The words ‘courageous’ and ‘Minns Labor government’ are not commonly used in the same breath. But with drug driving laws for medicinal cannabis users they have stared down the opposition, and are close to legislating the most sensible, safe, and progressive regime in the country. Prescribed patients must register, and do a course. Then they can drive with up to 50ng in their saliva, and if they exceed that level, the first three times there will be no penalty. Its far from a perfect solution – the registration carries fear of targeting, the course is superfluous, there is still a 24-hour suspension and the level is probably too low for some. But in the face of vociferous but ill-informed opposition from the shock jocks, conservatives, many medicos, and the NRMA the Bill will likely pass with support of the Greens and of course the Legalise Cannabis party. If you really want a good laugh listen to Rachel Merton (Lib) speaking against the Bill in the Legislative Council on 6 August 2026. It’s like the 1950’s on steroids.
Of course, if you are driving under the influence (meaning adversely affected), whatever the reading you will rightly still commit an offence.
The NRMA is perhaps the most surprising opposer – many of their members (like me) must have supported the Bill, and they have touted the most outrageous and inaccurate statements conflating causation and correlation like some illiterate conspiracy theorist.
But the real guts of this story is Queensland, where the reaction to proposed reforms around Australia has been reminiscent of oppositional defiance disorder. Despite having almost half of all prescriptions for cannabis in Australia, the Queensland government is going zero tolerance, imposing doubled minimum fines of around $5,000, mandatory prison terms, longer disqualification periods, even more testing, and a fast track detection system. The RACQ, just like their NSW cousins, are leading the charge for tougher penalties quoting the same tired old false figures, and strawman arguments.
The roads minister Brent Mickelberg gets the dumbest comment of the year award when he said that ‘60% of drug driving fatalities had THC in their system’ and that this proves ‘it is not safe to drive under the influence of THC’. What in heavens is a ‘drug driving fatality’?
I guess it is a fatality where there is any presence of a drug, and that more than half had THC in it. But you can see the sleight of hand. The impression he wants to give is that 60% of all fatalities are caused by THC which is absolute garbage. In fact, there has not been a single coronial finding, anywhere in Australia or the whole wide world which has concluded that compliant prescription cannabis use has caused a death.
The truth is that these provisions will cost lives in Queensland. We know that those who use barbiturates and benzodiazepines and many other prescription medicines are far more dangerously affected by these drugs than prescribed medicinal cannabis.
People will return to driving with those drugs, or just tired or sick or distracted by pain. There has been no increase in road toll as a result of medical exemptions in any of the many countries which have them. Tasmania has had a defence for a decade with no resultant rise in road trauma.
Australia devotes more police time to random THC tests than the rest of the world combined, and all those hundreds of thousands of tests impact on the ability to investigate real crime and proven road safety measures like hanging outside pubs and catching staggering drivers. The only people cheering on the Queensland provisions are big pharma, anti-drug zealots, the alcohol industry, misguided doctors, and the law enforcement establishment.
For those in NSW who get a prescription and live in our area things are going to get weird. It will likely soon be legal to drive to Tweed Valley Hospital but not to John Flynn, or the university or the airport. In fact, you may well end up in prison or fined to the poorhouse if you cross the border at all. Surely that’s not great for the Queensland economy and it is hard to think of any other turf (apart from daylight savings) where states have such divergent laws. Maybe we should put up warning signs at Tweed Heads? There’s a prize for the best design.
And to follow up from last month’s column, just when you think Trump cannot get more corrupt. Most of his economic announcements are made on his own Truth Social, a profit-making venture where he is the majority shareholder. These posts have huge implications for the stock market – you can see graphs of the impact that, say, a tariff announcement will have on a particular sector. But now, for a cool $100k per month, share traders can get exclusive eight-hour earlier access to these posts. And gain a real commercial advantage. In Australia we call that insider trading. In Tumpland it is kleptocracy. Sad times.
♦ David Heilpern is a former NSW magistrate and is now Dean of Law at Southern Cross University.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
