Every year, about 4,000 Victorians are arrested for simply possessing a small amount of cannabis for personal use. They are overwhelmingly young people and/or from marginalised communities, and the effect of that brush with the law can have profoundly negative consequences for their futures.
A smaller number of people caught with a small amount of cannabis receive a caution from the police. This does not leave them with a criminal record, a large fine, expensive legal proceedings, or time in custody.
In 2024, the Victoria Police Manual (the police operations manual, or VPM) was updated to expand eligibility for cautions and to remove limits on the number of cautions an individual can receive for the use and possession of small amounts of cannabis.
In theory, this should have dramatically reduced cannabis-related charges. Almost two years later, nothing has changed. Arrests haven’t fallen, and cautions haven’t increased.
Police understand all too well the destructive impact minor criminal breaches can have on a person’s life, and the sheer waste of time and money it creates for our under-resourced police force.
Last year, police spent 58,000 hours processing charges for this minor and victimless crime.
One of the issues we identified in this campaign is that it’s almost impossible for members of the public, or their legal representatives, to access the VPM. It’s only available on CD-ROM, and you either need to visit the State Library or send a cheque to Vic Pol for the disc. I don’t know about you, but I’d be hard pushed to even find a computer that reads CD-ROMs.
Even members of the police force informed us that they struggle to access information in the VPM, as they need to scan a QR code in their police station to access the manual. And when might they have some spare time to do that?
There’s also been no new training on the best way to handle people caught consuming or possessing cannabis, and no publicity about the change in priorities from arrests to cautions.
We commend Victoria Police for the change, but if nobody knows about it and it’s not being applied, what’s the point?
So, on the 13th of May, Legalise Cannabis Victoria presented a motion in the Victorian Parliament on police cautions for cannabis possession. Put simply, it said that subject to police discretion and the existing Cautioning Scheme rules, police should prioritise cautions over arrests.
We were joined by former police officer Greg Denham and Adam Willson from Fitzroy Legal Service, who added their support to the many peak harm reduction and legal bodies backing this proposal.
I’m very pleased to share that the motion passed. The government and the opposition both supported the motion, as did my colleagues on the crossbench. Let’s hope this change can happen quickly as a step towards sensible cannabis law reform.
We urge the government to put this into legislation as soon as possible.
By David Ettershank, Member for Western Metropolitan Region.
You can find more information at
davidettershank.com.au or by contacting
his office on (03) 9317 5900
