A criminal lawyer has said police are prosecuting only one-third of people found in the possession of cannabis, and they unfairly end up taking the rap for everyone else.
Barrister Tudor Clee says police are "absolutely" using de facto decriminalisation when it comes to the prosecution of people found in the possession of cannabis.
He says the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill now before select committee either needs to be harsher, and uniformly enforced, or the drug be fully decriminalised.
"The chances of a police officer walking in and finding someone with one or two months left to live, growing a plant, which is clearly illegal under the new bill, putting handcuffs on them and taking them to the police station is zero," Mr Clee says.
"So if it's not going to happen why are we complicating the law in the first place?"
Mr Tudor says 10 years ago everyone who was found by police in the possession of cannabis was prosecuted.
Now, 30 per cent aren't even taken to court, 30 per cent are let off through the judicial process, and the final third of those caught face potentially serious criminal sanctions.
Such ratios are reflected in the number of people prosecuted for cannabis possession, which is now at a couple of thousand a year, whereas 10 years ago is was around six to seven thousand.
The typical person Mr Clee says he represents for cannabis possession in court will not generally not have had any criminal history.
"The people I tend to deal with in court on a day to day basis are more often than not men in their 50s or 60s who own their own properties, they own their own businesses, they've never had any involvement with the police in their life and they enjoy smoking cannabis at home," he says.
"By the time they call me they've usually been caught by accident, the police have come over the check something else, nothing to do with breaking any other law, and then they end up in court facing very serious sanctions for something that quite reasonably can be argued is a victim-less crime they're carrying out."
Mr Tudor highlighted another flaw in existing cannabis legislation, in that there is no discrimination between where you bought your cannabis.
"If you go to the local gang house and you buy the cannabis and it's sitting on your table, you have a one-third chance of not even going to court. If you decide to not support the local gang house, and grow it your self there is a 100 per cent chance of you going to court."
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