37% of Australians over the age of 14 have used cannabis at least once, 7.6 million people in total, and a large majority want it to be decriminalized, according to a new report from the Penington Institute.
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The Penington Institute developed the Cannabis in Australia 2022 report using published data and interviews with around 100 experts.
“A fixture of the Australian drug landscape for over half a century, cannabis is our most widely consumed illicit drug”, states the report “Despite its prevalence, a lack of reliable data paired with conflicting messages from our government and media mean that community understandings of cannabis remain poor.”
Despite this, support for legalization has been steadily growing in the country. In 2010, 66% of people believed that cannabis possession should not be a crime. This grew to 73.9% in 2016, and 77.9% in 2019.
Despite widespread support for marijuana reform, massive amounts of money continue to be spent on prosecuting people for it.
“In 2015-16, more than $1.7 billion was spent on enforcement, including: $1.1 billion on imprisonment, $475 million on police, $62 million on courts, $52 million on legal aid and prosecution, and $25 million on community corrections.” Since 2010-2011, there have been 702,866 cannabis-related arrests in the country, with around 90% of those charges being for simple possession. Data for 2019-2020 shows that half of all drug arrests (about 46.1%) were cannabis related.
The report found that if marijuana was decriminalized it would save taxpayers up to $850 million annually, and if it was also legalized it could save residents more than $1.2 billion per year.
