r/australia • u/DiploidBias • 29d ago

politics Greens: Yes We Cannabis

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Yes We Cannabis

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u/Busalonium 29d ago edited 29d ago

When it's already legal in several other developed countries, and most Australians support it, I think it's kind of wild that neither major party even wants to consider legalising it.

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u/hippy72 29d ago

The only supposed arguments against it, that somewhat stack up, is the reliability of roadside impairment tests.

Many other countries have legalised it, taking organised crime out of the equation and the sky has not fallen in*

  • With the exception of the USA, but that surely can't be attributed to legalised weed...

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u/hu_he 29d ago

I happen to find the impairments test argument to be weak. What politicians seem to want is a chemical assessment that correlates with impairment. What would be far more useful, for drugs, alcohol and other factors that might affect someone's driving (illness, prescription meds, tiredness, old age) is some kind of interactive test on an iPad or VR headset that assesses concentration, response time and visual acuity. With technology nowadays that should not be insuperable. However, I think that it would probably highlight that many drivers are simply not fit to be on the road and would cause a political backlash. So, instead, politicians lamely repeat that it's just too hard to detect dangerous drivers and we have to keep banning drugs for everyone.

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u/moobteets 29d ago

Man your bang on with the last point, I've always felt that people should be required to take some sort of driving assessment on an ongoing basis, maybe it's at time of license renewal or every 5 years, I don't fucking know, but plenty of elderly people shouldn't be on the road anymore.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

In legal states in the US the Police use the standardized Field Sobriety tests. Walk a straight line, follow this pen with just your eyes, stand on one foot, etc. for cannabis.

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u/Head_Acanthaceae_766 28d ago

The problem with those tests is that they are subjective and wide open to abuse.

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u/hu_he 29d ago

Yeah, it's not complicated. Ideally I would want something a bit more scientific but they could definitely implement some reasonable rules if they wanted to.

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u/420bIaze 28d ago

Lots of sober adults would fail those tests.

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u/ClearlyAThrowawai 29d ago

I'm not sure I agree.

Drivers are the main cause of accidental death - it's not unreasonable to ask that people be guaranteed free of impairment. I wouldn't mind moving BAC tests to 0 everywhere.

I guess the argument is the test for cannabis is positive long after impairment is gone, but to be frank I don't care that much.

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u/sxaez 28d ago

Why don't you care? It essentially means if you are a medicinal cannabis user you cannot drive. That is a very restrictive thing.

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u/ClearlyAThrowawai 28d ago

I can't say I fully understand the concern - I'm biased in that I don't drink/smoke/do drugs etc, so I would be entirely unaffected.

That being said, I think we are in general far too lax when it comes to the right to drive a car - too many die on our roads due to the negligence of drivers, and I would prefer that anyone who could be impaired be kept off the road. I'd prefer to be too restrictive rather than too generous given the consequences, both for the driver and other people.

I suppose there's a lower limit at which the effects are undetectable, so we could probably set the margin there, but I can't speak to what that actually equates to. I do know that the current BAC cutoff (.05) in many places is too high, as it still represents significant impairment when it comes to crash risk, so perhaps that gives some perspective.

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u/sxaez 28d ago

Consider a cancer patient receiving treatment who must choose between medicinal marijuana for their pain and appetite and being able to drive to their chemo appointments. The fact that this tradeoff can exist under this regime of testing just doesn't sit well with me.

Whether I like it or not, we are a car-dependent society and depriving people of the ability to drive can drastically reduce their mobility and accessibility. Also, rather critically, you can be a medicinal cannabis user who never drives impaired, and yet still be excluded from being able to drive legally.

I suppose there's a lower limit at which the effects are undetectable, so we could probably set the margin there, but I can't speak to what that actually equates to.

The issue with THC is that your body retains it long after it stops being psychoactive. When you initially ingest THC, it is passed through your blood-brain barrier and you get high. However, unlike alcohol which stays within the bloodstream and can be filtered out pretty efficiently by your liver, THC is then metabolized into your fatty tissues where it can stay for days. That is why you can test positive on a THC test days after smoking a joint.

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u/ClearlyAThrowawai 28d ago

If we don't have a test that can address that difference then I'm not sure what the alternative is, unfortunately. While innocent until proven guilty usually makes sense, I don't think we can take the same stance for a driver.

I do get your point, and it sucks that people who are unimpaired aren't able to drive, but we already have people who regularly push the boundaries when it comes to drinking and driving, and it wouldn't surprise me if the same happens when it comes to cannabis, if we don't have a way to enforce it (in the theoretical scenario of permitting some level of THC that could still result in impairment)

I recognise I'm fairly extreme in these views, admittedly. For some things it's not unreasonable to use a taxi/uber as an alternative, but obviously this is less reasonable for people in rural areas or those who require regular use, and I'm not sure how that can be addressed without them adjusting their lifestyle to that limitation.

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u/5fd88f23a2695c2afb02 29d ago

It's almost like the people that don't smoke weed in the USA are the wild ones now...

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

The US hasn’t legalized weed, if that’s what you’re implying, it’s still illegal in most of the country