Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens Health spokesperson
Tasmanian Labor is trying to have its cake and eat it too on personal drug use reform, speaking the language of harm reduction but refusing to support the legislation needed to make it happen.
Labor’s Justice spokesperson Ella Haddad claims Labor understands addiction requires treatment, not punishment. She also says Labor thinks “those who manufacture and distribute drugs in Tasmania should face legal consequences”.
The good news is the Greens' draft bill to decriminalise personal drug use does exactly these things – it retains the crimes of manufacturing and distributing illicit drugs, and removes crimes for personal use.
The bad news is that Ella Haddad knows this, and instead of telling Tasmanians what Labor really thinks, she is deliberately misleading and muddying the waters to distract people from her Party’s increasingly right-wing policies. We are yet to understand the real reason Labor appears unwilling to support these reforms.
It has been disappointing to see Labor and the Liberals be so quick to dismiss drug decriminalisation, without any attempt to provide a submission or feedback to our draft bill.
We are willing to work with everyone to get an outcome that can be supported to improve drug policy in Tasmania.
We challenge the Liberal and Labor parties to have a mature debate on drug policy, rather than rely on fearmongering rhetoric or, in Ms Haddad’s case, outright obfuscation.