the justice system with little benefit to safety.

Two, a legal market can bring revenue and some order to a messy situation, but if it is built around a profit-driven commercial model it tends to increase heavy use and harm.

Three, if you are going to move, the safer path is a staged public health approach: fix medicinal cannabis first, modernise driving and planning laws, consider decriminalisation and diversion, and only then look at any broader regulatory model.

That brings me to the unfinished business on medicinal cannabis.

Medicinal cannabis was legalised federally in 2016. On 10 March 2023, this Parliament established the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Legalisation of Medicinal Cannabis in South Australia.

It called for submissions, took evidence and in September tabled an interim report with 13 recommendations, including changes to the Road Traffic Act and reforms to support legitimate medicinal cannabis businesses.

One key recommendation was to deal fairly with medicinal cannabis patients who are currently at risk of losing their licence simply because of a positive THC test, even when they are following medical advice. Those are practical reforms. They would help real patients now. They would support legitimate industry now.

But to date, we have not had a response from Government.

So before we race towards a full recreational model, we should finish the homework on medicinal cannabis and the Government should respond to the committee's recommendations.

For all these reasons, the Liberal Opposition will oppose the Cannabis Legalisation Bill 2022.

We oppose it because it asks South Australians to take a very large step without proper government advice from Health, SAPOL, D IT, Treasury and others.

We oppose it because the international evidence is mixed and still emerging. There are clear benefits, but also serious health and road safety concerns that this bill does not fully address.

We oppose it because a private member's bill is not the right vehicle for such a far-reaching change.

I am open to a more rational, health-based approach over time. Many in the community are open to that conversation. But any reform must be careful, staged and evidence-driven.

The Hon. T.T. NGO (18:04): I rise to speak on behalf of the government, who are opposed to this bill. While the intention to legalise cannabis may be well-meaning, the bill before us has some significant issues. This bill makes a substantial departure from the current approach to cannabis regulation. Whilst the ACT has legalised the personal use, possession and cultivation of a small amount of cannabis, in all other Australian jurisdictions cannabis is considered a controlled substance.

The legal framework in place today reflects decades of public health research, intergovernmental cooperation and carefully balanced harm minimisation principles. Beyond the policy shift itself, this bill also contains operational flaws. Most notably, there is no commencement clause. Without a delayed or staged implementation date, the bill would commence the moment it received assent. This would mean the new regulatory agency, the licensing schemes, the compliance framework and the associated IT and administrative systems would all be expected to exist from day one. The establishment of a new statutory agency, essential data systems and enforcement mechanisms all require significant lead time.

Although it is important to acknowledge harm minimisation strategies and emerging evidence about medicinal and therapeutic cannabis use, this government believes that full legalisation rushed through without adequate planning or coordination could complicate the way in which cannabis is controlled across this country. For that reason, the government opposes this bill.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Ngo says no.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (18:06): I rise for possibly the last time in this place to thank those members who have made a contribution: the Hon. Ben Hood, the Hon. Rob Simms and the Hon. Tung Ngo. I note that this is a bill to legalise cannabis, something that has been done in many jurisdictions around the world now. I note, for example, that in Canada it has been in place for some period of time. Indeed, poll after poll shows conservative and liberal/progressive voters alike support its legalisation and know that it is doing good for their economy.

It also breaks the criminals' business model. It is high time we legalised cannabis. If the government had a problem with the commencement clause, they could have moved an amendment. It is pretty simple, and also it is completely within the control of the government in the other house to decide whether or not the bill got through, in what form it got through and when it would then commence. I find that a really spurious argument to pull out, but I will take heart that that means that they did not really have much else to offer in terms of constructive criticism.

I want to thank Jamnes Danenberg, my staffer, who has put a lot of time into this issue over decades, and who I first met when he was working on the hemp campaign and running for parliament in various guises and supporting the HEMP Party. He and Jessica Nies, who is the current lead candidate for the Legislative Council for Legalise Cannabis SA, are certainly among many people who have exercised their vote in support of legalising cannabis across this country.

We have seen members in the upper house in parliaments in Australia—in WA and New South Wales, and moves in Victoria as well—and we may well see a Legalise Cannabis candidate come into this place unless we see a change in the attitudes of Labor and Liberal to legalising cannabis. Why? Because people know it is actually a sensible, commonsense approach. Prohibition has failed.

