About: This session will discuss Cannabis laws in Australia, and present a round up of state-by-state drug law reform in 2024. From strip searches at festivals and your friendly sniffers dogs, to medical cannabis being the only prescribed medicine which makes it illegal to drive, please come on a journey into many cruel and unusual laws running rampant in contemporary Oz.
David Heilpern, Drive Change Campaign
& Sue Higginson, NSW Greens MLC
Biographies:
David Heilpern was appointed as a Magistrate in 1998, and was at the time the youngest magistrate in Australia. Since “retiring” in May 2020, he has resumed private practice as a solicitor, as well as returning to Southern Cross University as an adjunct and practice professor. David is committed to speaking out about drug law reform, particularly the drug driving detection laws, to ensure that drug laws change to reflect the principles of harm reduction. In particular, he believes that harm is only increased by applying a law and order model to victimless crimes.
Sue Higginson is a Greens MLC in the NSW Parliament driven by social and environmental justice. Her journey started in the old-growth forests of the North Coast as a frontline activist and her passion for protecting our precious native forests is just as strong today. Sue is in the NSW Parliament to bring in laws that protect First Nations people and their culture, to end logging in our public native forests and the destruction of nature, and to challenge the corporate interests that want coal and gas mining extended and expanded in communities across our state.
