By Peter McAllister
NIMBIN -- More than 200 people attended the Beyond Prohibition conference held in conjunction with the annual Harvest Ball here on April 30. The consensus emerging from the conference was to push for a national campaign targeting legalisation rather than decriminalisation of marijuana.
The conference heard from a variety of researchers and experts on the legal, medical and environmental effects of cannabis prohibition. Criminologist Professor Paul Wilson pointed out the massive impetus given to organised crime by cannabis prohibition. Dr Paul Rescher, Richard Jones and Ros Irwin examined the environmental benefits of industrial production from hemp and argued for the development of cottage industries based on the plant.
Other speakers criticised the scientific basis of prohibition evidence and the lack of access to the drug for chemotherapy and glaucoma patients.
The conference then moved to the Nimbin Town Hall for an open forum. Among concerns voiced were the harassment of local residents by police helicopter raids and the discriminatory effects of fines incurred under the decriminalisation regimes in SA and the ACT. Speakers from South Australia gave an account of their campaign to elect a HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition) candidate to the SA upper house. A representative of Flinders University students detailed the establishment of a national database on drug law reform.
The power brunch held the next morning came up with a resolution to hold a national smoke-in on May Day next year. Other resolutions will be collated and published shortly by the Beyond Prohibition Research Council. The conference and festival finished, in true Nimbin style, with the march of a 30-foot-long joint (artificial) and several hundred people (real) through the main street, followed by a fire ceremony and music in the park.n
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