If you want to put money in the pockets of criminals through a drug that many people use and you want to continue to see it unregulated and made more unsafe, then you will continue to make it criminalised. If you want to break the criminals' model, if you want to allow patients to access affordable medication in an easier way, you will look at legalising cannabis. If you want to pay for the education—say higher education—of all of the eligible people in South Australia, as a state in the US has done, you could do it, as they have done, by legalising cannabis and using the tax money to go into education.

We have a lot of social services that are in need of funding in this state. We have a population that is ready for this debate to be held in an informed, adult and mature way. Adult use of a drug that was once lawful, that is less harmful than alcohol, should be something that is within our wits to debate and come up with a model to make it work to benefit the state, to benefit people who are currently criminalised and to ensure that we actually are providing a way to break that criminal business model.

With that, I do believe it is not a matter of if, but when. If South Australia were to act first, we would have that advantage of being the first mover, where there would be money to be made and there would be lives to be made better should we legalise cannabis. I seek leave to insert the rest of my remarks in Hansard.

Leave granted.

I rise to conclude my remarks about the Cannabis Legalisation Bill before the house today. As I have said before – it is high time cannabis was available made in a regulated and legal fashion for adults instead of leaving its cultivation, supply and distribution to the black market and organised crime.

Since I first came to this place we have seen significant reform – indeed reforms that many people thought would never happen around cannabis and hemp – for indeed that is the plant that we are talking about – Cannabis sativa – known for many years as Indian Hemp, (or to others as the 'Weed with its roots in Hell' as the 'Reefer Madness' propaganda film of the 1930's termed it).

Of course, cannabis does have a much longer history than the last hundred years – indeed its roots stretch back millennia—some historians and anthropologists consider it may have been one of the first cultivated plants, others note its potential role in the transition from hunter gatherers to sedentary farming cultures… in any case in the last decade we have seen a massive realignment of societal and legal attitudes to cannabis – across Australia and across the globe.

Here in South Australia we legalised the cultivation and utilisation of hemp for industrial purposes back in 2016. Industrial hemp, that is Cannabis sativa bred to have a very low psychoactive THC content of less than 1%, can now be grown by South Aussie farmers and used for all manner of products, whether for its strong and useful fibres, that can be spun into thread and tuned into durable and soft fabrics, or harvested for its hurds that can be manufactured into building products such as fibreboards, insulation or hempcrete, or utilised for its nutritious seeds and oils for foodstuffs or fuels.

The utilisation of cannabis as a medicine has also been possible in South Australia and nationwide since 2017. The only question is why it took us so long to officially acknowledge the multiple benefits this unique plant can offer. Sufferers of serious and debilitating conditions as varied as juvenile epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, anxiety, Crohn's Disease, nausea associated with chemotherapy, chronic pain and many, many other conditions are given hope through the prescribed use of a substance with remarkably few side effects – aside from in some cases the psychoactive high that recreational cannabis users seek.

The personal use of cannabis – whether for recreational purposes, self-medication, spiritual enlightenment or philosophical or psychonautical experimentation remains prohibited in South Australia – unless of course you are a medicinal cannabis user.

This quasi-legal pathway has developed recently and has allowed many tens of thousands of people to legally access cannabis – if of course they have a medically recognised condition that warrants it.

For those that don't they are forced to resort to illegal sources of supply – whether it is growing their own or purchasing cannabis from a black market source. Whilst this can often be a benign transaction from a trusted friend, all too often it is from a contact associated with organised criminality – for whom the massive profits engendered are re-invested in other far less benign substances or activities.

The need to break the nexus between cannabis and organised crime is one of the main drivers for this bill. Another comes down to a simple human rights and social justice argument: why should one substance like cannabis used by some people be illegal and others like tobacco or alcohol with far more serious health implications used by other people be legal?

All are drugs, all have effects, side effects and health impacts. What our black and white legal framework fails utterly to recognise however is that the legal status of a substance has very little, if anything, to do with its propensity for actual harm.

Whilst anyone can drink themselves to death in a single session with relative ease (even experienced drinkers sadly) there is no record anywhere of anyone dying from an overdose of cannabis.

Of course, this raises many questions – if cannabis does not have serious and significant health impacts then why is it cannabis is illegal?

Now to clarify, this is not to say cannabis is harmless, or its use has zero consequences for everyone – indeed for some people who are genetically predisposed to it – cannabis may unmask or trigger unwanted and distressing psychotic episodes. Cannabis is certainly contra-indicated for people with a family history of schizophrenia in particular, although it must be noted, alcohol and other drugs are also of great concern in this regard.

