by Dr Karen Broadley
In August 2023, Senator David Shoebridge (Greens) introduced his Legalising Cannabis Bill into the Australian Parliament. The purpose of the Bill was to legalise cannabis for adult recreational use in Australia.
A month later, in September 2023, the Senate referred the Bill to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by May 31, 2024. The Committee, after receiving 201 submissions and holding two public hearings, recently released its report.
The report recommends that the Senate not pass the Bill, due to the many ways in which legalisation would harm public health. Concerns about public health were raised by the Australian Medical Association (AMA), ourselves (the Drug Advisory Council of Australia) and many other organisations.
Many of our concerns echoed each other – that is, that legalisation would lead to increased public consumption, which would lead to an increase in serious and well-recognised harms to health. In its concluding remarks to the report, the Committee noted that legalisation for “recreational usage” “will undoubtedly lead to the establishment of genuine for-profit entities which will then invariably seek growth and profit as their key driver, which are inconsistent with successive government objectives to improve public health outcomes for the Australian population” (page 46).
It also noted
“Ultimately, the committee is concerned that the legalisation of cannabis for adult recreational use would create as many, if not more, problems than the Bill is attempting to resolve.” (p. 45)
This is an excellent outcome for those of us who believe in evidence-based policy and legislation, and value the safety, health and well-being of all Australians.
In this article, I explore key arguments made in submissions and by witnesses who were in favour of the Bill. These submissions and hearing transcripts are publicly available on the Australian Parliament website and provide us with a fascinating insight into the tactics that those who are in favour of legalisation use to deny, minimise and ignore the serious and well-recognised health harms caused by cannabis.
In a second article, I will debunk the claim (oft repeated throughout the Inquiry) that legalisation of cannabis would be a good thing because it would reduce the harms caused by the policing and imprisonment of individuals as a result of the war on drugs – and that ancillary crimes connected to the cannabis black market would also decrease.
The essence of the argument is that the legal harms that result from criminalising cannabis outweigh the health harms that would result from legalising cannabis.
Cannabis: Harms to Health
I have previously presented evidence to our News Weekly readers about the physical and mental health harms caused by cannabis use. This evidence, and evidence presented in our submission (submission No. 5) to the Legalising Cannabis Bill Inquiry included systematic reviews that find that:
- Cannabis use increases the risk of cardiovascular conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, and lung and other cancers.
- There is a link between cannabis use and a range of psychiatric disorders. This includes psychosis, even in healthy people.
- Frequent and dependent cannabis use in youth is associated with IQ decline.
- Pregnant women using cannabis are at increased risk of having babies with low birth weight, being small for gestational age and preterm birth. These babies can find it hard to feed and fight off infection. They are at a higher risk of neonatal death and chronic disease later in life.
- In many jurisdictions where cannabis has been legalised, there has been a resulting increase in children being hospitalised for accidental cannabis poisonings.
There is also consensus that, following recreational cannabis legalisation, many people equate the legal status of cannabis with its safety, and start to use cannabis, or use cannabis more often. This is found to be particularly the case with young adults, and perinatal users (during pregnancy and just after giving birth). There has also been found an increase in cannabis use disorder.
Arguments to Deny and Minimise Health Harms
Various tactics are used to contradict and diminish evidence that finds that cannabis harms human health. These tactics including cherry-picking evidence, providing no evidence, questioning the reliability of scientific evidence, and ignoring evidence.
Cherry-picking
Sometimes witnesses to the inquiry cherry-picked evidence to suit their argument. Senator Shoebridge, in the Brisbane Hearing (21 February 2024, p. 22) pointed to “very detailed Canadian data, which shows a significant reduction in people smoking cannabis once they legalised it”.
While this may be the case, there is a much larger body of evidence finding that cannabis use increases after legalisation. We pointed to this evidence in our (DACA) submission. The very recent “Canada’s Legislative Review of the Cannabis Act: Final Report of Expert Panel” (published in March 2024), which drew evidence from multiple sources and stakeholders, found:
“There is a concerning shift toward increased prevalence of cannabis use and increasingly potent cannabis products in the legal market, including dried cannabis, vaping products and infused pre-rolled joints (that is, products with high quantities or concentrations of THC).
As well, while the dramatic reductions in the price of cannabis seen over the past five years may be driven by economic forces, we worry that lower retail prices will likely contribute to increased consumption of cannabis and elevate the risk of cannabis-related harms (for example, addiction, psychosis, depression, anxiety).”
