Cannabis Regulation and Licensing Bill to Go Before the House

The Misuse of Drugs Act is once again before the House of Representatives as a proposed piece of legislation that will ultimately allow for the cultivation of cannabis for commercial use. While it had the support of the opposition, it stalled in the upper house because of certain concerns that were raised by social partner senators.  A new iteration of that law is being tabled as the Cannabis Regulation and Licensing Bill. The Minister of New Growth Industries, Kareem Musa, explains.

Kareem Musa

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“The amendments that we had made to the Misuse of Drugs Act had been passed in the House of Representatives.  It was entirely supported by our side of the house and I believe three out of the four parliamentarians on the opposition had supported it, including the Leader of the Opposition, but when it got to the Senate concerns were raised in terms of the structure of the bill.  They preferred to see it as a stand-alone bill and so what we did, we just extracted what was contained in the Misuse of Drugs Act and created a Cannabis Regulation and Licensing Bill and so that was taken back before cabinet for approval as a stand-alone bill which will now, we will start the process over in the House of Representatives on the next occasion and hopefully we still have the support of the opposition moving forward and hopefully that addresses the concerns of the social partner senators that had raised those issues at the senate level.”