Position Paper: Medicinal Cannabis and Driving Laws in Australia
Summary
This position paper, authored by Dr Michael White, a lead academic in road safety, lays out the current legal status of medicinal cannabis and driving, the risk of crashing while using medicinal cannabis, the flaws in testing for mere presence, rather than impairment, and describes how current arrangements should change to ensure fairness for medicinal cannabis patients without impacting road safety.
In Australia, it is an offence to drive with any trace of a proscribed drug in a body fluid. Cannabis is one of the proscribed drugs (as identified through delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol - THC. Since 2004, all Australian jurisdictions have introduced roadside drug testing RDT programs to enforce the ban on drug-presence driving. As a ‘presence’ offence, no evidence of impairment is required. Furthermore, any trace of the drug in a body fluid is sufficient. The offence of cannabis-presence driving does not distinguish between recreational and medicinal cannabis.
