Aussies could smoke weed at Amsterdam-style coffee shops under new Greens bill

Cannabis would be available to be bought and smoked at Amsterdam-style cafés or grown at home under a legalisation bill written by the Greens. 

Adults would be allowed to grow up to six plants at home for private consumption, and there would be no upper weight limit for possession, according to the bill drafted by Senator David Shoebridge. 

“This bill could legalise cannabis in one go across the country with a simple and coherent national scheme for growing, distribution, sales and taxation,” he said. “What we have created with this bill is a core set of principles for an ethical cannabis market that is controlled by individuals and small businesses rather than big pharma, big tobacco or big alcohol.”

The legislation would establish a regulator called the Cannabis Australia National Agency (CANA), which would be responsible for quality checks and labelling. It would also set the standard for licences being legally required to import, export and sell cannabis.

The agency would maintain a register of cannabis plant varieties, known as strains.

Specially licensed cannabis cafés would be allowed to sell cannabis buds or products such as brownies, and would allow customers to smoke the weed onsite, as long as it was in an outdoor area and not a nuisance to the public. Cafés would also be allowed to sell cannabis online.  

The bill would not allow advertising cannabis except for certain forms of ads displayed at places where it would be sold. 

Shoebridge said the bill was inspired by places abroad where cannabis has been regulated, including Canada: “We have learnt from the experience in other jurisdictions and tried to draw a middle path between the let-it-rip corporate markets in the US and more tightly controlled government supply.

“We don’t want the market to be dominated by a handful of large corporations but we certainly don’t want to be the fun police either.”

The federal legislation would override any state or territory laws that prohibit the use and possession of cannabis. Serious offences under the bill — such as supplying weed to a minor — would be penalised at two years’ imprisonment, 2000 penalty points, or both. 

Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) costings previously issued to Shoebridge show a combination of GST, company tax and a 15% cannabis sales tax could add up to more than $28 billion in government revenue in the first decade after legalisation. If the cannabis tax was set at 25%, the revenue would be more than $36 billion. The price of a gram of cannabis would begin at $13, according to the PBO analysis, Shoebridge said. 

The Greens will seek consultation on the bill before introducing it to Parliament.

Many countries have legalised cannabis use in recent years, including Canada, Mexico and Thailand. There are also dozens of countries where the use of the drug has been decriminalised.