Please note: This is an extract from Hansard only. Hansard extracts are reproduced with permission from the Parliament of Tasmania.

MISUSE OF DRUGS BILL 2001 (No. 85)

Second Reading

Dr PATMORE (Bass - Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations - 2R) - Mr Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

Mr Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to enact modern legislation dealing with offences in relation to illicit drugs. At the present time the offence regime in relation to illicit drugs is contained in the Poisons Act 1971. This legislation has not undergone any general review since 1984. That act has the dual objectives of -

(a) regulating health care professionals in the legitimate drug industry; and

(b) criminalising the use, possession, sale, trafficking et cetera of illicit drugs.

The Government believes that it would be far more appropriate if offences in relation to illicit drugs were contained in a separate piece of legislation. This bill achieves that aim. The regulation of health care professionals in relation to drugs will continue to be subject to the provisions of the Poisons Act.

The bill applies to all controlled drugs and plants. It covers the well-known drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines and LSD as well as the new designer drugs now available on the black market such as ecstasy. The bill also, for the first time, covers controlled precursors which are drugs or chemicals used to manufacture illegal drugs.

The bill has an inbuilt flexibility to incorporate new drugs and substances by amendment to the schedule in the bill which defines what is meant by controlled drugs, plants and precursors.

The bill creates offences for possession, use, sale, supply, cultivation, manufacture and trafficking in controlled drugs, plants and precursors. It retains the current powers of search and seizure by police officers contained in the Poisons Act as well as powers of forfeiture and confiscation.

The most important objective of any drug laws is to punish those who sell illicit drugs for commercial gain. The main focus of the bill, therefore, is on persons who are engaged in trafficking drugs. The bill differentiates the varying degrees of participation by offenders in the illicit drug industry. Differential penalties apply to offenders depending on their degree of participation and culpability.

The bill creates two types of offences, namely indictable offences, which are punishable by imprisonment for up to 21 years and other offences which are dealt with as summary offences. The more serious indictable offences are reserved for those who are involved in trafficking illicit drugs for financial gain. The definition of trafficking in the bill is sufficiently wide to encompass within it all those persons who are involved in activities relating to trafficking of drugs and not just those persons who actually sell them.

The bill, for the first time, creates new indictable offences for adult offenders who exploit persons under the age of 18 years for profit by selling or supplying them with illicit drugs, or engaging them in drug trafficking activities. The exploitation of young people through drugs is a particularly heinous crime and the bill treats such activity accordingly.

The bill also creates offences in relation to property derived from major offences. One of the arms that government has in attacking the drug trafficking industry is to provide legislation which deprives them of the ill-gotten gains from these illicit activities. This particular issue is addressed in the Confiscation of Profits Act 1993. The purpose of these provisions in this bill is to criminalise the activities of persons who conceal, transfer, convert or remove property derived from drug offences with the intention of evading or helping another person avoid prosecution. This is aimed at the 'middle-men' who are involved in the illegal drug trafficking industry.

The bill also contains a schedule of trafficable quantities of particular controlled drugs, plants or precursors. Where a person is found in possession of not less than the trafficable quantity of the particular drug, plant or precursor, then that person will be presumed to be in possession of that drug for the purposes of sale in the definition of trafficking. This is an important part of the legislation as in many instances it may be difficult for the Crown to prove that a person in possession of a particular quantity of the drug had it for the purposes of trafficking. It should be pointed out that not all controlled drugs have a trafficable quantity specified in the schedule. The purpose of the bill is only to have a trafficable quantity in the schedule for those drugs which are actually trafficked.

The quantities have been set at a level advised by the Tasmanian Drug Squad to reflect modern illicit drug use patterns. They have advised that the current levels in the Poisons Act are so low that they catch drug users whose supplies are for personal use and who are not involved in trafficking at all. Consequently the trafficable quantity levels have been significantly increased from that which exist in the current Poisons Act.

The bill also provides that the trafficable quantities in relation to controlled drugs apply either to pure or impure weight of the particular controlled drug. Many of these controlled drugs are mixed with other substances for the purposes of sale or trafficking. Consequently the trafficable quantities in the schedule to the bill apply to the pure weight of a drug or any weight of a controlled drug which is mixed with another substance where that combined mixture is not less than the trafficable quantity.

The bill still contains provisions criminalising the possession for personal use of illicit drugs or selling small amounts. However, this must be seen in the context of the Government's diversion strategy in relation to the personal use of cannabis. The Government's aim is still to divert persons who possess or use cannabis from the criminal justice system without the need for prosecution. Since the commencement of this diversion program in 2000, a total number of 1 075 cautions have been issued and diversions made. By far the vast majority of these relate to cautions for personal use of cannabis.

Another aspect of the bill is the strengthening of the provisions relating to illicit manufacture of controlled drugs and precursors. At present, large-scale illicit manufacture is only a summary offence with a relatively small penalty. The present law was originally designed to control legitimate pharmaceutical manufacturers who breach the terms of their licences. The law is inadequate to address the modern problem of backyard laboratories manufacturing amphetamines, anabolic steroids and other substances from readily available over the counter precursors. Charges dealing with large-scale manufacture of illicit drugs and precursors will now be prosecuted on indictment in the Supreme Court.

Similarly, charges of cultivating controlled plants such as cannabis will be prosecuted in either the Supreme Court or the Magistrates Court, depending on the size of the plantation. At present, Tasmanian case law provides that cultivation of a large plantation of cannabis plants is only a summary offence and cannot be treated as a trafficking offence unless the plants have been harvested. The bill will now provide that large-scale commercial cultivation will be prosecuted in the Supreme Court in the same way as commercial manufacture and trafficking of illicit drugs and precursors.

Mr Speaker, this bill modernises Tasmania's drug laws and strengthens the criminal law response to trafficking in illicit drugs. The harm caused to individuals and the community from illicit drug use is well known. The bill is very much aimed at those persons who gain financially from this industry which causes so much misery to individuals, families and the community. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr HODGMAN (Denison) - Mr Deputy Speaker, this bill represents a major codification and redrafting of the laws with reference to drugs in the wider sense. It replaces, to a large part, the old and frequently criticised Poisons Act. The bill has been produced as the result of nearly five years of consultation and negotiation under State governments of both political persuasions. It is strong legislation. In the opinion of the Opposition, it does need to be strong to deal with drug traffickers and major offenders and we believe this legislation has strong community support.

Her Majesty's loyal Opposition therefore supports the bill although, as I have indicated to the Attorney, there will be some comments made by some of my colleagues which will raise some matters which are appropriate to be raised in the course of the parliamentary debate.

There has been a significant codification of the law in relation to the presumption provisions which appear within the bill and specifically those which appear in clause 6, subclauses (2) and (3) - manufacturing controlled drug for sale; clause 7, subclauses (2) and (3) - cultivating controlled plant for sale; and clause 12, subclauses (2) and (3) - trafficking in controlled substance. In relation to those three provisions and others, the law will be that a person is presumed, when found in possession of not less than the trafficable quantity of the particular drug, plant or precursor, to be in possession of the drug for the purpose of sale in the definition of trafficking and that in these cases where the accused has done the prohibited thing then it is presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the accused has the relevant intention. The presumption, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, remains undisturbed and it is therefore most likely that a jury would convict. At the end of the day the Crown will still have to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt and in my experience of nearly 40 years in the law that will not be difficult where there is no evidence to the contrary.

The changes in relation to the quantities which are described as trafficable quantities and which appear in the schedule to the bill are indeed helpful and should be subjected to wide and extensive publicity through the law enforcement officers and through Tasmania Police.

Guilt is presumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary. It has often been said that the devil himself knows not of the mind of man and I am convinced on discussions I have had with colleagues that there have been cases where persons have escaped the consequences of their illegal actions simply because of the difficulty of proving the case. Indeed, some persons are quite prepared to assert a consumption of drugs which would surely have put them in Cornelian Bay and sometimes that ruse has been successful.

But as I said there will be other comments in relation to that part of the bill. My duty as the shadow attorney-general was to advise my colleagues and I did in relation to the provisions. The provisions certainly are strong and certainly provide an additional weapon in the hands of the prosecution and that applies whether the proceedings are in the Supreme Court of Tasmania upon indictment or in the Magistrates Court where, of course, the magistrate hearing the case is both the judge of the law and the judge of the facts - in other words, he or she does exactly the same as a jury would do in relation to determining the question of guilt and whether guilt has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

There are some other aspects of the bill to which I wish to make particular reference, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I think it is important that the community knows that we are at one with the Government in our actions in supporting legislation which will deal with persons who (a) traffic in drugs to young persons and (b) use young persons for the purpose of their illegal, illicit operations. Dealing with the former, I am not saying this with any pretentious holier-than-thou attitude but I am one of the members of this House who has never used cannabis. It was not on any moral grounds but I was at that time addicted to tobacco and I took the firm view that even though my friends told me that cannabis was not addictive, I was quite certain it would be in my case. That is the only basis on which I have never tried it, but I have been present when others have tried it -

Mr Smith - There goes the moral argument.

Mr HODGMAN - I must say I did make a comment on one occasion at a Supreme Court trial that I was probably one of the few persons in the Supreme Court at that trial who had not tried cannabis.

Dr Patmore - And the judge's comment was?

Mr HODGMAN - Silence was the reaction of the Crown Prosecutor and that of my co-defence counsel. There were two accused and about half the jury went very quiet! But having said that, what has come to my attention is the very young age at which young people in this State and sadly interstate are coming into contact with drugs, not just marijuana, not just cannabis but hard drugs.

Mr Deputy Speaker, only last week I attended a board of directors meeting of Amateur Boxing Australia in Sydney, we stayed at a motel. The manager was an ex-Navy person and he remembered my time in Canberra as Minister for the Australian Capital Territory when he had been there with the Royal Australian Navy. He told me that in that area there were children as young as 14 taking hard drugs into the schools, delivering them to the customers and being paid by these evil criminals who are profiting. I was shocked by what he told me.

Dr Patmore - In some cases it was their parents who were making them do it.

Mr HODGMAN - Indeed, that is true.

