CANNABIS

ONE WAY OF reducing the costliness of cannabis prohibition to society is to
"decriminalise" cannabis use by issuing instant fines for minor offences,
thus reducing the burden on the police and courts. Unfortunately, because
decriminalisation is still a form of prohibition it has nearly all of the
drawbacks of total prohibition plus a few more of its own creation as is
evidenced by your article from the Sydney Morning Herald "Relaxed marijuana
laws exploited" ( ODT , 25.1.02).

Under decriminalisation, cannabis users are still punished and drug-tested,
they and their houses are still searched, and any cannabis and/or equipment
found is still confiscated. Recreational users still buy cannabis of
unknown quality from an unregulated black market, and the black market
gains access to that population. Furthermore, because of the vagaries of
South Australia's decriminalisation laws, the supply of cannabis
"relocated" from "Mr Big" to "Mr and Mrs Smalls" who in turn faced an
increased risk of violent home invasion. Cultivators for personal use were
fined while growing their plants but became criminals in terms of
possession when they harvested them.

The laws themselves also became a "political football" because they are
easily changed to suit each government's whim. It is significant that the
conservative Liberal government did not reinstate total prohibition but
simply reduced decriminalisation to the bare minimum of one plant grown
outdoors. Hopefully, our own Government will view South Australia's
decriminalisation folly as a precautionary tale, and instead make
meaningful law changes that tolerate cannabis use by adults and regulate
the cannabis supply through suitable outlets thereby undermining the black
market.

Jason Baker-Sherman

Dalmore