As calls for a date to be set for the promised NSW Drug Summit continue many locals questioned the costs involved in the recent cannabis busts taking place that saw loads of marijuana plants being loaded onto police vehicles at the Mullumbimby High School oval yesterday.
While the police media spokesperson was unable to say how many personnel or vehicles were involved in the raids they were accompanied by a police helicopter that flight path information indicates flew down the coast from Coolangatta Airport. It appears the helicopter went straight to known growing sites with hovering near Lennox Head, Talofa, Bangalow, and Cabarita. Other locals who were witnessing the activity estimated that there were approximately six land cruisers and 30 police officers involved in the raids assisted by the helicopter.
The locals called for police money to be spent more effectively on important police activities from domestic violence, theft and missing people rather than on ‘some plants growing out of the ground that will likely be legalised soon and can be prescribed for headaches’.
‘This is part of the cannabis eradication program that the police do all the time,’ a police spokesperson told The Echo.
‘If cannabis is located at a house or a few houses they wait until they have enough to conduct a burn so that they are efficient. It was local police involved in the cannabis eradication program.’
Decriminalisation supported
However, according to the 14th National Drug Strategy Household Survey, the majority of Australians do not support punitive action against people who use cannabis and support a health based response to the use of other drugs.
‘The majority of those surveyed believe that our first response to people who use all illicit drugs (excluding cannabis) should be referral to a treatment or education program; for cannabis, it was a caution or warning or no action at all,’ explained Alice Salomon, Uniting’s Head of Media and Advocacy.
‘The survey results strongly align with what we believed was already happening out there in the community. Today, more and more people believe that drug use and dependency should be treated by a health professional and not by a police officer or a court. These results tell us very clearly that the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use is broadly supported by Australians.’
The majority of Australians also support the ability for people to test their drugs at events like festivals and supervised drug-taking spaces.
‘Support for drug checking (64 per cent) and supervised drug consumption facilities (53 per cent), like Uniting’s Kings Cross Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) continues to grow with over half of respondents supporting both of these measures,’ said Alice.
‘The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) recently became the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise illicit drugs in small quantities. In NSW the EDDI – the Early Drug Detection Initiative – has come into effect. Formerly proposed by the Coalition government and recently adopted by the current government, this scheme is a bipartisan recognition that the 23,000 people arrested every year for drug use or possession in NSW (19,000 of whom go to court) would do better interacting with a health service, and in turn also free up police and court resources.
‘All of this reinforces again why we need the long-promised five-day Parliamentary Drug Summit in NSW. The sooner we get a date for this much-anticipated event, that mirrors the format of the successful 1999 summit, the sooner we can get closer to the critical reforms that must follow this first important step,’ Alice said.
“cannabis eradication program” Seriously!?
What brainiac thought up that one?
How about eradicating vitamin C, that’d be just as smart.
Unbelievable.
I can call up the Brunswick Heads dispensary and have my order of medical cannabis delivered by Aus post to my door and yet they are still continue with these raids since the 1970’s why because the gov can’t make any tax $$ from it and that’s the only reason they continue this every year at a massive cost to tax payers
Exactly, also they want their own chemicals put it in so it doesn’t work like the pure plant for medicinal reason’s otherwise big pharma won’t make their money. Wouldn’t want to give you something that works & doesn’t have side effects so you don’t need to buy another & another of their so-called cures. Plus the corrupt government don’t like competition.
Mark Standen was the former officer in charge of the cannabis eradication on the Nth Coast, obviously wiping out the harmless drug competition for organised crime. Meanwhile he was involved in importing the largest shipment of meth into the country for organised crime. https://www.smh.com.au/national/downfall-of-a-top-crime-fighter-standen-gets-22-years-for-drug-plot-20111208-1okca.html!
So how much confidence should we have in the real dangerous drugs and deadly drugs from real organised crime, that are destroying lives being eradicated instead of the unorganised harmless backyard stuff they waste so much time and money on? One year it was accidentally disclosed that the NSW Govt wasted a million dollars, just “policing” harrassing Mardi Grass with not a single arrest? But that would be crumbs compared to the millions being wasted on this charade? How much of this backyard hemp would be going to people using it for medical reasons, thats the question, no ones addressing?
Define stupidity; Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
Don’t criticise the police they are doing their job as directed. If you don’t want them doing that legalise it make the growers pay tax.
Why pay tax on something that can be as free as growing any other herbs and fruit and vegetables, flowers?