He also told me the other side of the coin which was that his motel had a firm policy not to admit after dark 13 and 14-year-old girls, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the company of older men, equally vile individuals, for the purpose of doing what had to be done for them to get the money to pay for the drugs that they had become addicted to. He told me that not long ago in the street outside - not his motel but another motel - a 13-year-old girl was found dead, having overdosed. Mr Deputy Speaker, little Hobart in many ways is protected, but I know of a family in Hobart whose 16-year-old son was found dead in the gutter in West Hobart some years ago, having overdosed. His father was a senior architect in this State of ours; it happened a long time ago. These are the things that make me, as one who actually opposed capital punishment from a fairly early age - certainly at the start of my parliamentary career back in 1966-67 when I supported Mr Fagan's bill to abolish capital punishment - on some occasions in relation to these particular people, take the view that the death penalty is in fact too good even for them.

It is important that the legislation picks up this question - and I am somewhat proud that one of the members of my party in the party room discussion raised this specifically: does this really pick up the use of children by these people? Yes, it does. The other side of the coin is, what about drug traffickers who themselves are children? Are they picked up? I have said, 'Yes they are'. By and large, as the Attorney would confirm, persons under the age of 17 years are dealt with in the Children's Court but, as we all know, if a 15-year-old commits the crime of murder he or she finishes up in the Supreme Court. The Attorney will find it interesting that I again want to refer in this House to his rights, as Attorney, as the senior law officer for the State of Tasmania, to, if he considers it appropriate, indict ex-officio. Certainly the Attorney would have the say through the Director of Public Prosecutions - whom I hasten to add is quite independent of the Attorney but with whom the Attorney would no doubt talk - that if you get a Fagin-type situation or, even worse, where young persons themselves are engaged in these activities, they will be dealt with, and dealt with appropriately.

It should be re-emphasised, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I think sometimes the public do not realise this, that a person convicted of crime in this State in the Supreme Court of Tasmania, regardless of their age, is liable to serve 21 years imprisonment. That is the maximum penalty. A young man was sentenced yesterday in Launceston for 20 years for murder, and I put it to the House that there is not a lot of difference between the persons who bring about the deaths of young people whom they have aided and abetted to become addicted, and when their time of use to the illicit drug trafficker has expired, by one means or another - battery acid, or whatever - their lives are brought to an end. On that note, I am told that the hit rate, the charge in Sydney today to get rid of a person who has become addicted and has not paid bills, or whatever, and has become a bit of a nuisance, is as little as $200. That is the price of life in a drug-addicted city which showed the world it was the pride of Australia in Sydney 2000. Yet that city has that under side.

Let me emphasise before I conclude that my remarks are definitely directed to those who break the law, who engage in illicit drug trafficking. I am a Liberal who is proud of the fact that originating from a government of our persuasion was what has now become known as the diversion program. It came into existence some years ago, Mr Deputy Speaker -

Dr Patmore - John Beswick.

Mr HODGMAN - That is right. Some years ago when I was in the Federal Parliament a very distinguished senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania was invited to address - I do not think I will finish before one o'clock, Mr Deputy Speaker -

Dr Patmore - Well, it's going to go a while, Michael.

Mr HODGMAN - It is indeed - to address a very important conference in the United States of America. This academic was 44 years of age, but he had a conviction for possession of cannabis - marijuana - 23 years previously as a young person, and his application for a visa to enter the United States to address this conference was refused. I took this up at the highest level, and the then Ambassador from the United States to Australia came back to me and he said, 'I'm sorry, Mr Hodgman, the request is refused'. I know of others who similarly had their requests refused, and got there by going in through Canada. How they did it is -

Dr Patmore - It has loosened a bit now. I had a similar instance some months ago.

Mr HODGMAN - I understand it has. They also got in through Mexico. But you see, I take pride in the fact that a Liberal initiative carried forward by this Government has created a situation where 1 075 cautions have been issued and diversions made. Those persons have not been subjected to conviction, and I am informed unofficially by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, who is an old friend and colleague of mine of many years and who is in the Chamber, that over 90 per cent of them do not offend again.

Dr Patmore - That's right.

Mr HODGMAN - That is the figure I was given. It may be a shade high, but it is pretty encouraging, and I actually take the very firm view that that is a very good thing, because they were cautioned, they have been spoken to. There has been publicity in relation to the drug squads in this State -

Mr Hidding - Is your old colleague as old as you are?

Dr Patmore - No, no, good heavens no.

Mr HODGMAN - No, no. I can remember when I told him once he was wet behind the ears, but that is another story. We will not go to that. Oh no, he is much younger. They are all much younger than I am. Did you not realise that?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Everybody is younger than Mr Hodgman. You know that, Mr Hidding.

Mr HODGMAN - Oh, come, come. There are one or two at the Table we will not mention.

Dr Patmore - Even the police are looking young, Michael.

Mr Hidding - Yes, I was going to say all police officers look younger these days.

Mr HODGMAN - Heavens above, I am 62 years young, Mr Deputy Speaker, and not much older than you, and that is another story. But the point that I do want to make is that that diversion situation is very good, and the fact is that if it prevents somebody getting a conviction from what was simply a use of cannabis for personal purposes only, then I think that is the proper way to go.

Dr Patmore - There but for the grace of God.

Mr HODGMAN - Well, indeed. Well, you speak for yourself.

Members laughing .

Mr HODGMAN - I am being quite genuine when I say that. I am probably one of the few, as I said, who have not tried it. Mr Deputy Speaker, the other point that has come out of the bill which I think is extremely interesting is this: that this is one of the few occasions where the trafficable quantities have in fact been raised in certain areas, and properly so, because the Drug Squad -

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2.30 p.m.

Mr HODGMAN - Mr Speaker, as I said before lunch, as Her Majesty's shadow attorney-general for the State of Tasmania, on behalf of the Opposition we support the bill.

Dr Patmore - Her Majesty's loyal Opposition.

Mr HODGMAN - Her Majesty's loyal Opposition, we support the bill. But there will be some comments raised by some of my colleagues, which may be matters the Attorney will have to carefully and, I would hope, thoughtfully consider.

The one remaining matter I wanted to raise is where section 3 of the Poisons Act has been moved as I read it without amendment into this legislation and comes in in the definitions section of the bill which in fact is clause 3 - Interpretation. You will find it under 'trafficable quantity' in subclause (3). As I understand it, the new provision does not change the old section 3 of the Poisons Act at all.

I want to raise, as many years ago I said I would if this matter came up in the Parliament, a question about subclause (3) because of the large number of young people who have shared accommodation. Effectively, if a substance is found on a property, namely land or premises, occupied by a person or enjoyed by a person - and that means to say visiting it - then that substance is taken to be - they are the words used - in a person's possession for the purposes of the act unless the person proves that he or she had no knowledge of the substance.

The Attorney will be aware that this has been subject to interpretation in the Supreme Court of Tasmania and basically that has been held to place an onus on the defendant to prove on the balance of probabilities that he or she had no knowledge of the substance. Sometimes even the most truthful persons are not good witnesses, Mr Speaker; they may be inarticulate, they may be uneducated, they may be of an ethnic background or they may be of an indigenous background. Whilst I am not suggesting that the section should be amended, I am effectively asking the law enforcement agencies - which of course include the DPP, the Crown Law and the police - to use this with very great discretion.

Let me give an example. Eight young people occupy a house in West Hobart and a ninth, who is a boyfriend of one of the girls, visits. Whilst he is there with his girlfriend - and we will say for the sake of the argument that they are the only two of the eight people in the house who are there - there is a raid and cannabis is found. Both the girl, who lives there, and the boyfriend, who just visits, could be charged - she with being in possession of the cannabis and he because he is 'enjoying the land or premises'. I have a concern about that because effectively you would think the police have no alternative but to charge those who are found at the premises at the time the cannabis is found, and a person who has never had anything to do with cannabis in his life - namely the boyfriend of the girl, and let us add to it that she has not either - suddenly find because there is cannabis found in the bedroom of another of the occupants, they are up in court on a charge of possessing cannabis, and the onus is on them.

On the face of it, it is a very long way from the old High Court decision of Moors v. Burke, which the Attorney will remember, which was the leading case on possession, and which said that in criminal matters you should prove 'exclusive possession' - that is to say it is exclusively in your possession and not even shared - or from the great judgment of His Honour, Mr Justice Neasey, in Weston v. Smith where he dealt with a similar provision in relation to unlawful possession, section 39 of the Police Offences Act. I just say to the Attorney, I am using the opportunity because I am still burning about an injustice in one such case where a young person in a house was potted and convicted in relation to possession of marijuana when she had never touched it or used it in her life, but she was -

Dr Patmore - An interesting turn of phrase there, Michael - potted. She was 'potted'.

Mr HODGMAN - Yes, well. You know what I am getting at, Attorney, she had never ever had anything to do with marijuana, but one of her -

Dr Patmore - Michael, think of the other context of this where a person has a warehouse and is leasing the warehouse to another party who is growing God knows how many plants hydroponically -

Mr HODGMAN - Oh, yes.

Dr Patmore - That person knows. It's the same logic within this clause. From one end of the scale to the other.

Mr HODGMAN - I am not arguing that point at all, I am just saying some discretion ought to be employed in relation to the situation where you have multiple occupation of one premises by young persons, many of whom come and go. That is what I am saying, and I think it is not unreasonable that I should make that point. Otherwise, Mr Speaker, it has to go to the court, the person has to give evidence, the person has to prove that he or she knew nothing about it.

I will conclude, Mr Speaker. If I am at the North Hobart football ground watching a football match, along with 10 000 or 15 000 other people and somebody, for whatever purpose, slips some cannabis into my pocket, this provision applies, and if the magistrate says, 'I just frankly am not persuaded on the balance of probabilities that he didn't know anything about it', I will be convicted. It is a very broad section. I do not mind it being transposed, but it would be wrong of me if I had not raised my concerns. Having said that, the bill, as I said in my earlier remarks, is strong legislation and it needs to be strong legislation to deal with those subhuman illegal drug operators, major offenders who ravage our community and particularly our young people. For them no penalty is really sufficient.