The greatest harms that cannabis has though for the vast majority of users are as noted by the Sackville Royal Commission in 1979:

'The biggest risk to cannabis users' health, wellbeing and long-term life opportunities, are the consequences of legal proceedings in the criminal justice system'.

We in this place are fortunate – few of us have had to deal with the police stopping us, searching use or raiding our homes on the pretext of uncovering or detecting cannabis usage or cultivation, but for many, many thousands of South Australians, this is a reality they deal with on a daily basis.

Now South Australia led the way with its Cannabis Expiation Notice (CEN) scheme in 1987 and while there is no one left in this place that was involved in the passage of that legislation – the last member being the Hon Rob Lucas (who incidentally cast the deciding vote in favour of the scheme) the consequences of that reform have been far reaching.

While the clear intention of the scheme was to remove cannabis users from the criminal justice system the ease with which police could issue CENs and a seeming lack of understanding of the consequences of the failure to expiate, meant many, many thousands of South Australians still received criminal convictions for small scale personal use or cultivation offences.

Extensive evaluations of the CEN scheme have been conducted both locally and nationally, and while the CEN made enforcement easier it did not substantially alter or impact patterns of usage – indeed some jurisdictions with total prohibition approaches such as WA had higher rates of reported use – so there was no opening of the floodgates as some had catastrophically predicted.

This is significant because it supports research from other places too such as the Netherlands that has long had a tolerant approach to cannabis use and demonstrated that it is possible to relax restrictions on cannabis without necessarily increasing the rate of use.

Closer to home this is also reflected in the ACT's experience. Decriminalisation of the cultivation and possession of small amounts of cannabis was allowed from 2020 onwards with usage of cannabis in the ACT having remained stable. In fact, according to the Australian Institute for Health & Welfare's (AIHW) National Household Drug Survey 2023 at just 8.7% who have used cannabis in the previous 12 months, it is lower than the rest of Australia.

So let's take a step back and first acknowledge that our legal approach to drugs of all kinds must be research and evidence based; it must be in sync with community expectations, and it must have the support of the broader community.

Our current legal approach to cannabis fulfils none of these criteria.

Increasingly community values are moving away from 'Tough on Drugs' rhetoric and policies. Public opinion clearly does not support punitive sanctions, nor aggressive law enforcement aimed at cannabis users or growers.

The AIHWs National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2023 show that is still the case with more people supporting legalisation of cannabis for personal use (45%) than opposing it (33%). This was also the first time that more people supported legalising cannabis for personal use than supported increased penalties for the sale or supply of cannabis (39% in 2022–2023), reflecting a continuing trend in public views towards cannabis becoming more positive with only a tiny fraction (~5%) supporting prison sentences.

It is therefore essential we separate the arguments about morals from the arguments about facts and the efficacy of policy. This is not a contribution to a moral debate about cannabis and whether it is 'right' or 'wrong'. We must face facts, and the facts are that the prohibition of cannabis serves to actively promote, not prevent, cannabis use in Australia.

The current laws on cannabis have failed by every criterion. cannabis is overwhelmingly the most used illicit drug, with literally millions of Australians having tried, used, or currently using cannabis.

National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2023's Snapshot of Cannabis use in 2022-23 among people aged 14 and over in Australia has some salutary statistics highlighting some 41% or 8.8 million people had ever tried cannabis sometime in their lives. Some 11.5% or 2.5 million people had recently used cannabis (ie within the last 12 months).

So, when over 40% of Australians could theoretically be considered to have committed a crime or be actual criminals under our current laws, it's fundamentally obvious governments should refocus their approach and prioritise dealing with cannabis use as a health issue first and foremost and not a criminal justice problem.

To recap, this bill does that and provides a way forward. It establishes a legal market, which legalises the use, possession and cultivation of cannabis for adults and is designed to end the black market monopoly over the cultivation, supply, and distribution of cannabis to anyone – including children.

This bill would establish an SA Cannabis Licensing Agency to oversee and regulate the cannabis market with the overarching aim of harm minimisation and ensuring compliance with conditions of what would be commercial licences. It will be safer.

It will separate the markets between so-called 'hard' drugs (substances that often have far more serious if not potentially lethal side effects such as opiates) and drugs such as cannabis that are relatively benign for most users.

