famous HEMP Embassy, a ramshackle temple to the world’s most debated weed, the past and the future mingle uneasily. Attached to the Embassy is the Hemp Bar, a non-alcoholic hangout where the past – or illicit cannabis – is best represented by an old wall mural showing Nimbin’s pioneering hippie fathers and mothers defiantly brandishing large joints against a backdrop of jungle-fringed mountains, flourishing dope crops and eternally hovering police helicopters.
Do the kids of hippies tend to rebel and go straight? “There is a bit of that,” he concedes. “None of my [now grown] kids will smoke dope, and they all went to university and got proper jobs, and they’re into money a bit.” At that moment, oddly enough, I notice Balderstone squinting into the sun, and that one of his bushy eyebrows has somehow tumbled down to cover his squinting eye. Does he want to move to get the sun out of his eyes? Balderstone bursts out laughing. “I’ve only got one eye,” he says. “It was [a childhood accident].”Balderstone: “No, no! [More laughing] The eyebrow did it all by itself! … Jesus, Frank, I think this is the first time I’ve been interviewed by a journo who admits to being a smoker.
In 1993, artist Nigel Quinlan established the Help End Marijuana Prohibition Party, later running as a Senate candidate under the name Nigel Freemarijuana. Balderstone became the party’s president. By then he was a vocal supporter of efforts to break the stranglehold on the pain-relief market held by Big Pharma.
The main reason for this, apart from changing perceptions of cannabis in the wake of the medicinal revolution, seems to be the LCA’s choice of a “conservative” candidate in Noosa Heads lawyer, Bernie Bradley, who not only doesn’t smoke dope but opposes aspects of his own party’s legalisation goals.before visiting Nimbin, I meet Bradley, 52, at the Noosa Yacht & Rowing Club, where he stores his trailer sailer and once served as commodore.
“The levels of detection for cannabis are so low – five nanograms, or 5000-millionths of a gram – that people were appearing before me regularly, saying, ‘I’m just taking my medication; here’s my prescription and doctor’s instructions,’ or saying they hadn’t used cannabis for, in many cases, days before their tests,” Heilpern tells.
A NSW Legislative Council inquiry is examining a bill from Greens member Cate Faehrmann calling for changes to road laws to enable a medicinal cannabis exemption. Queensland is also reviewing its drug-testing legislation.
I would sincerely like to apologise to you on that is not happy with that big white beard.. if you find it repulsive I will see if it can be removed henceforth. Once again apologies…?
Imagine the tax revenue?
“High time” I see what you did there 😂
Yes
I can’t see it happening
If that's the ex-stockbroker in the pic, he's really gone to......pot.
Such a conservative country. Even more than the USA
What part of Australia's second most popular recreational substance being illegal makes sense to anybody?
What is anyone’s problem with it?
What part of 'Smoking Kills' do you not understand?
No. They don’t agree.
It won’t happen for a couple of years. Once the number of registered patients is over 1M politicians will start to take notice so they can use it to buy votes.
No
Yes