Mr SMITH (Franklin) - Mr Speaker, I believe the arguments put by both the Attorney and the shadow attorney cover most of the points that I think all of us in the House would like to offer on this subject. I certainly share the views of my colleague and his strong feelings towards a lot of these dealers and also the abuse and breakdown of society that arises out of it. I guess we all have our own examples and have seen different situations in Tasmania and in other States. Mr Hodgman has pointed out some of his.

Mr Speaker, there are some issues that have been raised with me in my role as a member but also as the shadow health minister, with some concerns as to how this would relate. This, of course, is not in any way questioning the need for this legislation, but trying to see the outworking of it. I did, as Mr Hodgman alluded, raise in the party room concerns as to how this legislation dealt with under-age offenders, because it does specifically in clause 36 say that children are not liable for conduct constituting certain offences under clauses 13 or 14, which is the trafficking and supplying of a controlled substance to a child or procuring a child to traffic on your behalf. Those penalties I think are needed and are there. The question I had, which was alluded to, was how this would relate to those who, as a dealer or a trafficker who provided to them, are under age themselves. I can see that argument because it all originates somewhere, and while I am certainly not naïve enough to think there are not any people under 18 in the State or the country who are growing their own plants somewhere, I do not think that is something that happens once you hit the age of 18 and look into it. There must be a supply chain there, especially for the hard drugs above that. I can understand that. Some of my concerns there were relieved by my colleague when he said that the power of the Attorney to indict as an adult is there if needed.

Dr Patmore - It is also in clause 14, which deals with the instance of a friend passing some drugs to another friend. Clause 14, Supplying controlled drug to a child - so you would have the position of a child providing to a child, not necessarily trafficking.

Mr SMITH - Right, okay, where they were making a profit out of it for themselves or just -

Dr Patmore - No, no, there doesn't even have to be a profit.

Mr SMITH - Just a simple sharing of a controlled substance.

Dr Patmore - Precisely.

Mr SMITH - I do not know whether it is a generational thing, because I think for a number of years society has been looking at the controlled drugs - soft and hard - and when we talk about controlled drugs the first thing that comes to mind for me is the hard drugs, but I have to keep in mind here as we talk about this what we would probably term the softer drugs -

Dr Patmore - For the purpose of the debate we draw no distinction.

Mr SMITH - So that of course helps me. That was a concern I did have.

Mr Hidding - Who will draw the distinctions?

Mr Bonde - Arresting police.

Mr SMITH - Yes. It will be at the discretion of the police and not the courts, or both.

Dr Patmore - The police will make the ultimate decision.

Mr SMITH - Right. That may be something that my colleague, with his responsibility, would want to go into. I would be interested to hear the Attorney's thoughts about setting a limit or a lower level or a baseline of where something becomes trafficking and when it is just possession; whether that allows anything under that to slip through or have a lesser penalty. For example, in the schedule at the back under 'controlled plants' the trafficable quantity is 20 plants, so 19 would be deemed not to be trafficable.

Dr Patmore - No, not necessarily.

Mr SMITH - So the discretion is still there.

Dr Patmore - I will interject from my seat, if you don't mind. Under the schedule there is a trafficable quantity, so let us use the example of cannabis being 20 plants. When a person is in possession of 20 or more plants, the deeming provision comes into play, and under that a person is deemed -

Mr SMITH - Is presumed, you mean?

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Dr Patmore - Presumed -

Mr SMITH - Deemed is the word that the police would like to see from what I know.

Dr Patmore - No, deemed is the word the drug squad and the Government, after consultation, came up with.

Mr SMITH - Deemed is?

Dr Patmore - Presumed - can you tell me the clause?

Mr Hidding - Yes, 12.

Dr Patmore - A person is presumed to be trafficking but there is nothing to stop a person being charged for trafficking for much less.

Mr SMITH - But the evidence would have to be there -

Dr Patmore - As it does now.

Mr SMITH - Yes.

Dr Patmore - Because under the old Poisons Act the possession of a certain number of plants is only deemed to be evidence of trafficking. The presumption is a much stronger hurdle - it is a much higher hurdle for the defendant to jump to show that they are not trafficking.

Mr SMITH - Rather than deeming.

Dr Patmore - It is deemed to be evidence.

Mr SMITH - I think some of the confusion about the word 'presumed' compared to 'deem' was that -

Dr Patmore - Deemed on its own.

Mr SMITH - Is only deemed as evidence.

Dr Patmore - No. There are three presumptions, if I can put it that way. First of all, there is the old one under the Poisons Act where it is deemed to be evidence, which is not a very high presumption or not a very high evidentiary verdict to rebut. Secondly, under the Misuse of Drugs Bill, the one we are dealing with today, there is now a presumption and that is a much higher level of difficulty to rebut. You then would move to the third area, which we are not doing, that you are deemed to be trafficking full stop.

Mr SMITH - Okay.

Dr Patmore - So there are gradations as you go through but with the possession, for example, of less than 20 plants, I would still be very surprised if that did not lead to a prosecution for trafficking. But, for example, if a person had 19 plants that high and -

Mr SMITH - Compared to 19 plants three metres -

Dr Patmore - Precisely, and that then allows the police to accept that that person - 'I had 19 plants just to see if they'd grow and I was going to weed them out so there are only two'. Probably you could argue that, but if they were six feet high you would have a bit of trouble and you would probably end up being done for trafficking.

Mr SMITH - Yes. I thank the minister for running through that with me. I will just raise one other concern that has been raised with me. Under the forfeiture of property on conviction, clause 38, it has been put to me whether the burden should be on the defence to prove why the property should not be forfeited - this is after you have been found guilty of course, this is not pre-emptive forfeiture - whether the way it stands now is that it is for the court to show why it should be forfeited rather than the defence saying why it should not be forfeited -

Dr Patmore - If I may, by interjection - no, if a person finds a person guilty that is it. The court then, in addition to a penal provision, says, 'That, that and that is going' so it could be a property, it could be, for example, hydroponic equipment -

Mr SMITH - It could be profits.

Dr Patmore - Yes, very much so but we can also get that under the confiscation profits of crime legislation.

Mr SMITH - Yes, I was aware of that one.

Dr Patmore - So it's a two-pronged attack.

Mr SMITH - The health concern that has been raised with me comes more specifically under clause 23, which is 'possessing thing used for administration of controlled drug' - I think it is meant to be 'possessing a thing' - and the concern that has been put to me is for areas such as needle exchanges - I guess, doctors' surgeries to a degree or a hospital, but that is taking it that extra step - and these community centres which are promoting safer use of drugs, which is a bit of a moot point, and trying to stop that transference of diseases through the re-use of needles. Would this clause inadvertently bring the needle exchanges and community efforts like that under the reading of it? It seems that a syringe or a needle would be a utensil used.

Dr Patmore - Without a doubt. But it is my understanding - and I will check - that this clause is already in place under the current Poisons Act.

Mr SMITH - If so, is an exemption going to be built into this or given or do we just turn a blind eye to needle exchanges?

Dr Patmore - No, it's a matter for the discretion of the police.

Mr SMITH - Right. So when this bill passes both Houses and is declared in operation, we are not going to see a situation where we start seeing some needle exchanges put under pressure because they are technically breaking the law, even though that provision may or may not have existed in the previous act as well. The discretion power will still be applied in that?

Dr Patmore - Yes - I'll double-check that.

Mr SMITH - I will finish my comments on that. It is a concern that has been put to me because it is not a thing you want to see as the most well enjoyed service out there. At the same time you want to make sure that people still have access to these clean and safe needle exchanges. If the Attorney is telling me that the provision already exists but the discretion has been to allow that service to continue and that will still be the same, then it certainly would help some of the people who have contacted me to hear the Attorney say, 'Okay, we're not going to go out and shut you all down straightaway. This is a continuing provision, not deliberately meant to encompass that' and the discretion will be to allow that to continue.

Dr Patmore - Again by way of interjection, I think you will also find that the Misuse of Drugs Bill that I introduced today specifically makes reference to the HIV/AIDS Preventive Measures Act which will allow such things as needle exchanges to continue.

Mr SMITH - Okay, that is even clearer than a simple expression.

Ms PUTT (Denison) - Mr Speaker, it is welcome that the Government makes these changes to legislation dealing with the use and trafficking in illicit drugs. There has been concern, I think, for some time in the community that the legislation pertaining was outdated, that people who might have been really small-time recreational users of drugs were able to be targeted whereas those responsible for trafficking and for manufacture were perhaps not liable to the types of penalties to which they should be liable. It is pleasing to see that we are getting the change here that does very clearly state that the big problem we have in our society is with people who are dealing in large quantities of drugs, who are basically dealing in human misery and making a fat profit from it.

I know that for many years now, as a member in this House, I have had drawn to my attention the illegal manufacture in particular of amphetamines in the State and particularly, I think, in the area around Hobart - although that could be more general. I am just not sure about that; I do not profess to be any sort of expert, but there is tremendous concern in the community about that. Obviously one of the things that goes hand in hand with that is a concern that the manufacture of drugs was not explicitly covered in this type of legislation but was only able to be dealt with as an adjunct, if you like, under provisions that were really there to deal with legitimate pharmaceutical manufacturers going somewhat awry. So it is very pleasing to see this sort of upgrade. I do not think anybody that I have ever come across really would hold any sort of brief for people being able to continue in this particular trade and to make money out of it.

I guess the concern that I bring to the Parliament is that this re-ordering, I suppose, of priorities contained in this legislation - which I know also does synchronise with the measures that have been taken recently by the Government in their diversion strategy with respect to the personal use of cannabis - these measures also go hand in hand with a harm minimisation approach for actual users. That I believe needs to be very firmly stressed and I am pleased to see the Attorney-General agreeing and saying, 'Yes' because I think that is something that we need to get very clearly across.

Dr Patmore - I put that in the second reading speech specifically for that purpose.

