In Australia, more aborigines prosecuted for cannabis

A new study by an Australian government agency highlights the fact that the country's aborigines are treated very differently from non-aboriginals when they are caught by the police using cannabis.

Research, published earlier this month by the New South Wales Bureau of Criminal Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), was based on «a dataset of 38,813 observations involving 27,127 adult offenders prosecuted for an incident of cannabis use or possession between January 2017 and February 2020».

Among aboriginal cannabis offenders, only 11.7 % received «warnings» from the police, compared with 43.9 % of non-aboriginal offenders. A warning is the mildest of sanctions and an alternative to prosecution, which is therefore more common among Aboriginal Australians.

According to ABC New England in Australia, the report revealed that only 39.5 % of Aboriginal offenders eligible for a warning received one.

Cannabis is illegal in Australia. This study comes at a time when political efforts to legalize cannabis in the country.

The Greens, currently the minority party in Australia, are the main instigators of legalization. They announced last year that the party had received advice from a constitutional lawyer that parliament could supersede state laws and put an end to pot prohibition.

The opinion focused on «three Commonwealth heads of power that would enable it to legalize and regulate cannabis consumption, with the clearest route through part of Article 51, which deals with copyrights, patents for inventions and designs, and trademarks».

Legalization could pay off in Australia. A study published in May 2023 by the University of Western Australia suggests that legalization could generate $243.5 million a year in the first five years in Western Australia, a state occupying the western 33% of the Australian territory.

ABC Radio Perth reported at the time that the study, commissioned by the Legalise Cannabis WA Party, The study «quantified the revenue that the state could derive from the legalization of cannabis» and «took into account data on the form and frequency of cannabis use, as well as the estimated cost of enforcing current laws prohibiting cannabis use».

«We wanted to know the truth about this issue and we commissioned this study without expecting any particular outcome,» said Brian Walker, party leader Legalise Cannabis WA. «This is the first time anyone has shown their work and explained exactly how they arrived at their figures. On the expense side, there are things like police - prosecuting a cannabis offence - courts and remedial services to deal with that. In total, it's about $100 million a year.