It will undercut and undermine the black market and re-direct hundreds of millions of dollars of currently tax-free sales into a regulated, taxed system that can be used to support health, education and welfare initiatives for people in need, instead of being spent buying bling for bikies.

It will ensure that those cannabis consumers—and let's acknowledge that we are potentially talking about many hundreds of thousands of people who use or have used cannabis illicitly—most typically between the ages of 18 and 60, but some younger and some older—have access regulated products of known potency, with no adulterants or contaminants as can sometimes be the case with black market sourced products.

It will require cannabis products to be labelled with health warnings and information about the strains—for example, the THC or CBD contents and will make provisions for health, harm reduction and education information to be provided at point of sale.

It will prohibit those retailers who would participate in this industry from publicly promoting or advertising cannabis. It will provide a strong deterrent to keep cannabis out of the hands of minors, and it will prohibit retail cannabis outlets being operated within 200 metres of schools or childcare centres.

It will reduce the demand on police resources that we currently put towards the so-called 'War on Drugs' that is in reality a war on people, especially indigenous people, minority groups and young people. It will free up court resources and allow redirection of resources into services that will allow users to seek assistance if they have problematic usage without the fear of police interdiction or stigma.

It will create new literally green industries for our state in the production and distribution of products which will in time perhaps come to develop benefits in terms of tourism too, in the same way our wine industry has developed a world class reputation for price and quality.

While this bill creates legitimate pathways for commercial supply and distribution it also recognises the need to allow consumers to grow their own, with up to six cannabis plants being permitted, with more possible on compassionate grounds. This is analogous to the home brewing of beer and similar to home brewed alcohol the on-selling of home-grown products would not be permitted.

This bill also looks at the harm that our previous approaches have caused through the many thousands of criminal convictions that have been issued and recognises the sometimes-devastating impacts that those convictions have had on peoples' lives, their careers, their relationships and their travel opportunities – impacts way out of proportion to the harms they may have faced from experimentation of even regular use of the cannabis itself.

The time for expungement of past criminal convictions for minor cannabis offences is also long overdue.

To conclude, I'd like to reiterate this bill is based on extensive research, a sound evidence base, a commitment to harm reduction, human rights and social justice. It is a deliberate and intentional shift from war on drugs rhetoric, and zero-tolerance approaches that in reality cause more harms and actively worsens individual and societal outcomes, towards a common-sense approach that deals with the reality of life and drug use as it actually is, not as we may wish it may be.

I can certainly say I will be taking this to the state election as a key reform that the next parliament should enact. I hope members will be interested in continuing this conversation, and there are many and varied ways to do that.

As I've noted previously, in the past, when things have been too morally difficult, we have referred things off to SALRI, and that is an option here. We have seen the Crime and Public Integrity Policy Committee call for further work and investigation and, should it happen, that work on the use of cannabis in this state and ways of breaking the business model of serious and organised crime should be cross party. One would imagine that we could do our heavy lifting as a parliament, as well as then perhaps draw on bodies such as the Productivity Commission, as the Queensland government has done.

This is not an intractable issue; this is an issue of opportunity.

I was very heartened last year that the parliament of South Australia's Crime and Public Integrity Committee, and their work on organised crime, has identified what many of us already know; that the legalisation of cannabis does actually need to be addressed if we are to tackle organised crime. The committee there recommended, and I quote 'the establishment of a parliamentary committee to inquire into and report on potential benefits and issues associated with the legalisation of recreational use of cannabis in South Australia'.

That committee also recognised the potential revenue to the state and the 'potential to significantly disrupt the activities of organisers involved in serious crime'. By ending this war it is a win-win. We take away the business model of organised crime and we help people, particularly medicinal cannabis users, to have a better quality of life.

The benefits of legalising cannabis are clear: It takes money from the pockets of organised crime and it puts it in the hands of government to be redirected into socially useful pursuits. Rather than spending money chasing down users of cannabis we can actually put that money towards healing our sick health system.

We can prevent health issues arising by putting that money into health prevention and education. We can also, as I say, drive people away from the criminal justice system.

It's high time we legalised cannabis in South Australia.

I will not be dividing; I am not going to put you through that right now. I know that this is the last thing on the agenda, and I know that people are trying to now juggle many things, but I hope that this is not the last time that this chamber debates this issue, and I look forward to more considered debates than ones that dwell on a commencement clause.

Second reading negatived.