Nicholas Cowdery, a former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, told an NSW parliamentary inquiry on August 1 that action was needed now to decriminalise cannabis use.
He said most people using cannabis “lead ordinary lives and do not experience drug dependency”.
Cowdery, a former president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) said it had long believed that criminal law is “ill-suited to deal with drug use in the community”.
Every year in NSW more than 700,000 people “from all walks of life” use cannabis, Cowdery said.
“There is consistent evidence that decriminalisation doesn’t encourage cannabis use or increase cannabis taking in the community,” he said, adding that decriminalisation “may have the opposite effect” as more people access advice, support and treatment if they need it.
People with problematic drug use needed a health and social support response rather than a criminal justice one, he added.
Commenting on NSW Labor’s recent drug summit announcement, he said it was good to see it honour an election promise but “we need action now”.
The NSWCCL is concerned that the “unacceptably high level of First Nations people in custody” and the over-policing of First Nations people means that will not change without a new approach to drug laws.
The average imprisonment rate of First Nations people in NSW is 1839 for each 100,000 people — almost 14 times the rate for non-First Nations people.
Statistics from last year show that NSW police are more likely to pursue charges for minor cannabis offences if the person is First Nations: 43.9% of non-First Nations people were cautioned, compared with 11.7% of First Nations people.
“The appalling overrepresentation of First Nations people in the criminal justice process in comparison to the general population is a crisis that successive governments have lumped into the too-hard basket,” Cowdery said.
“Burdening the courts with the resulting charges is a waste of public resources and has a detrimental effect on thousands of First Nations People and their families in NSW each year.”
Cowdery said “closing the gap on this appalling disparity” means leaders must focus on harm-minimization and community-led solutions.
“The community experiences little benefit from the attempt to reduce the prevalence of a substance that remains so widely available, despite its illegality. An anomalous situation exists whereby cannabis, an arguably less dangerous drug, is illegal and more dangerous drugs such as tobacco and alcohol are legal and regulated.”
The NSWCCL cited the latest national drug strategy household survey which found that support for the legalisation of cannabis has increased to 45% and the proportion of people who say that possession of cannabis should not be a criminal offence reached an all-time high of 80%.
NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns said on July 1 he would not decriminalise cannabis, claiming this was an election commitment.