Ok, so now finally due to overwhelming public pressure, mainly due to parents of children with epilepsy, we have some movement. The senate has passed legislation allowing a national body that can issue licenses to growers and regulate local crops of medicinal marijuana.
How many licenses are on offer, the cost and the prerequisites for obtaining a license, is still an unknown (at least to me).
But we still have a long, long way to go, and I'm not sure if I'll be around to see the result I consider just.
Cannabis, which is not a drug but a herb, still remains a "prohibited substance" under the poisons schedule. But Health Minister Sussan Ley said the Department of Health and the Therapeutic Goods Administration were "well-advanced" in considering downgrading it to a "controlled substance" class, putting it in the same category as morphine.
Now how could the TGA and DOH clump cannabis together with morphine? Morphine can kill you, it can cause asphyxia and death by respiratory depression.
Cannabis is non toxic, it's not a poison! Many recreational users of cannabis have rigorously tried to abuse the herb over the years with no associated deaths.
So this is the next step, the next bit of legislation that needs to be amended.
In saying the above, it also needs to be decriminalised now, not next year or in 5 years from now. Cannabis has been decriminalised in the ACT and South Australia for decades, cannabis users are not evil people, they are not thieves, murderers, rapists or any other type of nefarious person. Cannabis does not cause people to be violent as alcohol can.
If anything it's alcohol that should be listed as a "prohibited substance" under the poisons schedule" and associated with morphine.  Alcohol is toxic and you can, and people do, die from alcoholic poisoning. Now I'm not saying that I want alcohol illegal, just pointing out scientific facts. We don't want another prohibition similar to that from 1920 to 1933 in the United States, that was a bloodfest of violence.

So as much as I welcome the changes to legislation and feel it's a step in the right direction, it's nowhere near good enough and cannabis is still being demonised without just reason, as it has been for the past 50 years.
Hopefully, what this legislation will allow, is the truth to be shown. That cannabis, the herb, is not an evil drug as portrayed by the U.S. and Australian government. Hopefully, it will show cannabis to be the amazing medicinal herb it is, with so much potential for all.


references: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senate-passes-medicinal-cannabis-legislation-20160224-gn2gjk.html