Australians ponder over whether marijuana use should be decriminalised
AUSTRALIANS are deeply divided over the controversial issue of drug use following a new proposal to decriminalise the use of marijuana. Victoria's Drug Advisory Council, led by Dr David Penington, has recommended that possession of up to 25 grams of marijuana should not be considered an offence and that people should be allowed to grow five cannabis plants in their homes without invoking the wrath of the criminal justice system.
The radical Penington Report, commissioned by the state Premier Jeff Kennett, proposes milder legal penalties for drug use and recommends drug education as a basic part of the school curriculum.
In Victoria, possession and cultivation of marijuana is still illegal. In many cases, the police tend to warn people caught with small amounts of the drug, although they do have the power to arrest and charge them as well. This hinders the user's chance of getting travel visas to countries with stringent anti-drug laws, like Malaysia and the US. And big companies and some government departments avoid employing even minor drug offenders.
But while marijuana is acknowledged to be the most commonly-used drug, it does not pose a great danger to society. On the other hand, heroin users, who quickly become addicted to the potent drug, need to find quick money to feed their habit. Burglary of homes is quite a common crime committed by heroin addicts in Melbourne. The government says it is worried that marijuana users procure this hard drug through dealers who sell illicit drugs. And it is this transition from the use of 'grass' to heroin and cocaine that the state is most concerned about. The state parliament will meet at the end of May to discuss the issue.
바카라 웹사이트Many churches are in favour of the proposal as a way of keeping minor drug users out of jail. Some analysts have suggested that the state government has sparked the debate only because it has been accused in the past of ignoring social policy and putting too much emphasis on money matters.
According to the former health minister of South Australia, John Cornwall, although the move is a step in the right direction, it is still very hard to have an intelligent discussion about drug use with senior politicians. Says he: "I think politicians, generally of all parties, tend to be afraid of the drug debate. They tend to lag behind public opinion. I am not at all sanguine about where we are going with drug law reform in this country." Cornwall was responsible for decriminalising marijuana in South Australia in 1986. This meant that individuals caught with possession of small amounts of the drug would pay only $150 to the police—a method similar to that of a speeding fine. It was considered to be a radical step back then. Cornwall had hoped for further changes in drug law reform, but that did not happen. Instead, arrests for drug use in South Australia are reported to have gone up again after a gap of a few years.
The police in Victoria are opposed to the Council's proposal and feel that road accidents will increase if people are allowed to smoke cannabis. Police Association Secretary Danny Walsh was quoted in The Melbourne Age as saying that marijuana use would create "space cadets out there driving around killing people". But Penington believes banning marijuana makes no sense as the drug is widely used.
The 160-page report shows that the use of marijuana in Victoria is more than in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where it is possible to buy it in so-called coffee houses. Cannabis accounted for 29 per cent of illicit drugs used in Victoria as compared to 27 per cent in Amsterdam. According to Brown, "The usual bogeyman is that if everyone smokes the stuff there is going to be some sort of breakdown of the moral fabric, but we see from the comparison with the Netherlands that this is just not true."
바카라 웹사이트Unlike the Netherlands, the Penington Report does not include the possibility of being able to sell small amounts of soft drugs such as marijuana as a way of weeding out drug pedlars. Brown does not believe that the social climate in Victoria is one where this sort of liberal programmes would be acceptable. Agreeing with this, John Cornwall says: "The dreaded weed has always been the evil villain for right-wing forces in politics."바카라 웹사이트