Ms PUTT - Yes, because harm minimisation has to be an important component of our approach. I think the days are long past when we believed that by a punitive approach we could actually just stop all of this dead. It is not going to happen; there are going to be people who, for whatever reasons, do indulge in the use of some of these illegal recreational drugs and there is a point at which as a society we have to make sure that their so doing results in the least possible harm to others and to themselves. We cannot simply have the sort of punitive and retribution-based approach that can actually lead to even worse for those people and their associates and their near and dear ones down the track. I think that is really a major point that needs to be made.

We have seen a situation where small-time users of cannabis, for example, something that I would advance was not one of the most serious of the drugs we are talking about here today, might be prosecuted and end up with a criminal record which would be with them for life and which could severely affect their employment and travel opportunities in a way that really was not probably warranted in terms of the actual offence.

Dr Patmore -Would you like to reconsider what you just said? You've just agreed with Michael Hodgman?

Ms PUTT - Have I?

Dr Patmore - Yes.

Ms PUTT - Well, there you go. It must be the exception that proves the rule or something.

Members laughing .

Ms PUTT - I know Michael Hodgman has done a lot of work representing people in the courts and I am sure that he has come across a number of such instances.

Dr Patmore - He has a surprisingly enlightened view.

Ms PUTT - That is the exception that proves the rule as well then, isn't it?

So I am hopeful that such people who, for one reason or another, are caught with small quantities of a drug such as cannabis in their possession are not now going to really have their reputation and their future blackened by that circumstance for the rest of their lives.

I have to say that there are many instances in which one might think that being caught drunk and disorderly and in charge of a vehicle would actually be a much more serious matter than a young person being caught taking some sort of drug. Certainly their ability to harm others I would say would be much greater in that circumstance but of course we would be talking about a legal drug so we have to sort this system of penalties into some kind of order that really bears some relation to the likely damage that is caused, not simply the legal status, I suppose, of the drug.

Dr Patmore - Our next challenge is to catch people who are driving under the influence of drugs. That's very hard.

Ms PUTT - That is absolutely right and I think this is part of talking about a harm- minimisation approach - we have to acknowledge that people actually use these drugs and, rather than saying that you simply should not use them, we should say, 'If you are going to use them - not that we condone your using them - there are certain things you should not do; you have to be sensible'. You can only talk to people about those things if you are not being accusatory and one-eyed in your approach to them; otherwise they will not listen to you. So that is part of a harm-minimisation approach really - while not condoning behaviour, we must acknowledge that it exists and address people who indulge in that behaviour in a way that is not so accusatory that it completely turns them off. That is obviously fundamental and we have to integrate that way of approaching things into our attitudes.

The other matter I wanted to bring up in respect of harm minimisation is that of decriminalisation of the use of some drugs, because I think that that also is a factor here. It is similarly a factor indeed with trying to do away with trafficking and with the production of drugs for the purpose of sale and profit. As you will be aware, the Greens have a policy for the decriminalisation of marijuana -

Dr Patmore - As did I, but I withdrew it from Cabinet. I'll explain later why this is a better way.

Ms PUTT - Well, you can explain why you think this is a better way, but obviously it is my duty here today on behalf of the Greens to simply put forward that our policy approach is one of decriminalising the use of marijuana with that purpose in mind. When we first brought this forward - which was a number of years ago now - I recall this being introduced into the Parliament by I think it was Gerry Bates and later again a revised version by Michael Foley, we had two things in mind. One was of course to make sure again that the small-time user was not targeted with criminal charges - and perhaps that is being dealt with by the legislation we are looking at today, combined with the Government's diversion strategy. The second thing we also wanted to target was taking out of it the profitability that led to large-scale trafficking and for that matter the growing of big plantations, be they out in the environment or in warehouses in Moonah.

Dr Patmore - Go easy on Moonah - it could be Sandy Bay.

Ms PUTT - It could be; it is just that I think there was a case with a warehouse in Moonah. I do not know how many warehouses there are in Sandy Bay, Attorney-General.

Mr Hidding - Grow it in Moonah and use it in Sandy Bay.

Ms PUTT - Quite probably. So the Greens do still have that policy for the decriminalisation of marijuana. I had a talk with somebody at lunchtime actually about the approach that has been taken by the Greens in other States and I was not aware of it until today but the Greens in the ACT had actually proposed decriminalisation of the drug ecstasy for similar reasons. I am not sure what the status of that is and whether it still remains their policy there but certainly it is not something we had considered in Tasmania.

Dr Patmore - Why would you decriminalise ecstasy?

Ms PUTT - As I say, I only became acquainted with this fairly recently - as in about half an hour ago - and I do not know all the ins and outs, but my understanding was that it was again because of trying to break down the stigmatisation and the impacts on young people who are found to possess the substance.

Dr Patmore - It's also one of the most dangerous drugs around.

Ms PUTT - Well, my understanding was that there was some query with respect to that.

Dr Patmore - I'm talking about long-term effects.

Ms PUTT - As I say, I am not well informed on it and it is certainly not something that has come forward within the Tasmanian Greens, so it is not on our horizon at the moment. I think we have to acknowledge that it is one of the most widely used recreational drugs these days so we do have to think about how we deal with it in that context.

An issue that I wanted to bring up, aside from the Tasmanian Greens support of decriminalisation of the use of marijuana, was the impact that this legislation would have on any future proposal for heroin trials. I simply do not know -

Dr Patmore - There are not going to be any heroin trials in Tasmania.

Ms PUTT - Why is that? Because it is a matter of government policy?

Dr Patmore - Because it breaches the international covenant on narcotic drugs and puts at risk our whole poppy industry. It would kill it overnight. I've spoken to the UN people on that very issue in Vienna.

Ms PUTT - So it is a matter of government policy because of other policy settings that are in place.

Dr Patmore - It won't happen.

Ms PUTT - What I want to come at is, if there were a proposal in the future for heroin trials, would this legislation itself obviate it? I understand that you are saying that the Government has a policy not to support heroin trials for reasons that you are putting forward; that is not the question I am asking, however. I am asking if this legislation that we are considering today would obviate that or would it require amendment to allow any heroin trial to continue were it successfully proposed in the future. That is the question I am asking you.

Dr Patmore - I wouldn't know, I'm sorry.

Ms PUTT - Obviously the issue of heroin trials is a live one around Australia. It is very much related to a harm minimisation strategy, and that is why interest groups and political entities have pushed for heroin trials in other States.

Dr Patmore - And in other States there is arguably a need for that.

Ms PUTT - Oh, I certainly believe that in other States there is a need for heroin trials, and I have been pleased to see what has been under way at Kings Cross in Sydney in particular.

Dr Patmore - I'm not opposed to that.

Ms PUTT - Having previously been a resident of Sydney in my younger years, and having seen even in that time the types of behaviour around that area that people would indulge in, I think it can have only got worse in the intervening period. We have such a lot of diseases that can be transmitted that were not known in those earlier times, that it is entirely sensible to have such a trial occurring there. Indeed, to not do so I think would be probably highly irresponsible.

Dr Patmore - It's very difficult, though, Peg. I've been to the heroin trials in the Netherlands particularly. It is very hard. I'll talk about that in a minute when we sum up.

Ms PUTT - Yes. As a student I lived in the UK in the early 1970s, and at that time people who were heroin addicts could register and be supplied with heroin through government instrumentalities in order to get them away from the illicit trade and to also try to safeguard their health. So it has been something that has been around as a way of dealing or trying to deal with the problem for a long time. I do not know how you deal with something like heroin addiction; it is not an easy matter clearly, and criminal connections who make a lot of money out of it continue to make absolutely sure that it is not easily dealt with. Certainly there are a lot of matters that we could talk about in respect of that which are not maybe particularly directly involved with this legislation.

The last matter that I wanted to bring up here was the medical use of cannabis. I know the Attorney-General did at one stage write to the parliamentary committee - the community development committee - recommending that they have a look at that. I also just prior to that had a parliamentary intern student from the university have a look at the medical use of cannabis in other places and write a paper on it, which I think I supplied to you.

Dr Patmore - New South Wales has now provided their parliamentary results too.

Ms PUTT - Yes. My understanding is that Canada has actually just decriminalised the use of marijuana for medical purposes. I read that reported in the National Seniors magazine recently because a number of the people who want to or had wanted to use cannabis legally were seniors with various health conditions that might be alleviated by that use. Not your normal caricature of the marijuana smoker. I wanted to follow that up because my understanding is that that committee has not in fact moved on that reference and things are basically stalled. I suppose what I want to know now from the Attorney-General is whether he still does support an inquiry into the medical use of cannabis. I would presume then that the act, as it will be later down the track, would be amended, were it to be found that there was a case to support such medical use.

Dr Patmore - You'd probably amend the Poisons Act before you'd amend this because the Poisons Act deals with the legitimate use of drugs. The Misuse of Drugs Bill deals with the illicit use of drugs.

Ms PUTT - It may be that were the medical use of cannabis to be legalised it might be necessary to have a particular provision with respect to people cultivating cannabis for that use - something along those lines. Anyway, that is simply a possibility that I wish to open up because certainly I am still of the strong opinion that that does need to be considered, that when we come down to it, it is a drug just like any other drug. Some are used legally, some are used illegally, but if they have a medical application that can be beneficial and useful to people where other substances may not work as well, then I think we have an onus on us to make that available to people. I have been aware of a very recent case where certainly a person that I know of was told by a doctor that the thing that would help them would be some cannabis, but the doctor of course was unable to prescribe such a thing or to say how one might go about getting it. The poor patient in that situation knows there is something but would not know how to get it and would be scared of going outside the law anyway. We do need to move on this. We have been waiting probably too long for it to be considered.

I will close by again reiterating that it is time that we took this different approach, that we punish those who deal in large quantities, those who manufacture drugs, those who set others up to do it and those who make the profits.

Dr Patmore - Before you sit down, that's the dilemma with ecstasy because you do not have the average person going out to the backyard and growing a plant. You are, by its very nature, dealing with criminal organisations. That's one of the major problems with decriminalisation of ecstasy - you are basically legalising an output for criminals and that's a real problem.

