WA Medicinal Cannabis THC Driving Laws Must Change

If you use MEDICINAL CANNABIS legally prescribed by your doctor, you are trapped by a broken law.

You can drive safely. You are not impaired. You pose no risk to anyone on the road. Yet if you are stopped and tested, you can be charged with THC driving, and convicted, regardless of whether your cannabis affected your ability to drive at all.

Current WA road law does not distinguish between prescribed medical use and illicit use. It does not test for impairment. It punishes prescription-holding patients for traces of THC that may linger in their system long after any effect has worn off. The presence of a substance is not the same as impairment. This is not a contested proposition. It is what the science says.

NSW has acted. WA has not.

New South Wales has now introduced reforms that end the automatic punishment of medicinal cannabis patients who hold a valid prescription and register with Transport for NSW.

Tasmania has operated a similar protection for over a decade, with no increase in road fatalities as a result.

Victoria has been running a medicinal cannabis driving trial for years.

The evidence is in. The models exist. The science has long been settled.

Western Australia has had the parliamentary inquiry. It has had the working group. It has had the evidence, the lived experience of patients, and the examples from every other jurisdiction.

What it has lacked is political courage.

The Cook Government has now watched three states move ahead of it, and has not introduced a single piece of legislation. You can read the full record of Brian's questions and the Government's evasions in the THC Driving Timeline.

That is not caution. It is a choice - and patients are paying for it.