Queensland Wants to Relax Its Drug Laws. Is It… Chill Now?

Queensland, commonly known as one of Australia’s most conservative states with historically harsh anti-drug laws, has recently eased off its punitive approach and proposed dramatic law reforms for personal drug use.

In February, the Queensland Government and Queensland Police jointly announced a proposal to extend the Police Drug Diversion Program to people caught with small personal supplies of all drugs, not just cannabis. 

Currently, minor drug offenders found with less than 50 grams of cannabis, or personal utensils, are free from prosecution in the first instance. Instead, they’re offered professional help through the diversion program. This latest proposal would see the same applied to people caught with personal amounts (we don’t know the specifications of those yet) of all drugs — even meth, heroin and pharmaceuticals. 

First offenders – people who have never been charged or jailed on a drug offence and do not face any other criminal charges – will be given a warning. Second offenders will be offered the diversion program by police on the spot, rather than a magistrate at a later date in court. Third offenders will be charged. 

Queensland's Police Minister Mark Ryan said the expanded police drug diversion program would prevent harm to occasional users and prevent people developing substance abuse issues, as well as free up time for police to take tougher action against drug traffickers and dealers.

Days after the announcement, the state health minister, Yvette D’Ath, revealed Queensland would become the first state to legalise pill testing and introduce mobile and fixed testing sites. 

After visiting Canberra’s sole fixed pill-testing site, CanTEST, and seeing its promising results, D’Ath said the evidence was undeniable. 

“Pill testing is all about harm minimisation; we don’t want people ending up in our emergency departments or worse losing their life,” D’Ath said on Saturday. 

So what’s behind the shift in thinking? And is Queensland chill now? 

Legal and drug safety experts say multiple factors may have led to the reforms. Some have been political, including more federal Greens MPs elected in Queensland pushing for the changes in parliament. Others were more experiential. 

“The two legislative changes are the culmination of a lengthy consideration that spanned some years,” Chair of Queensland Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee, Dominic Brunello, told VICE. 

“There has been increasing experience with the tragic consequences, particularly on young people, of misuse, so there’s been an examination of whether crime and punishment is the best way to address that.”

In September 2022, the government also launched its new Achieving Balance Plan to reduce alcohol and drug-related harm by considering and trialling various intervention strategies.

The Plan coincided with the conclusion of Queensland’s inquiry into the decriminalisation of certain public offences and health and welfare responses, which collected data throughout 2022. It handed down a number of recommendations in October, including the decriminalisation of intoxication, urination and begging, as well as a health-focussed response to offences. 

At the time, Greens MP Michael Berkman said the reasoning also made for an “equally as important and sensible” argument in favour of decriminalising drugs.

While Queensland hasn’t gone that far, Brunello said the bill emerged from that consultation process. 

“Its heart recognises that possession for personal use, as opposed to commercial use or drug trafficking, is more a health issue than a criminal justice issue.” 

But the bill also includes a tightening of other drug laws, including raising the maximum penalty for drug trafficking from 25 years in jail to life imprisonment. 

“These changes don’t decriminalise drugs. It’s a recognition that users who are found in possession of small personal amounts for the first or second time should be given the opportunity to get some education that is health-centric.” 

In other words, no, Queensland is not chill now. 

Pill Testing Australia’s clinical lead, Dr David Caldicott, said there’s always a political game governments need to play when it comes to drug law reform. 

He told VICE he was “chuffed” about the announcement that pill testing would eventually be rolled out, but that the evidence to support pill testing had existed for more than two decades and had not become more relevant. 

“I think they’ve been waiting for the [right] window to make the announcement,” he said. 

“The fact that the sky hasn’t fallen down in Canberra has been helpful.”

He also said the long-standing ideological arguments politicians have spouted against pill testing were wearing thin very quickly. 

“A lot of the opponents are saying that there’s no safe level in which these drugs can be taken. That’s in the same month the TGA has introduced therapeutic use of MDMA and psilocybin, so clearly there are levels in which they can be safely used.” Caldicott said.

“These inconsistencies in the argument — the whole opposition is beginning to fracture.”

As we saw with Australia’s same-sex marriage plebiscite, vocal challengers, including politicians and media outlets, use “controversial” topics like drug legislation to polarise communities. But Caldicott said those stakeholders always “end up eating their words,” because they can’t deny the science forever. 

“It’s the equivalent of saying global warming is a hoax,” he said. “That’s where we’re at now with how far removed drugs policy is from evidence.”

Caldicott said there was a feeling among experts that Queensland may have been the first state to take the plunge, and he can only hope that more jurisdictions follow suit sooner rather than later. 

Eventually, they all will.