Ms PUTT - I understand what you are saying. I think also with something like ecstasy, as with amphetamines, as with any of those other chemically-manufactured types of drugs, you have absolutely no assurance of what is in there. I suppose if one knows what a cannabis plant looks like you have a pretty fair idea of whether it is a cannabis plant or something else. Maybe with every other type of drug, if you are someone who is going to indulge in them, you have to take a risk that you are not actually getting what you think are. I suppose it could be the same with cannabis if it is not in its original form. These are risks that people take. I think they are often not aware of the degree of risk and possible difficulty that they are indulging in. It is unfortunate that it is mostly young people, who are at a time in their lives when they are quite convinced that they are somehow impermeable to risk, who get involved in these things. We all know that in general young people tend to think they are invulnerable and people, I think, who make profits from drugs prey on that, as well as on the desire of young people to indulge in risk-taking behaviour and get some sort of a high. It is a real shame, the way our society is structured now, that a lot of the other things that people might have done as youngsters to fulfil that sort of desire are no longer available to them and we find them using these types of substances instead.

There is an attitude around that encourages it. What we do about that I do not know except that, as I say, a harm minimisation approach is really important. We cannot simply adopt the approach that it is all evil and that they bring it all on themselves. It simply will not work. In fact it will probably reinforce the attitudes that we prefer not to see there, and of course can lead to very long-term harm, not only to those people but to others around them.

Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise to make a short contribution to the debate on this bill as the spokesman on police and public safety. There have been a number of matters already raised by the two speakers on this side of the House, my colleagues, the shadow attorney-general and the shadow spokesman on health matters. But I just want to note that it is interesting how we in this House can all agree on one piece of legislation, and all come from slightly varying standpoints. At the end of the day we all understand that trafficking or participating in the selling of illicit drugs is something that we would want to, as much as we can, limit in our society. I was interested in the contribution by the previous spokesman. There were many matters that we could agree on, and many others that we would violently disagree on - decriminalisation of various things and harm minimisation programs. While I have to say on our side of the House there is some interest in harm minimisation programs, we are also very aware of the special standing of Tasmania because of a certain industry that we have, an industry that was rocked to its foundations when it appeared that its agriculture minister might put it at risk through some sort of GMO restrictions. But sheer weight of logic tended to regularise that situation, and certainly we -

Dr Patmore - That's unfair.

Mr HIDDING - You ask anybody in the poppy industry. They felt for many months that their industry was at risk, and of course we did our very best to tell them that was not true, that Mr Llewellyn would not be doing that -

Ms Putt - Even though the industry came and told us they didn't want to plant any such plants commercially for several years anyway -

Mr HIDDING - That is right, but they did not want -

Ms Putt - so it was all a beat-up.

Mr HIDDING - Is that what it was?

Ms Putt - Yes.

Mr HIDDING - Well, I cannot imagine that.

Ms Putt - There was nothing at risk because they weren't going to do it.

Mr HIDDING - I allude to the fact that we do have special circumstances in Tasmania with this special status that we have which the Attorney-General quite properly alluded to. He has coalface knowledge on that. He has recently been to speak to the regulators around the world, or the industry, and I know there was a meeting, I think, in Lucerne -

Dr Patmore - Vienna, and Washington this year.

Mr HIDDING - that is right, at which the Attorney-General represented us, and thankfully came away with a better position than he went in with. So it is a not insubstantial argument that we can look at this whole issue of drug control in a different and stronger way than other States or other jurisdictions may do.

I would like to hear from the minister a clarification of what he said clearly in his interjection to the previous speaker - how he believes this legislation is a better outcome than decriminalisation. So if you just make a note and -

Dr Patmore - I already have.

Mr HIDDING - We come from two different standpoints to understand just exactly what you meant by that, but we are both equally interested obviously as -

Ms Putt - I think there is something you've missed here, and it is not good.

Dr Patmore - No, not at all, it is a public statement I have made before.

Mr HIDDING - But we do obviously all agree that nothing else in terms of public safety can bring a community to its knees quicker or in a more devastating fashion than the proliferation of illicit drugs. As the previous member said, I am not talking here about the caricature of a marijuana user, and I was trying to think of that caricature, and I think it probably was, for those older members in the House, Cheech and Chong in a kombi van or something. Would that be caricature enough?

Dr Patmore - I thought you were talking about the Legislative Council for a minute!

Mr HIDDING - That is probably caricature enough.

Mr Green - We only need a Chong over that side and we've got them.

Mr Best - You've got Cheek.

Dr Patmore - No, Cheech.

Mr HIDDING - Are you trying to tell me you have never heard of Cheech and Chong?

The fact remains though that we have gone through a whole cycle of that and obviously it is not all that new either. In that era of the 1960s, the use of marijuana, things that you could roll up into a cigarette and smoke, was prevalent - it is not as though there was never anything there before. I enjoy historical novels and you read often of doctors who were so addicted to their own laudanum that they would -

Dr Patmore - It's tincture of opium and laudanum.

Mr HIDDING - That is right, they were addicted to that kind of thing and of course even now you hear of it. I read recently of -

Mr Llewellyn - Laudanum makes you mad, turns you mad, that laudanum.

Mr HIDDING - Does it? What does it taste like?

Laughter.

Mr HIDDING - You read very sad situations with many anaesthetists around the world in the medical industry - I guess because it is there right under their noses so to speak; they have access to drugs or to gas even and things like that. If there is a mind-altering drug around and available, sadly some people, or many people it would seem, want to give it a try.

Dr Patmore - There is no society in the world that does not use a mind-altering drug. Some are sanctioned, some aren't; every society does it, we do, you do.

Mr HIDDING - I am just thinking of the Dalai Lama in the cliffs in Nepal where they all live there. Do they have -

Dr Patmore - No, that's a religious imperative for the Buddhists not to use intoxicants.

Ms Putt - They do it by fasting instead.

Mr HIDDING - That is right, they get their high by not eating. I have not tried that recently - as the House would have noticed. But you are right: if there is an ability to use a mind-altering drug it does seem that there is a percentage of people who do want to use it and for whatever reason to get through -

Dr Patmore - But don't draw a distinction between legal and illegal drugs when you say that. What about the couple who go and have a gin and tonic of an evening?

Mr HIDDING - That is right, you try to explain to a young person why they ought not to be taking x while you are sipping a stubby of beer -

Dr Patmore - Exactly.

Mr HIDDING - it just makes no sense at all, it is very wrong-headed. With people thundering about drugs in the past while, at the same time, heavily abusing social drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol, it is no wonder there was a loss of credibility. We are in the situation now where there are jokes made about marijuana and matters like that. I think we can agree what we are all talking about is those people who seek to make a career and profits out of this because we will never stamp it out completely; we will never stamp out the procurement or the growing of drugs for one's own personal use. That is, I think, probably another issue that goes deeper and needs to be dealt with by education. But selling is where the problems are.

I remember very well when I was on the Public Works Committee going to a certain school where I said to the headmistress, head teacher, I guess -

Mr Llewellyn - Just call her principal.

Mr HIDDING - Principal, that was coming to mind, I was about to say that. The principal of that school said, 'I have a problem here, I've had to suspend quite a number of students because we caught them with marijuana'. I said, 'Oh, that's awful, being a small district school' and she said, 'Yes, the problem was that when we worked through the suspension thing the teachers came down and complained and I suggested we call the police. The parents said, "Let's not" because it turned out that they were actually growing it for their own use and allowing the children to bring it to school.'

There is an element right throughout our laws that we must address and that is the matter I have been talking about for some time - parental accountability.

Mr Llewellyn - Hear, hear.

Mr HIDDING - If you have the stupidity of parents encouraging children in this way, you need the words that I have proposed in other legislation and those magic words are 'any parent or guardian who knowingly permits or authorises a child to carry out an offence under this act is guilty of a crime'.

Dr Patmore - But this act does cover that.

Mr HIDDING - I have gladly noticed in this act that there are a number of elements that you could point to and say that there are vicarious -

Dr Patmore - No, it doesn't even have to. This affects a parent as much as any one of us.

Mr HIDDING - Yes, and I was very pleased to see that but I just think that the world is ready - or our society is ready - to start talking about some sort of limited liability and whether or not that is a blanket liability. All of us who have had children would simply shake our heads and say, 'Come on, you can't go suing parents or pursuing parents for something their children have done'. I think anyone who has had kids would be horrified with that but if they knowingly permit or authorise such behaviour, it is an entirely different matter. More and more we are becoming aware of situations where parents are not only turning a blind eye but permitting and authorising behaviour because that parent used to do it. Well, that parent is going to have to wake up, get a life, get into the real world and realise that it might have been okay in that context but to actually promote that behaviour in your own child is definitely not in the child's best interest and certainly not in the best interests of the community.

Dr Patmore - What about the parent who knows that their child is smoking marijuana and would rather they did it at home than somewhere else?

Mr HIDDING - Well, under your legislation if I were you - and it was me asking you that question -

Dr Patmore - I don't know the answer.

Mr HIDDING - Well, the smoking of marijuana is not an offence under this, is it?

Dr Patmore - Yes.

Ms Putt - But what if they preferred them to smoke marijuana at home rather than out in company where they might end up taking other even more serious drugs?

Mr HIDDING - Nothing is easy, is it?

Dr Patmore - No.

Mr HIDDING - Nothing is easy in the area of parental accountability but permitting or authorising a child to actually take some grass to school and flog a bit to his mates in that way is something that is entirely wrong - I am getting into a whole new field.

Kids will be kids; they were back in the baby boomer era and they have now become adults with their own kids but that does not excuse behaviour either way. I have to say with regard to the proliferation of ecstasy - I had a discussion with three young people who spend most of their time in Hobart and asked about ecstasy and they promised me that on any given weekend night, on a Friday or a Saturday night, in Hobart there would be 500 people who had popped a white pill down their throat.

Dr Patmore - Probably.

Mr HIDDING - That would be a conservative estimate and it would be a number of white pills because I think they take their first one at 10 or 11 at night so that they can dance through until the morning and what have you and that is perfectly normal behaviour. When I started asking questions which kids are doing this, young adults they cannot afford it. They were from families where the family income is such that they are not on Austudy, they have a part-time job to get through life and parents are supporting them and what have you. We must not assume that all young people in a city like Hobart spend any let alone a number of nights in night clubs using ecstasy -

Dr Patmore - Because they can't afford it.

