Greens Senator David Shoebridge has slammed Labor and the Coalition parties after they joined forces to vote down his bill to legalise adult-use cannabis yesterday.
The Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 would have allowed adult recreational use and paved the way for legal home grow of up to six plants and a commercial cannabis market across the country.
It would also have established the Cannabis Australia National Agency as a statutory body to register strains and regulate activities including growing and possessing plants, manufacturing and selling products, operating cafes, and imports and exports.
However, having been rejected by a senate committee in June, the bill hit the buffers yesterday after Labor and the Coalition parties blocked it from progressing beyond a second reading by 24 votes to 13.
Shoebridge, though, remained defiant in the face of the setback.
“We took a big step today from treating cannabis as part of the failing ‘war on drugs’ and instead putting forward a model that is safer, reduces harms and delivers for the millions of Australians who just want us to legalise it,” he said.
“The support for this bill across the community is enormous and it’s why we know cannabis legalisation in this country is inevitable.
“The Labor and Coalition parties joined together to try and hold Australia back in the 1950s by blocking this desperately needed reform.
“They keep pretending the war on drugs is working and that we all live in a world where drug use almost never happens – like the occasions when their own MPs are caught with drugs and swear it is a one off.
“Government data shows 8.8 million adult Australians have consumed cannabis. The Labor and Liberal parties are happy to call all of these people criminals. That’s a bloody disgrace.”
Writing on X (formerly Twitter), Shoebridge pledged to continue the fight.
“I promise you today the Greens will keep working until we legalise cannabis,” he wrote. “Adults should be able to choose if they want to have a brownie or a beer.”
