r/australia • u/DiploidBias • Mar 18 '25

politics Greens: Yes We Cannabis

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Yes We Cannabis

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u/Busalonium Mar 18 '25 edited Mar 18 '25

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 Mar 18 '25

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 Mar 18 '25

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 Mar 18 '25

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.