Mr HIDDING - That is right, they cannot afford the damned thing anyway.

Ms Putt - But they would if they could.

Mr HIDDING - Well, as one pointed out, you do not throw one of them down your neck to sit at home and watch videos.

Dr Patmore - Oh! I knew there was something wrong.

Mr HIDDING - That is why you got all agitated watching those videos recently.

I was stunned to hear that. They may well have been exaggerating but apparently it is everywhere and not all that expensive and so somebody is making a fortune out of it. I do not know what the price per pill was, and these kids tried to make out that they did not know. I think they were probably pulling the chain, but whatever the price is, you can bet there would be a whole chain of people all the way up using things like Australia Post or illegal methods to get it here into Tasmania and illegal ways to distribute it. I do not want to hear any talk or even any suggestion about decriminalising ecstasy or anything like it. It just scares the heck out of me that we could be talking about designer drugs that can be made basically in any laboratory and then turn them into such a huge money-making venture that the whole deal would get out of control.

Then of course there are the issues of whether it is pure or not. There was an arrangement where you had to drop it into a glass of water or something and if it was purple it was good and if it was blue it was not, or whatever - this is the trouble that people have been going to with these things. So I really do not want to hear any talk about decriminalising anything, let alone designer drugs, but I would be interested to hear from the minister why he thinks this is better than decriminalisation.

I recognise that this drug is more about suppliers than the users. That is appropriate and that is how we have to start thinking and develop that theme of parental accountability. Recently - about eight or 12 months ago - there was a riot in the streets of Launceston, one of those mini-riots that can flare up just like that in the streets of Launceston. It was just after Ivan Dean became the commander of the district there and it turned out to be the Waverley bunch who range in age from 12 through to 16. A whole bunch of them came into town to kick the butts of another group and it got out of control around 4 p.m. The coppers did their best and managed to hose the whole thing down -

Dr Patmore - I think that's been fixed; I think they've shifted to Queenstown.

Mr HIDDING - Out to my electorate - thanks a lot!

When I spoke to some serving police officers about a week or so after, I said, 'They had plenty of bottle to come down into town and take on that bunch', and he said, 'They were so drunk they could hardly stand'. These are kids aged from 12 through to 15 and 16 who were absolutely full of alcohol in the middle of the day. Somebody somewhere got those kids that alcohol. They either stole it, and nobody knew they had taken it, or some adult gave it to them because they could not walk into a bottle shop. I guess a 17 year old could walk in and make out he is 18 and buy some grog but these kids were much younger than that. So then I asked whether anybody had done the real investigation into that particular incident - that would have been to put two detectives onto finding out - even though it would have taken ages and would have gone down many blind alleys - where and how those kids got their grog because that was the root cause of that incident.

It was very nasty and gave Launceston a bad name. It was all through the media and had people tearing their hair out but the root cause was the grog they got their hands on.

Dr Patmore - But isn't it an interesting point that whenever you talk about violence, inevitably the root cause is alcohol, a legal drug.

Mr HIDDING - You are right. That points to the fact that all drugs seem to affect different people in different ways. I have heard that the use of marijuana makes some people talk a lot and some people eat a lot.

Dr Patmore - Yes - assists before question time.

Mr HIDDING - Goodness, I would not know anything about that stuff but all of us would know that in a group of say 20 people having a social drink -

Mr Hodgman - Cannabis sativa is the emblem of the Greens.

Mr HIDDING - after one drink too many for the whole 20 people there will be three or four in there who will get nasty. Alcohol does that to some people and they just should not drink.

Dr Patmore - That's right.

Mr HIDDING - People who are normally as quiet as mice can seem to grow horns and want to take on the world.

Mr Green - It's like you when you get behind the wheel; you're a mild-mannered customer now but get you behind the wheel of a car and your eyes roll back to the whites.

Mr HIDDING - You can talk!

Members laughing .

Mr HIDDING - You passed me in that big truck of yours so quickly I could not read your name on the side of the car - unbelievable!

Mr Best - White-knuckle fever.

Mr HIDDING - So if you have to get into me about my car, I will get the measuring tape out and measure those wide wheels of yours. They are about two inches outside your mudguards, those wide wheels. Back when I was a kid that was not allowed, you know.

Somebody else has raised the point that I want to raise, which is this question over the words 'deemed' and 'presumed'. My research on it revealed something along the same lines as what the Attorney-General said, that in the current legislation certain matters can be deemed as evidence. So if you had a hierarchy I suppose you could say you 'deemed' as evidence, the next one is -

Dr Patmore - 'Presumed'.

Mr HIDDING - 'presumed' in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, and therefore the next one up the hierarchical line would be 'deemed', regardless of evidence.

Dr Patmore - Deemed to be in possession, full stop; deemed to be a trafficker, full stop.

Mr HIDDING - Yes, full stop. So you take out any reference to evidence and therefore is 'deemed'.

Dr Patmore - That's right.

Mr HIDDING - What I would like to hear from you - and I think there are a lot of police officers out there who would want to hear from you - is why it is better to use the middle choice in the hierarchy of three; why it was better to do that and why it was not better to simply use the word 'deemed' without any reference to evidence in that way. I understand that that is not necessarily a quantum leap but it is a step further and it might offend the sensibilities of those in the legal profession that you might be going a step too far, as some of these things tend to be.

Dr Patmore - It also offends the sensibilities of the police officers, too.

Mr HIDDING - That is what I want to hear because there are police officers out there who are questioning. The fact is, this is serious legislation and the first evidence of a parliament about to produce or a government about to produce some very tough legislation. Obviously the police officers out there who have been working with fairly ordinary legislation want to get it right, and this is an opportunity for the Attorney-General to explain why that third option in that hierarchy was not a better option to use. With those words, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give the Attorney-General the opportunity to sum up.

Mr GREEN (Braddon) - Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise to make a short contribution to this bill, given that I think it is important legislation that I am pleased to say has a degree of unanimous support from the majority of members today, even though Ms Putt has touched on a couple of areas where she needs clarification, and there are some concerns with regard to the use of marijuana, particularly for medicinal purposes, and so on, that are not part of this bill but are issues that have been before the Parliament and an issue within the community for some time.

Having worked with a person who was very seriously injured in an industrial accident, who found that really the only relief he could get both mentally and physically to a degree was from the use of cannabis, I can sympathise with the position she puts forward with regard to the medicinal use of this particular drug as other drugs, opiate-type drugs, are used for medicinal purposes to make people's lives at least bearable.

Ms Putt - Wayne Crawford's written about it with respect to his medical condition of multiple sclerosis.

Mr GREEN - Yes.

Ms Putt - And illnesses where there is nausea.

Dr Patmore - Yes - chemotherapy.

Mr GREEN - Yes. That aside, I think it is important that we do send the right message and give our law enforcers the opportunity to ensure that they have at their disposal legislation that provides them the opportunity to rein in those people who are trafficking in drugs and perpetrating all of those similar crimes that are associated with that particular field. Of course when you read the papers these days, almost on a weekly basis you see that there have been major seizures of drugs at various centres around Australia, reaching record levels. It just goes to show that those people who trade in these types of goods become ever more resilient and cunning in the way that they ply their trade. It is important, certainly in Tasmania where we do have relatively low usage compared to other centres around Australia, that we provide our law enforcers the best opportunity to bring to book these people who perpetrate these sorts of crimes. That is why I think it is very important that the bill covers the well-known drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines and LSD, as well as the new designer-type drugs including ecstasy - and I am sure the minister will talk a little more about why ecstasy as a drug should certainly be listed as part of the controlled drugs list.

The bill also for the first time covers control precursors which are the chemicals used for the manufacture of illegal drugs. It must be very frustrating at times for police officers who find that they have all the necessary equipment and the various chemicals that are used to make these types of drugs but have not reached the final products, that those particular chemicals when in the appropriate weights or volumes can now be incorporated as part of the illegal drugs. The bill has the inbuilt flexibility to incorporate new drugs and substances by amendment to a schedule in the bill. Of course that is important these days because the types of drugs that come onto the market change quite often and it is important that the bill is flexible enough to allow for those drugs to be listed as part of the schedule for the future.

The main focus of the bill is on persons who engage in trafficking drugs. When I first started to speak I confined my discussions to that because I think it is extremely important that those people who traffic in drugs are the people who feel the full weight of the law. Recent trials from offences that have occurred on the north-west coast heightened my fear, I guess, of the types of characters who get involved in trafficking drugs and how they conduct themselves generally to maintain their power within the system. I think the most recent trial which appeared in the papers on a daily basis was a good example of that. I will not go into the details of it; I think we all know about it. It seemed to me that police and others had been frustrated in the past with regard the activities of these particular individuals and could see that this was building up to the sort of crescendo that it ended up getting to without being able to do too much about it, or at least have the offence itself perceived within the act serious enough to warrant the sorts of impriso nment that we are talking about with regard to trafficking in this particular bill. It is important that the bill creates two types of offences, namely indictable offences which are punishable by imprisonment for up to 21 years and other offences which are dealt with as summary offences. The more serious indictable offences are reserved for those who are involved in trafficking illicit drugs for financial gain so that is extremely important.

The bill for the first time creates new indictable offences for adult offenders who exploit persons under the age of 18 for profit by selling or supplying them with illicit drugs or engaging them in drug-trafficking activities. Mr Hidding touched on that a little while ago. That to me is extremely sensible. Anybody who would use minors to assist them with their trade, either by getting them hooked on drugs in the first place or for whatever reason, should feel the full weight of the law, and I think that is extremely important. The bill also contains a schedule of trafficable quantities, and of course of particular controlled drugs, plants or precursors. Where a person is found in possession of not less than a trafficable quantity of a particular drug, plant or precursors, that person will be presumed to be in possession of that drug for the purpose of sale in the definition of trafficking, and the bill provides that trafficable quantities apply either to pure or impure weight of these particular controlled drugs.

