On the eve of 420, my colleague Rachel Payne and I joined the crew from ‘The CrazeCo’ on the steps of Parliament to highlight the hypocrisy of Victoria’s approach to cannabis.
CrazeCo’s Alec Zammitt and Will Stolk have become legends in the cannabis community, after projecting pro-cannabis images onto Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, resulting in a two year legal battle, which was eventually dropped.
Driving down from Sydney, their team had created a jail cell which was intended to lock up a statue of Queen Victoria, but we had to abandon those plans as it was ruled to be ‘unparliamentary’.
It’s a little known fact that Queen Victoria, who the state of Victoria is named after, took cannabis to manage her pain. If she lived here today, she would be arrested. That’s the point we were trying to make.
In the end, we had to settle on locking up fake cannabis plants, because to put it simply, cannabis is criminalised and we want change. Around 9,000 Victorians are charged with offences relating to cannabis, and 92% of those relate to possession of small quantities.
As I said, “The use of cannabis should not be the crime, it’s the victimisation, stigmatisation and criminalisation that is the crime, and it needs to change.”
“We call upon the government to show some courage, to show some insight, and make the changes that are necessary.”
Then, the next day, we were once again reminded of how much cannabis prohibition has failed. 36 attendees at the very peaceful 420 picnic were arrested. That is 36 people who will now have that on their criminal record for doing something that 50% of Australians have admitted to doing.
Watch the video.
