Penington Institute’s new research on the impact of Australia’s criminalisation of cannabis features in The Age – revealing that people with highest unemployment, least education and lowest income are targeted most for criminal charges.
In this feature article, Criminalising cannabis: How Australia’s war on weed hurts the poor, investigative reporter Clay Lucas highlights our data on cannabis prosecutions across Victorian councils.
“Australia’s criminalisation of cannabis possession does little to stop the drug’s availability, enriches crime gangs, and generates thousands of low-level offences among those who can least afford it,” Lucas writes.
The article also features insights from Penington Institute CEO John Ryan, who says current cannabis laws in Australia “for the most part simply generate thousands of arrests for low-level cannabis use and possession offences, which disproportionately impacts people in lower socio-economic regions.”
Ryan says the “sensible pathway” is a regulated adult-use cannabis market, which would help to manage cannabis use and “reduce the harms being shouldered by those we should be striving to help.”
Read the article, Criminalising cannabis: How Australia’s war on weed hurts the poor, published in The Age on 24 July 2024.
See our research paper, Cannabis Regulation in Australia: Putting community safety first.
