NSW Greens to Legalise Recreational Cannabis, and Overhaul Drug Driving
The shift towards legalising and regulating the adult use of cannabis is picking up momentum across the planet. And this global trend incorporates a few key truths: that the plant is fairly innocuous, criminalising people for its use is redundant...
Victorian Medical Cannabis Driving Reform Likely: Interview With Legalise Cannabis MLC David Ettershank
Right now, medicinal cannabis driving reform looks like it will progress through Victorian parliament, which involves an amendment that many progressive politicians have tried to see enacted in various Australian mainland jurisdictions in the past to no avail. Cannabis medicine...
NSW Parliament to Consider Medicinal Cannabis Defence to Drug Driving
“The current outdated roadside drug testing laws have very real impacts on the people of NSW, who should not have to choose between being in pain and losing their jobs,” said NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann in relation to people...
Man Suspected of Drug Driving Dies in Police Custody
A 25-year old man from the South West Slopes region of New South Wales has died after being arrested over suspicions of drug driving. The case has raised concerns about whether police officers are adequately trained when it comes to...
NSW Considers Medical Cannabis Driving Defence: Interview With Former Magistrate David Heilpern
The Turnbull government legalised medicinal cannabis use in 2016, along with the lawful cultivation, manufacture and distribution of it. But, six years on, and drivers who use the medicine continue to be penalised for having traces of it in their...
Road Fatalities on the Rise Despite COVID Lockdowns
Despite Covid lockdowns right across the country for large chunks of last year and the year before, road fatalities are on the rise. The pressure is now on governments at both the state and federal level to reassess road safety...
The Need for a Medicinal Cannabis Driving Defence: An Interview With Former Magistrate David Heilpern
The NSW government introduced the state’s much maligned drug driving laws in 2007. The regime criminalises any trace of the psychoactive component of cannabis, THC, in the system whilst driving. The federal government, however, legalised the use of medicinal cannabis...
The New Offence of Combined Drink and Drug Driving in New South Wales
Driving under the combined influence of alcohol and other drugs has long been understood to compound the dangers of impaired driving. A drink and drug driving incident involving the roadside deaths of four children in the Sydney suburb of Oatlands...
SA Police Advertise That Drug Driving Laws Target the Unimpaired
Random breath testing (RBT) for alcohol was introduced across Australian jurisdictions in the 70s and 80s. These laws succeeded in not only significantly reducing road fatalities, but, as a 2017 paper put it, they turned “a common practice” into a...
Charged with Drug Driving? Have a Cannabis Prescription? Speak to Former Magistrate David Heilpern
Former NSW Magistrate David Heilpern is on a mission. It entails bringing about substantial reforms to the unjust roadside drug testing regime that’s currently operated by NSW police and only being bolstered by the Berejiklian government. The first change Heilpern...
