A major shift towards the Legalize Cannabis Australia Party in this year’s federal election shows that support is growing among voters for drug law reform.
Party leader Bernie Bradley is now in competition with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson for the last seat in the Senate.
In Queensland, one in 17 voters put Legalize Cannabis Australia as their first preference.
Bradley, a lawyer for Noosa in the state’s Sunshine Coast region, said the move is gaining momentum across the country.
“This is no longer a marginal issue,” he said.
Bradley is a candidate for Pauline Hanson’s Senate seat. (new)
Bradley added that while not a drug user, he sees the detrimental effects of criminalizing cannabis on Australians and the medical benefits of the drug.
Cannabis was first criminalized in Queensland during the 1930s, and the drug became legal in the state for medicinal use in 2016.
In 2020, 23,000 cannabis-related arrests were made in Queensland, more than double the number of arrests for taking drugs to Victoria.
“There was only one man yesterday who pleaded guilty to possessing non-medical cannabis because, as his lawyer explained in court, the prescribed things could not be allowed,” Bradley said.
Bradley said the legalization of cannabis would facilitate access to the drug for medicinal reasons. (AAP)
Support for medical marijuana has grown in Queensland, with half of all medical cannabis prescriptions in the country issued in the state of the sun.
Vanessa Ward, a pharmacist at Releaf in Noosa, said the drug-related stigmas seem to be fading.
“In particular, older Australians are becoming aware of its use and effectiveness,” he said.
“Medicinal cannabis has no side effects and actually helps treat these conditions better than some of the prescription drugs.”
Half of all medical cannabis prescriptions in Australia come from Queensland. (Getty)
The growing popularity of the Legalize Cannabis Australia party suggests that we could be one step closer to decriminalization.
“I guess we should look at other jurisdictions in the world and see how they’ve gone,” a Queenslander said.
“It could be recorded, it could be regulated,” another said.
Bradley believes decriminalization would be a positive step forward across Australia.
“In those jurisdictions where it has been decriminalized, the sky has in fact not fallen,” he said.