Back in March, the Premier and Finance Committee launched a NSW parliamentary inquiry to examine the state’s cannabis laws, focusing mainly on whether to decriminalise the popular but still illegal plant. On the first day of the hearings, August 1st 2024, Premier Chris Minns made it clear in a press conference that he went into the election promising not to change the law on decriminalisation, and he’s not planning to break that promise now.

On that same day, top legal experts, including the state’s longest-serving Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery KC, and Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesperson Greg Barns SC, spoke up in support of the inquiry.

Public opinion in NSW has shifted so much that in the 2023 election, for the first time ever, a Legalise Cannabis NSW representative, Jeremy Buckingham, was elected to the state upper house, and now he’s chairing the inquiry.

“There is consistent evidence that decriminalisation doesn’t encourage cannabis use or increase cannabis taking in the community,” said Cowdery, who was representing the NSW Council for Civil Liberties at the inquiry, as he is one of the organisation’s past presidents.

“In fact, decriminalisation may have the opposite effect, as more people are able to access advice and support and treatment for any problematic issue resulting from cannabis use,” he continued, adding that those with problematic drug use, benefit from health and social responses, not prison.

“However, we need action now,” he continued. “The CCL is deeply concerned about the unacceptably high level of First Nations people in custody and the general overpolicing of First Nations people in NSW, including in relation to cannabis.”

“The appalling overrepresentation of First Nations people in the criminal justice process in comparison to the general population is a crisis that successive governments have lumped into the too hard basket,” he underscored.

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