Senior federal ministers show a critical disposition towards ACT’s act of legalizing the cultivation, trade, and usage of Cannabis for adults from early 2020.
Christian Porter, Federal Attorney-General, is still to respond to the law. The ACT dispatched two notices regarding the regulations by the Commonwealth. The first notice, from Gorden Ramsay, the Attorney-General, was a caveat for Mr. Porter regarding an uphill battle for the legislation.
Mr. Ramsay wrote,
“The Act has been passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly as a self-governing body with the authority to make laws for people of the ACT.”
“I reiterate my previous advice that this legislation expresses the will of the ACT people and convey my deep concern should the Commonwealth seek in any way to overrule and intervene in the democratic processes of the ACT.”
Commonwealth possesses the potential to knock out the rules laid down by the ACT along with the Northern Territory parliament, and it is likely that it would. The last it did was in the year 2006, during Howard government’s toppling of the ACT’s ruling to acknowledge close civil allies between same-sex couples like marriage.
The recent ACT law clashes with laws of Commonwealth prohibiting the harbor of cannabis, which is something Mr. Porter said would be closely scrutinized.
Although, Mr. Ramsay in the note says that there had been prior provisioning under Commonwealth law that let the ACT law to be exercised without an issue.
He also suggested that federal authorities must give time in solving more grave matters than cannabis possession.
Mr. Ramsay wrote,
“I trust that the time and resources of our federal police and courts will not be wasted pursuing individual cannabis users who are acting in accordance with ACT law.”
In another letter, Andrew Barr, the chief minister, wrote to federal Health Minister Greg Hunt in response to his demand for evidence that the ACT utilized as a rationale for its law.
Mr. Hunt highlighted his profound concerns around the decision by ACT last week, sending a list of analytics and measures regarding the risks of marijuana intake.
Me Barr, in return, said that,
“The ACT Government does not dispute that cannabis use can have adverse effects on personal health and well-being.”
He wrote,
“It is the Government’s view however that the outright prohibition of cannabis is of limited, and often negative, effect when seeking to reduce the harms caused by cannabis use. The health risks you have outlined, and which the Government is aware of, already exist for the 8.4 per cent of Canberrans that have reported using cannabis in the previous 12 months.”
Now, it is still to find out what turn this move by the ACT government takes when it comes to Cannabis illicit usage. To keep yourself updated with any news regarding Cannabis or related matters, stay tuned at CBD Cannabis.