So the bill is wide-ranging and, of course, stands alone in terms of providing that, as I said, those people who are responsible for ensuring that these people who ply these particular trades are brought to heel and it gives them a very good opportunity to use this legislation to ensure that happens. But of course there is always a reverse side to any story, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think the great shame about the debate that we are having in the House today in relation to the Opposition's stance - and I am not sure whether it comes down to them individually - but Mr Hidding agreed with the Attorney-General about the fact that heroin trials in Tasmania as something that has happened in other mainland States have been brought forward or is something that is under consideration or has been under consideration by the State Government. The Attorney-General quite rightly mentioned straightaway the poppy industry and those other issues even though we have a relatively small use of heroin in Tasmania are all extremely important when considering the situation about heroin trials in Tasmania. Ms Putt accepted the Attorney's position on that as well.

That is why it galls me, Madam Deputy Speaker, when we have a situation where during the Federal election campaign in which the Hon. Michael Hodgman QC MHA's brother is standing in Franklin and we have election material going around talking about the Federal Government's tough stand on drugs, and somehow saying to the electors of Franklin in particular, and I guess these pamphlets are going all over the State -

Mr Hodgman - Yes.

Mr GREEN - that the State Government or the local members here are supporting heroin trials here in Tasmania, when we know full well that is not the position of the State Government. It alarms me that when we have -

Mr Hodgman - I don't know.

Mr GREEN - Well, I have the pamphlet here.

Mrs Jackson - Yes, Harry Quick.

Mr GREEN - It is a document that is going around Franklin talking about Harry Quick, right, talking about how 'Labor pledges heroin trials and needle rooms.'

Mr Hidding - Doesn't Harry want them though?

Mr GREEN - That is what it is saying.

Mr Hidding - Harry wants them?

Mr GREEN - No, the Leader of the Opposition is saying that if States bring forward a position on trials or whatever - mediation, the whole range of things - then he is prepared to look at it, but quite clearly, as Peter Hodgman would know, there is no intention to have heroin trials in Tasmania, and yet this sort of material is going around the electorate of Franklin and other places at a time when, Madam Deputy Speaker, with the security of the world as it stands at the moment and people feeling worried about the situation - we have this sort of documentation going around electorates frightening people, thinking that the State Government is about to bring in heroin trials in Tasmania, which is just not true. What makes it more awful is - who was it printed by? None other than Andrew Gregson, the Leader of the Opposition's senior adviser.

Mr Hidding - Only just.

Mr GREEN - Well, it was printed by him, his senior adviser. What I would be saying to Mr Cheek is: if he thinks it is appropriate that his senior adviser is printing material which is quite clearly untrue in the Tasmanian perspective, he ought to think again. If that is the sort of leadership he is going to display in Tasmania, Madam Deputy Speaker, he ought to have a look at himself because quite clearly this sort of documentation is untrue and in the Tasmanian perspective put forward by -

Mr Hodgman - Well, go outside and say this and see whether it's true or not.

Mr GREEN - Peter Hodgman knows it is untrue because he would not even put his name to it. He allowed it to be circulated in Franklin, Madam Deputy Speaker, but of course he did not put his own name to it.

Mr Hodgman - Don't say it in cowards' castle. No wonder the Premier didn't make you a minister.

Mr GREEN - You get these people standing up on that side of the House saying, 'Yes, yes, yes, we're all supportive. We love you all' but out in the electorate they are putting around these scandalous sheets, Madam Deputy Speaker, suggesting that Labor pledges heroin trials and needle rooms.

Mr Hodgman - Well, I'm sure you do.

Mr GREEN - That is the sort of gutter tactics that they are prepared to get up to and then come into the House here, Madam Deputy Speaker, and argue we are with you on this one, knowing full well that the State Government has no intention of allowing heroin trials, needles, shooting galleries and that sort of thing in Tasmania for the reasons that the Attorney-General pointed out.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I support this bill as I know the Opposition do. But I would say to the Leader of the Opposition, if he were in the room, that it is not appropriate for his senior adviser to be printing election material and sending it around the electorates of Tasmania -

Mr Hidding - When did it go out? He's only been here a week.

Mr GREEN - frightening the people of Tasmania into thinking that we are going to establish the heroin trials and shooting galleries in Tasmania.

Mr Hodgman - Say it outside.

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Mr GREEN - I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that Mr Gregson ought to be reprimanded. There ought to be an explanation go out with the appropriate information on it about what the real situation is here in Tasmania and that is my contribution to this debate. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Dr PATMORE (Bass - Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations) - There have been several points raised during the course of the debate and I will attempt to deal with them all. Perhaps if I just deal with the question of decriminalisation because both Mr Hidding and Ms Putt were curious in relation to that.

I looked at the position of the other States and I looked particularly at South Australia which, for want of a better description, has almost like a traffic infringement system whereby if you are found in possession of set amounts, similar to the set amounts we have here, you are penalised and you are fined. What we did find in South Australia is that a significant number of people were still going to gaol because they had not paid the fine. We had discussions in relation to this so when you look at what we have done we have in fact used the same cut-off points that the other States have, nearly every State has, except we do not issue a ticket or an infringement notice and we do not penalise that person for the possession. In fact, the first time around they are warned of the use -

Mr Hidding - Diversion -

Dr PATMORE - Yes, this is the diversion and the police do that. The second time around they are warned and given health material and the third time around they actually have to attend a health course but my understanding is that very few people ever get to the third phase. The fourth phase you are prosecuted, so you basically have three chances.

Mr Hidding - Well, I find that is fascinating. That is a huge ramp-up from what John Beswick first announced.

Dr PATMORE - No, I will check the situation.

Mr Hidding - He announced the first time and you've gone to three times now.

Ms Putt - No, he announced three times.

Dr PATMORE - Yes, three times - check what he did. It has not been changed.

Mr Ken Bacon - Rene doesn't even know where Longford is.

Ms Putt - So they're either learning to modify their behaviour or hide things better. I'm being cynical - they're learning -

Dr PATMORE - Well, 90 per cent do not even come back. So if you work from the position that personal use of cannabis in particular should not mean a person goes to gaol, then the diversionary system put in place works and it stops a person from the possibility of going to gaol. So that is why I think it is a better system than decriminalisation, from a practical point of view. That was the system there.

In relation to the deemed provision, the current wording is 'it is presumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary the accused had the relevant intention'. That is, as I said before, a step up where it is only deemed to be evidence. The question of deemed that Mr Hidding raised was considered, and was not accepted. That was considered as a result of meetings with drug squad and senior police. So the people who deal with it day to day were the people who had input and we accepted their advice.

Mr Hidding - So the drug squad and senior police didn't want 'deemed'?

Dr PATMORE - There was a meeting, that was the agreed position. In fact it was the drug squad who assisted with the levels deemed trafficable too because, as I said in my second reading speech, they had had experience where people clearly were using it for personal use but in fact fell foul of the act and ended up being prosecuted for trafficking. It was set at a level where there can be no doubt at all that a person is trafficking - no doubt whatsoever - and you can still get them anyway. That really is the way in which this has occurred.

In relation to ecstasy, the thing that surprised me, I had the opportunity to go to some heroin trials and I spoke to the doctor and psychiatrist in charge of the heroin trials and asked him what he thought were the most dangerous drugs. His view was that one of the most dangerous drugs around was ecstasy. I was very surprised at this and I asked why. His research had shown that ecstasy will not kill you on its own but the problem was that it affects the serotonin levels in the brain and, as you are aware, the brain has the inbuilt capacity itself to produce serotonin. Some people get that feeling from exercising, for example - the serotonin levels change. Ecstasy chemically induces extra serotonin production. His view was that in fact as a person aged the ability of the brain of its own to produce serotonin was markedly affected by ecstasy use. So heavy levels or constant levels of ecstasy use would lead in middle age to longstanding depression for a person. I found that very scary. From his view, ecstasy was in fact one of those drugs that was regarded as a party drug or a harmless drug. I am not an expert but I assume from the perspective that a doctor would say one or two or three times it is probably not going to have any effect. We are talking about people who constantly use it - I have misled Mr Hidding in a statement I have made. Under John Beswick, it was one chance. Then the harm minimisation process came into place, and that is when the Health department got involved. So I did mislead you; it was only one opportunity then there was a prosecution. Under the harm minimisation, Health became involved. The first one is a caution, the second one - there is in fact immediate diversion under the second one to a health provider. So I was wrong: you do not just get material, you actually deal with a health provider. Third - this is cannabis only - the third cannabis possession for personal use, it is diversion to a health provider for treatment. So you must have treatment and you must have counselling; if you do not, you are prosecuted. At all stages, the health minimisation is immediate access to health provision, counselling, and if you refuse counselling you are back in court, so you are actually forced to be dealt with.

In relation to drugs other than cannabis, you go to the third step immediately; you do not get two goes, you only get one go. If you are in possession of a small amount of, say, heroin, or a small amount of speed, you are immediately sent to a health provider for treatment and counselling. If you do not go, you are in court. So I misled you, I apologise; you were correct, I was wrong. It was changed as a result of the harm minimisation program.

Mr Hidding - When was that? The legislation was announced - when did it all -

Dr PATMORE - Oh, yes. The harm minimisation was - we have an interdepartmental group on harm minimisation; Police, Health, Justice - I will find out for you, but it is 18 months, two years.

Mr Hidding - I'll raise it under clause 24 at the time so your advisers can provide the questions I want.

Dr PATMORE - By all means, yes, and I am very supportive of that.

Mr Hodgman - I think it went through while I've been out of the Parliament, so between 1998 and now.

Dr PATMORE - Yes, anyway the advisers will give me that. It has been in for quite a while.

Also in relation to diversion, of course from a police perspective, small-time recreational users were taking up an inordinate amount of police time and their time was better spent. In relation to criminal records, an issue we are looking at is of course the expunging of old records. That is an issue that I guess will be the subject of parliamentary debate, probably next year we will be looking at those issues.