Making claims without evidence
Other witnesses provided no evidence for their claims. One of the expert witnesses at the Brisbane Hearing (February 21, 2024, p. 47) said:
“The enormous legal harms and burdens that are placed on people who use cannabis far outweighs the health risks and harms. Given that most people who use cannabis use very irregularly – just a handful of times a year – and only a very small proportion use regularly enough to have some of those significant health issues, that’s another thing that needs to be taken into account.”
There is no precision in this claim. What a “small proportion” is is not defined; nor is any evidence for this claim provided.
Questioning the reliability of scientific evidence
On other occasions witnesses questioned the reliability of evidence showing that cannabis use increases after legalisation and increases harms to human health. An expert witness for example, suggested that after legalisation, there only appears to be an increase in cannabis use, hospital presentations, cannabis use disorders and associated mental health harms (Brisbane Hearing, 21 February 2024, p. 4).
This individual said:
“What you’re getting is more people coming forward who have used cannabis and they were too fearful of entering the medical system or society more generally and indicating that they use cannabis for fear of prosecution. So, that has to be taken into account.”
Another expert witness at the same Hearing (p53) echoed this:
“When people look at – they say, ‘When you legalised cannabis, there’s an uplift in use’. Well, there’s an uplift in reporting because it’s no longer illegal for you to do what was formerly illegal.”
The fact is that researchers are well aware of the pitfalls of research methods involving self-report. So, wherever possible, researchers use other more reliable methods. For example, a systematic review undertaken by Wilson and Rhee (2022) indicating a post-legislation increase in cannabis use during pregnancy pointed to one study which used self-report and bio-detection. The study “found higher rates of use with umbilical cord testing than self-report (22 per cent versus 6 per cent)”.
The points to be made are hopefully obvious. First, that researchers are well aware of the limitations of self-report, and that, if they do use self-report, they acknowledge and factor these limitations into their research findings. Second, that researchers use more reliable methods (in this case bio-detection) whenever possible.
Ignoring evidence
In addition to denying and minimising health risks linked to cannabis use, Senator Shoebridge and allies virtually ignored some of the evidence presented regarding health harms. For example, they had nothing to say about research presented that, in many jurisdictions where legalisation has occurred, there has been a resulting increase in children being hospitalised for accidental cannabis poisonings.
Evidence about increases in hospital presentations arising from cannabis use by children was provided by the AMA (Brisbane Hearing February 21, 2024, p24).
We (DACA) raised these concerns in our submission (submission No. 5). We also referred to “Canada’s Legislative Review of the Cannabis Act: Final Report of Expert Panel”, published in March 2024, which stated that “increasing reports of poisonings among children who have unintentionally consumed cannabis, notably edible cannabis, were troubling”.
The legalisation supporters also had little to nothing to say about evidence finding that legalisation increases cannabis use during pregnancy – and that this poses significant risks to the health and safety of newborns. We raised this concern in our submission. The AMA and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) also raised these concerns.
The recommendation of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee against passing the Bill is a great victory for evidence-based policy and legislation in Australia. I hope News Weekly readers are greatly encouraged by this outcome.
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Karen Broadley (PhD) is an executive member of the Drug Advisory Council of Australia (DACA).
Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Adobe.
Excellent news. Thank you for reposting this. The mental health of countless Australians will benefit from the valuable work of Dr Broadley and the DACA.
Government housing, legalisation of cannabis & the unchecked NDIS creates the perfect conditions to control a docile, dumbed down public. Get them addicted to a substance. House, feed, entertain & pay them because of the health effects of that condition, watch the votes roll in. Aussies need to stay sober minded. There’s a nefarious political game afoot, and citizens are its pawns. It’s a permanent version of lockdown’s Bunnings, brothels, and bottle o’s.
As long as we deny, reject and/or ignore the existence of the living God, to whom we each must give a personal account one day, our society generally, and far too many individuals, will continue to slide into self-destructive candy-coated sinful indulgences.
Almighty God – YHWH is His name – has given us the Roadmap of Life, The Bible, which TELLS US what is good for us, and how to pursue a fulfilling, satisfying life.
If we don’t use The Bible, we will have no idea where we have come from, no idea why we are here, no meaningful purpose in anything we do, and no idea where our earthly life is leading us.
Pleasing philosophical pretends will never provide practical or perfect peace.
The Bible explains it sufficiently for ALL.
So it should be first in education at every level.
Our society is starving for the Word of Life.
Let’s continue to share it far and wide.
Especially at leadership level !