BackSunday, 9 July 2017
Kelly Vincent – 5AA Interview on the Drink and Drug Driving Bill
Andrew Reimer: Kelly Vincent joins us again how’s the week been?
Kelly Vincent: Very, very busy, another busy sitting week in Parliament, that’s exactly what I’ve called in to talk to you about.
Andrew Reimer: there’s all sorts of issues, the issue that you’re wanting to talk to us about an amendment to do with the Government’s Drink and Drug Driving Bill on Thursday.
Kelly Vincent: That’s right Andrew. The Parliament has been debating the Drug Driving Bill which deals with the number of issues related to of course drink and drug driving one of the major issues that it was looking at is people driving under the influence of cannabis, or more specifically THC, I put up an amendment to ensure that people who are on medical cannabis, a legal approved medical cannabis product and who are certified as safe to drive under that product and have a certificate that says so don’t risk losing their licence, if they are certified, stable and safe to drive using that cannabis, certified legal medical cannabis product. since then the Government has come out with some pretty I have to say ill-informed and quite frankly offensive rhetoric, calling this ‘crazy’, talking about people driving while they’re high.
Well my very point Andrew is that THC is not psycho active unless it’s heated if you are using a cold-pressed cannabis oil, which a lot of people do for the treatment of pain in particular, but it’s not going to be psycho active and you’re not going to be high because the cannabis remains cold while the oil was being manufactured, some other points I would like to make is that there are also people out there driving around right now as I speak on some pretty serious medication including Endone and that’s perfectly legal. I in fact know people who have switched to using Endone to medical cannabis and they told me they feel much safer driving under legal medical cannabis than they did on Endone. Another point that I think is really important to remember and one that the Minister certainly doesn’t seem to understand is that a 2016 study from Columbia University in the United States of America actually shows that road fatalities dropped by 11% on average in states in America where cannabis, including medical cannabis, is legalised. Research from Colorado also shows a very significant impact, positive impact on road fatalities if the Minister isn’t interested in dropping road fatalities by 11% in this state he’s welcome to keep going on with this ill-informed rhetoric, but otherwise I frankly suggests that he gets himself educated.
It’s important to remember that I think this debate is really in the early days and a lot of people don’t understand what medical cannabis is all about, but when you have a Police Minister and a Road Safety Minister up there in the Parliament sharing all this misinformation about the dangers of THC even when it’s not psycho active it’s frankly offensive to medical cannabis community who turn to this drug as an absolute last resort. I’d also point out Andrew that some of the people who come out in support of my amendment include people in the medical field, people in the legal field, a road safety researcher and indeed a former police officer who used to be as anti-drugs as anyone could get he’s since turned to medical cannabis for an injury that he sustained on the Force. So you know this isn’t something that’s crazy like the Minister would like us to believe, it’s evidence based, it’s based on research and not only that based on compassion as well for people who already face relatively significant barriers just one other point that I’d like to make lastly is that you know some people who are commenting to me some pretty frankly naïve things like ‘if these people are so sick shouldn’t they not be driving in the first place’, the cannabis mitigates the pain or the sickness to the point where that person is safe to drive, also sick people and people with chronic pain still have lives to lead, families to look after, many of us have full time jobs, we need to get to our medical appointments. So I’m not advocating that people drive you know doped up to their eyeballs on cannabis or any other drugs for that matter, I’m simply asking to allow people who are certified medically safe to drive and medically stable under a legal approved product to drive safely on our roads.
Andrew Reimer: Kelly, you got the support of the Opposition, the Greens as well, what about you know your Australian Conservatives are they supporting this as well?
Kelly Vincent: My recollection is no, the amendment has passed the Upper House with the support of the majority of the members but my recollection is that did not include the Conservatives, but again I’ll be sharing this information I’ve just shared with you and more very widely with my colleagues in the next few weeks because we need this amendment to pass the Lower House, we need it to be successful so that we don’t put more barriers in the way of people who are already incredibly disadvantaged.
Andrew Reimer: Yeah, which is very, very true. Now have you spoken to the Police Minister, Peter Malinauskas, and you know expressed the facts regarding the situation when it comes to medicinal marijuana?
Kelly Vincent: Well we have had a debate on the floor of Parliament as this bill was being debated and again it was the same old rhetoric that we’ve heard time and time again under the blanket war on drugs, there is no room for nuance, there is no understanding of how THC actually works in terms of not producing a high if it’s not psycho active. It’s just this blanket rhetoric that doesn’t actually take into account the evidence, the evidence shows us that we can do this safely, we need to given that under federal law medical cannabis is now a legally approved substance for medical treatment we really need to move this conversation forward. I’m hoping that we can have a government that can evolve and show some maturity for the better of everyone in this state.
Andrew Reimer: Kelly, we’ll wait with great interest as to you know what the outcome will be when it you know gets to the Lower House. Hey, your thoughts about the battery, the power issues and the fact that this battery is going to be stored up there at Jamestown, have you got anything to say about that?
Kelly Vincent: Well I must admit Andrew at this point in early days I haven’t had the time to turn my mind to that issue in as much detail as I would like. I’ve been very busy with this particular issue that I’ve just been discussing with you, but in the next few days and weeks when I get my head around the nuances of that issue I’d be happy to discuss that with you because again, unlike the Police Minister, I don’t want to go on radio and start nonsense to try to monger fear and be incorrect and not based evidence, I’d like to come back to you with a conversation based on evidence and research.
Andrew Reimer: Good on you Kelly, thanks very much for taking the time to ring in tonight too.
Kelly Vincent: Thank you so much Andrew.
Andrew Reimer: Kelly Vincent, MLC from the State Dignity Party.