Members have rightly pointed out the distinction between major and minor offenders. The point I make here is that I have yet to see large-scale activities where criminals were not involved, and that is really what we are referring to. In relation to heroin trials, they are not easy; the ones I looked at are exceptionally difficult. The difficulties start with finding addicts who are willing to attend three times a day for the heroin. You may think a free hit of heroin is going to make them come, but it does not; in fact it takes a lot of self-discipline to get them there and many people fail, they just do not have the discipline to do it and they prefer to buy it. So heroin trials are very difficult and I am not convinced that heroin trials are necessarily the way to go. Just from the ones I saw, it was exceptionally difficult to get them operating and to get them working, so that was an interesting point.

The user rooms I went to were a lot different in that they are street front. You have to be registered to enter a user room; not just anyone can walk in. You have to be a registered user to use a user room, but medical staff and social welfare staff are always present to assist the person, and of course you do not get overdoses in a user room for that very reason. They themselves I thought were a little difficult to deal with; you had not only heroin use but you had crack and cocaine use. They also had messages going out, which was the good part, but they were trying to get the users to smoke rather than inject. But of course, depending on how the market changes, and the quality and availability of drugs, smoking is not considered by addicts to be as effective as injecting, so it has a market financial aspect as well. I found there were problems in relation to that.

I did notice that we have made a distinction between major and minor offenders. The thing I was very impressed with was the concept of the coffee shops, particularly in the Netherlands, that were exceptionally strictly run. A person would lose their licence if they allowed anyone with hard drugs onto their premises. They were raided in order to be checked on a regular basis. I thought they were just left alone but they are not. Also, there is a lot of health material left at the coffee shops.

Ms Putt - Sorry, I don't know very much about the coffee shops. Are they basically for cannabis?

Dr PATMORE - They are only for cannabis.

Mr Hidding - Most are in Amsterdam.

Dr PATMORE - No, Rotterdam - all through - there are over 400 licences.

Mr Hidding - Are there? That's why I don't like the place any more.

Dr PATMORE - I found it interesting. I do not know if I would want them here but it was a social experiment to draw the distinction between hard drug use and soft drug use. The Dutch Government was of the view that if you were using cannabis illegally -

Mr Hidding - It's not a good look; smoking those big bongs and wearing clogs.

Dr PATMORE - No, the clogs were a bit of a let-down I thought, Rene.

Ms Putt - Our smoking legislation probably wouldn't let you do it here, anyway.

Members laughing .

Dr PATMORE - You would not be able to eat while you were doing it, would you? Bar-side snacks.

Anyway, it was a social experiment on the basis that a person dealing with cannabis was very likely to come into contact with other drugs, so it was a way of strict segregation where a person could buy small amounts and use it there if they chose to do so or wander away home, but it was strictly policed so that hard drugs were nowhere near it. In fact what had built up though was obviously the nightclubs were then the areas where you could purchase hard drugs. You could go to one nightclub and purchase ecstasy; go to another to purchase amphetamines; and to yet another to purchase heroin. So the illicit drug trade had in fact shifted and had got the hint. It kept well away from the coffee shops and moved to the nightclubs. So a person looking for hard drugs knew where to go, as they do in Sydney where we noticed that of eight nightclubs raided over the weekend, four are going to be closed down because of the sales.

So I found the social experiments interesting in that the decision had been made to differentiate between soft drugs and hard drugs. Whether it works or not I cannot comment but the Dutch Government was exceedingly helpful to me by taking me to the different areas. But it is still a very ugly scene.

Mr Hidding - Especially at two o'clock in the morning.

Dr PATMORE - No, you say two o'clock in the morning - I went to a church in Rotterdam at 10 a.m. and the priest had arranged a user room in his parish. He had had trouble with dealers moving in and killing people basically by the sale of the drugs, so they had a user room in the church in the basement. I went there at 10 a.m. and the dealer was running a bit late and it was like feeding time at the zoo.

Mr Hidding - Really?

Dr PATMORE - It was a very unpleasant feeling to walk into something like that. There were about 20 people waiting very impatiently for the dealer to arrive and everyone was sort of eyeing my wallet - not nice. We are very lucky in Tasmania and Australia - exceedingly lucky - that we do not have the desperation that other countries have; it is just appalling.

So I fully support the distinctions between hard and soft drugs - fully. Another reason, of course, why I do not fully support decriminalisation - and Mr Hidding referred to it with alcohol - is that you have to make a statement. My view is that no drug is safe and it is the same with cannabis. All you can say about drugs is some are less dangerous than others and I would regard cannabis as less dangerous than alcohol but for every number of people who smoke cannabis a certain proportion will be subject to episodes of schizophrenia.

Mr Hidding - Psychotic episodes.

Dr PATMORE - Yes, psychotic episodes and they would not have those episodes if they did not smoke cannabis so you cannot say that cannabis is a harmless drug and it is a -

Ms Putt - Any substance that makes you lose consciousness can't possibly be totally harmless.

Dr PATMORE - Exactly. My views have changed somewhat over the years so you have to accept that cannabis is dangerous, not as dangerous as alcohol but still dangerous. But, like it or not, alcohol is a socially sanctioned drug and thousands of people are beaten up every year under the influence of alcohol; hundreds of people are killed on the roads under the influence of alcohol. Yet we still let it go, so what does that say about us?

Of course the other point is the incredible double standards that we have as a society. I remember a few years ago - and I am sure it is not very different now - representing people who were in possession of drugs. I quite liked representing them, they were usually very nice people. In the days when people were prosecuted for small amounts, their biggest concern was losing their job if their employer found out, the very employer who, if they had been prosecuted for exceeding 0.05, would not have thought twice about it. There is very much a double standard in society that probably still exists to a certain degree.

Medicinal aspects - I understand that is still progressing and I am going to follow that up and just see what has occurred but yes, there are some arguments relating to multiple sclerosis and glaucoma and so on. I do not know how accurate they are, that is why we are finding out.

In relation to chemotherapy, my understanding is that was a very valid argument some years ago but it is no longer as valid. We have second, third, fourth generation opiates now that do the job. The thebaine-based drugs, for example, do the job and the new drugs for nausea control are much more sophisticated than they were. But I also understand that there is a very small percentage of people for whom these new drugs just do not seem to work and maybe cannabis does. I do not know.

Let us face it. These people are not going to lead to a breakdown of society as we know it if they indulge but that is a matter for the committee.

Ms Putt - They're probably not even going to give wild parties.

Dr PATMORE - No, I do not think that is going to happen. But that is a matter for the committee to look at it.

In relation to heroin, heroin trials or user rooms or whatever you call it, there is no chance of Tasmania looking at that. It is amazing that this State gets -

Mr Hidding - We are not sure about Harry Quick though.

Dr PATMORE - Do not start. It is amazing -

Mr Hodgman - Kim Beazley said he would look at it; what did he do to our poppy industry under the treaty?

Dr PATMORE - Each State is entitled to operate as it sees fit. Tasmania's position is very clear, but do not think for a minute that we are not being watched in relation to this. The United States was able to tell me when I met with them in Vienna and this year in Washington exactly how many poppies were stolen, basically. They had the exact amounts and you think in Tasmania that no-one worries about us, well the Drug Enforcement Agency had it down to the last square metre.

Mr Hodgman - Quite right.

Dr PATMORE - They know exactly which blends of poppies are being grown, they know which are thebaine, it is incredibly well noticed, and they also are very aware of the debates on heroin trials, as is the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. We have had commissioners from the Vienna here in Tasmania this year, and last year, I think - relatively recently - and they were looking very closely at user rooms in Victoria and New South Wales. They were looking to see whether they breached our international conventions, because the international conventions make no distinction between Tasmania and New South Wales.

Mr Hidding - That's right.

Mr Hodgman - Quite right.

Dr PATMORE - So we spent quite a bit of time talking to them about the differences and the profiles that we have -

Mr Hidding - That we are actually very different.

Dr PATMORE - Very different, and in fact we were able to convince them of that. I think they left fairly happy with Tasmania's position, but that is a position that is subject to change pretty regularly, particularly with India and Turkey, and I do not know what comments America may now be making to India over its ability to provide 40 per cent of the narcotic raw materials for United States consumption with the current Pakistan/India debate. I do not know, but I do know that we have to be really careful about what we do, and we have to be there almost constantly informing people of what is happening. I do not resile at all from the work I have done. I found it fascinating, and if you would like to criticise me I intend to go again next year. If we do not, we just get passed by, and when you think of the amount of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, we get as a State -

Mr Hidding - All the times when we were in government we would take a member of the Opposition with us on these things, and it is all forgotten.

Dr PATMORE - You never were subtle, were you?

Mr Cox - So you want to go there, do you, Rene?

Members laughing .

Ms Putt - I don't think there's actually a case, is there, for heroin trials in Tasmania at this point anyway because we don't have that level of heroin use that is found in other States. In fact in my understanding people who are into narcotics are more into morphine through prescription or doctor shopping and that sort of thing.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order. You have already made your speech, Ms Putt. Perhaps you could make any further points in committee.

Dr PATMORE - It may save time in committee, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Ms Putt - What I really wanted to get at was -

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER - Order, please. You can get at it in committee.

Dr PATMORE - Well, we can go into committee. We have to, anyway.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER - Are you going into committee?

Dr PATMORE - I assume so.

Ms Putt - I was going to do it now instead of going into committee.

Dr PATMORE - I think Mr Hodgman wishes to, and Mr Hidding wants to raise an issue.

Mr Hodgman - Just briefly in committee.

Dr PATMORE - I think I have covered most points anyway. Another point here: I have the information Mr Hidding wanted. The Tasmanian Drug Diversion Initiative was introduced in February 2000. It utilises police discretion and Commissioner's instructions. It is not a legislative change. Health and treatment funding is received from the Commonwealth for this as part of the National Diversion Initiative agreed to by COAG, including the Premier, in April 1999, so it is a Federal program that we are part of. It was agreed to in April 1999 and introduced in February 2000. It integrates services provided by the government departments of Police, Health, Justice and non-government alcohol and drug services as well as the Department of Health and Human Services' Alcohol and Drug Service. So it is part of the Federal initiative.

I think I have covered all issues, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Bill read the second time.