The Legalise Cannabis Party Could Pick Up Two Vic Seats, So Who Are They?

A group of Victorian minor parties including the Greens and the Legalise Cannabis Party could hold the balance of power in the state’s upper house if the votes still being counted from Saturday’s election flow in their favour. The Legalise Cannabis Party’s popularity has been getting much hiiiigher in recent years, so who are they? And what would its wins mean for weed legislation? We can only hope to see people smoking legal fat ones on Swanston Street soon. As the final votes roll in, Labor is looking likely to pick up 15 seats in the Legislative Council and the Coalition 14. This means the Labor Government will need the support of six other MPs to have the balance of power needed to pass laws. The Greens hope to win four seats, Legalise Cannabis is eyeing two, the Animal Justice party may get one and the Reason party leader Fiona Patten could win her seat again. The Legalise Cannabis Party, formerly known as the Help End Marijuana Prohibition Party (HEMP) was founded in Australia’s unofficial dooby capital of Nimbin, north of Byron Bay, in 1993. It was rebranded in 2020 and has been gaining traction since. It’s a politically progressive party with left-wing policies. In the 2021 WA state election, Legalise Cannabis won two upper house seats and in the 2022 federal election, it surprised everyone with its relatively large share of the vote

David Ettershanklatest National Durg Strategy Household Survey in 2019cannabis arrests in Australia in the same yearpolicy to fully legalise

95 years ago, Victoria criminalised cannabis. Billions have been spent trying to eradicate it, yet more than one in three of us have tried it. Since then thousands of Victorians have been convicted, fined, jailed. It’s time to legalise it. #legaliseit

— Dr Tim Read MP (@TimRRead) October 9, 2022

“We’re a single policy party but I actually say we’re singularly focused,” Legalise Cannabis’ South-Eastern Metropolitan candidate Rachel Payne told PEDESTRIAN.TV.  “You can look at cannabis in the space around healthcare, mental health [and] economic benefits.”And“This issue crosses class, gender ethnicity, political persuasion,” Ettershank said. “We’ve got ppl supporting us who are very conservative through to right out there on the left.“If we get elected, we are politically progressive, sensible and we will come into this with a very clearly defined set of issues around cannabis.”“Whatever happens here, I think this is certainly a big springboard and momentum generator.”

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