Australia’s Parliament Set To Vote On Marijuana Legalization Bill This Month

Lawmakers in Australia are set to vote later this month on legislation that would legalize marijuana for adults in the country.

“Epic news cannabis crew,” Sen. David Shoebridge, a Greens party member who’s leading the legalization effort, told followers on social media last week: “I’ve finally had it confirmed that Parliament will vote on the Greens legalising cannabis bill on 27 November this year!”

The proposal would legalize, regulate and tax cannabis at the national level, establishing the Cannabis Australia National Agency, or CANA, to license and oversee the commercial industry and maintain a national register of marijuana strains. Home cultivation for personal use, as well as home processing of edibles, would be explicitly allowed under the bill. It would also authorize the creation of cannabis cafes, where adults could use marijuana in a social setting.

Outreach to the public while crafting the bill, the Greens said in a report on the proposal, found “strong agreement that cannabis growing and sales should not be overly corporatized and agreement that big alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries should not control the industry.”

“The world is rapidly moving away from the damaging criminal and policing approach to cannabis,” the Greens report on the legalization proposal said. “Australia risks being left behind if we wait for piecemeal reform through the states and territories.”

Imagine this: Friday night, not going to a beer barn but instead kicking back at a cannabis café with a brownie, or unwinding with a few gummies on the couch. Sounds like just the vibe we need, right?

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) November 13, 2024

But Shoebridge’s legalization proposal faces opposition in parliament. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recommended in May that the bill be rejected. The panel’s report acknowledges some of the harms of criminalizing cannabis but also warns that ending prohibition would lead to a sharp rise in marijuana consumption that could carry health risks.

“On the basis of the evidence received by the inquiry, there are great risks involved in introducing a legal market for recreational cannabis use,” concludes the report, authored by Sen. Paul Scarr, a Liberal Party member. An analysis of recent survey results, it says, “indicates that over a million additional Australians would try cannabis if a legal recreational market were established.”

“The fact that the percentage of Australians who have indicated that they would try cannabis if a legal market were introduced has substantially increased over the last 14 years requires urgent policy consideration,” the report says. “Clearly, the potentially disastrous health consequences of cannabis use are not fully understood by the Australian public, including young Australians who are suffering emotional distress and are particularly vulnerable.”

The vote won’t be easy because the majors hate positive change. I mean seriously if that lot won’t join with us to fix the housing crisis, sort out the climate mess or stop war, let’s at least have some legal weed to deal with it all.

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) November 13, 2024

The 73-page legislative report on the bill notes that the Parliamentary Budget Office is forecasting that the proposal would generate about $28.2 billion in government tax revenue over the next 10 years if products were to be taxed at 15 percent or roughly $36.8 billion if the tax rate were 25 percent.

On social media, the Greens said further that the policy change “would direct billions from organized crime to local businesses and bold entrepreneurs bringing safe, high-quality cannabis products to us all.”

Despite the divisions between lawmakers on legalization, the Greens are optimistic, describing the current moment as “the best chance we have ever had” to advance the cause of ending cannabis prohibitition.

“We’ve got a mandate for change, a Federal Parliament that’s not tied to bad old state-based cannabis laws and Greens in the balance of power in the Senate,” says a party website about the cannabis proposal. “This is the best chance we have ever had so let’s get on with it!”

Currently the Greens control 11 of 76 seats in the Australian Senate.

Cannabis remains illegal federally in Australia outside of the country’s highly restrictive medical marijuana program, though some reforms have been adopted at the local level.

In the Australian Capital Territory, for example—which includes the national capital of Canberra and surrounding areas—a policy took effect in October of last year decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. That reform built on an existing marijuana decriminalization policy put in place years earlier.

In terms of other substances at the national level, the Australian government last year rescheduled the psychedelics psilocybin and MDMA to provide access to people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treat-resistant depression.

Placing the substances in Schedule 8 for therapeutic use under the country’s drug code allows psychiatrists who meet the required standards to prescribe the psychedelics. The drugs remain in the stricter Schedule 9 for unauthorized use.

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