Tuesday, 21 June 2022

 Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (2002)

Incorporated pursuant to order of Council of 7 September 2021:

My adjournment matter is for the minister for road safety and relates to medicinal cannabis.

Last week the Premier posted on social media that medicinal cannabis ‘helps the most unwell Victorians. It can change lives. And it’s being manufactured right here’.

The Premier has previously stated that ‘the best argument in favour of medicinal cannabis is that it saves lives’.

As a state we have embraced medicinal cannabis as an industry and we recognise it as legitimate prescription medicine.

But the single biggest barrier to access is our driving law that does not distinguish between medicinal and illicit use.

I have introduced a bill on this issue. I saw that a government working group was established on this issue. But that has not helped the growing number of Victorian medicinal cannabis patients.

Under Tasmanian driving law, THC is seen as a prescribed and lawful drug and a person does not commit an offence if that drug was obtained and administered lawfully.

The fact that Tasmania has a legal defence for medicinal cannabis patients shows that it is not only possible, but that it is safe and reasonable.

So the action I seek is that the minister meet with his relevant counterpart from the Tasmanian government with the view to understanding how that government allayed safety concerns in legislating for this important reform.

We provide a defence in Victorian law for all other prescription medicines. It is time we stopped discriminating against medicinal cannabis patients and followed Tasmania’s lead.