Why make them pay tax why not just let them grow it? You don’t pay tax on a tomato you grow yourself
I live in South Australia and I would like for cannabis to be legalised just think if it’s okay for the elitist people to use cannabis e.g Olivia?NJ fairs fair eh I have smoked cannabis since the late 70’s early 80’s and I would really like to be able to have a plant or two growing without being paranoid about the bill because I have had a motor vehicle collision in which I was thrown out of my car at the time I had a mini 4 people in the car yet I was the only person with any injuries a couple of cracked vertebrae in the base of my spine and I used to smoke cannabis to relieve my discomfort in my back and since then I have been involved in two motorcycle V car collisions which I was travelling home from work and has left myself with brain injuries and a dislocated L shoulder that has excess bone growth inside of left shoulder I don’t ride motorcycles anymore due to my balance isn’t as good as it could be therefore I have not had my motorcycle license reissued for my sake and my young adult children and their families but I will try to get back on again maybe a 3 wheeler ? I don’t work anymore due to my injuries I sustained I would really like to be able to grow my own so I’m not spending money buying it being on a Disability Support Pension 🤷♂️🤷♂️🙏🏻👌I would be happy to pay tax on anything that I grow wouldn’t be a huge crop 🤷♂️🙏🏻Tony is my birth name
It’s a Gift from God 🇻🇦for peak sake and grown in the ground I rest my case the revenue it could make for Government is diabolical there missing great opportunities especially in this area of these new alternative medicines 💊 is a understatement you only got to look at other countries and there going gangbusters with this initiative guaranteed!✈️
The major problem with cannibis is that it should not be smoked until you are 21. Cannibis will and does cause schizophrenia in those who smoke the drug while transforming from teenage into adult.
That’s why I want the government to change the laws on drinking alcohol and (now smoking cannibis) back to the age of 21 legal age. I’ll probably get backlash but don’t care it should be 21 when the brain is more developed.
Smoking anything harms human health and comes at a greater cost to community than eradicating it so weak humans can’t harm themselves.
I just can’t fathom how anyone can hold the argument to legalise the stuff when peer reviewed science tells how dangerous it is to smoke it.
If it was left to all those people that grow the stuff they would legalise everything lo ok king at the comments do you really think they just grow it for their own use if that was the case then the police would not have to raid the place the only thing sad about this is that don’t do it often enough
The THC In cannabis gets stored in the body fat for weeks, making the user a ticking time bomb should they skip a meal while driving on a public road.
I’ve seen a lot marijuana related mental illness that could have been avoided if the user simply obeyed the law.
As a tax payer I’m sick of paying taxes that go towards programs for treating users after they fail in life.
Marijuana use isn’t a victimless crime, and it shouldn’t be decriminalised to appease a user’s addiction.
Oh, it appears to be addictive, just ask the prisoners in our nations Gaols who’ve been using it for years.
Now that’s just not true . No further correspondence entered into .
All fun and games until someone that’s stoned driving and kills one of your kids
As usual the government,courts and police are out of touch with the community’s expectations .
Take a good look at a programe called “Canada is dying” on youtube.
Idiot trudeau legalized weed then hard drugs in Vancouver
The place is full of unproductive zombies.
Its a complete mess
Its a road you dont want to go down!
Overdosing on fentynal way out of control .
See the damage its doing in the US as well
Drugs are bad and illegal. I very much doubt the majority believes it should be decriminalised. More like those who live in the drug dens of Kings Cross and Nymbin.
If you don’t want the police to do their job then stop encouraging those who break the law.
Waste of time an money..omg can’t believe this crap is still going on…my stupid sibling grew 100 plants by the home driveway..cops visited so he said they were mine.. finally after 3 years of court crap ECT I was found not guilty .. wouldn’t have happened if marijuana was legal.. also most cops are overworked and or incompetent so they take the easy road and charge on hearsay..can ruin people’s lives…
“Most Australians support decriminalisation of marijuana!” Says who? Probably the stoner’s smoking it. Should never be legalised
You want to tax a plant I can grow for myself easily. The police deserve criticism. Stupidity is not acceptable. Everyone wants to forget that every pot grower charged and convicted now has a criminal record that ruins job opportunities. Weather or not they were selling it. Every person charged with possession has a criminal record once again… your precious police destroy innocent lives in this way. The harm they do in this and other ways is disgusting.
WTF… Who are these people writing these comments? Are they even local? I mean if you lived here you’d at least know how to spell Nimbin!
Rather than jump on social media for your fix of TRUTH® try, reading a little more. Cannabis has been proven to assist in our health in so many ways without anywhere near the harm or addiction levels of many pharmaceutical drugs. Processed sugar is far more addictive and bad for your health… start getting upset about that instead… that and bad fats will be what cripple our health sector.
In 2006 the State Gvt conducted an exhaustive study of all NSW teenagers by postcode. The Byron teenagers smoked the most Cannabis in the state while also having the states 3rd highest best mental health ( after two wealthy Sydney North Shore postcodes)