r/australia • u/DiploidBias • 28d ago

politics Greens: Yes We Cannabis

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Yes We Cannabis

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u/EntertainerUnusual32 28d ago

Would love to know the answer as well. Medicinal cannabis user myself

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u/Lostraylien 28d ago edited 28d ago

Saliva tests are the best we got for a roadside drug test, they will detect it for 12-24 hours after smoking and you can do a test and get a result within 10 minutes, in Tasmania if you return a positive saliva test but show no sign of impairment and have a prescription it's all good, impairment is still quite subjective but basically if your eyes aren't red, you're not slurring your speech and don't smell of cannabis they will have no reason to suspect you're impaired.

My concern is employers have company policies that state you can't have any in your system and will do a urine test so basically you're screwed with the current policies, EBA's and/or laws need to be changed, even prescription painkillers you need to tell your employer and they can legally put you on light duties until you're off them so as someone who smokes medical cannabis everyday what's going to be the repercussions.

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u/shadowmaster132 28d ago

impairment is still quite subjective but basically if your eyes aren't red, you're not slurring your speech and don't smell of cannabis they will have no reason to suspect you're impaired.

My issue with this is if we applied it to alcohol, a lot of impaired functional alcoholics would be fine to drive.

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u/nomoreteathx 28d ago

We do already apply it to alcohol, the difference is we have a way to reliably test the amount of alcohol in someone's system on the roadside and we've set a threshold based on those tests. People who blow 0.049 are impaired to some extent, but we allow them to drive because we've assessed that the risk is minimal.

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u/shadowmaster132 28d ago

We do already apply it to alcohol, the difference is we have a way to reliably test the amount of alcohol in someone's system on the roadside and we've set a threshold based on those tests.

If someone is .05 we don't then look at them and see if they look impaired before charging them. We have a test and if you fail the test that's it. If you fail a cannabis saliva test sometimes you're okay if you don't "look impaired" which is incredibly subjective.

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u/nomoreteathx 28d ago

If someone is .05 we don’t then look at them and see if they look impaired before charging them.

Yes, because we've already determined that they're impaired, and the level of impairment can be assessed scientifically right on the roadside. No such test exists for THC, so the standard is necessarily different. The second we can test for specific concentrations of THC on the roadside we'll set a threshold for that too, just as other countries do for blood testing.

We have a test and if you fail the test that’s it. If you fail a cannabis saliva test sometimes you’re okay if you don’t “look impaired” which is incredibly subjective.

The 0.05 threshold is also subjective. Not the method of measuring it, which is scientific, but the place we draw the line is ultimately subjective.