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June 11, 2026 — 5:00am
When someone I know began undergoing chemotherapy treatment after a bowel cancer diagnosis a few years ago, they were swamped by friends dropping off care packages: frozen meals, books, comfortable socks, and a significant quantity of illicit marijuana.
The cannabis came in various guises, but probably the most useful was a jar of weed-infused honey. A teaspoon stirred into a cup of tea had the effect of dampening the nausea caused by the chemo and helped them sleep.
But the relief was tempered by inconvenience. It meant not being able to drive themselves to oncologist appointments the next day, for example.
They never bothered getting a prescription. The strange, quasi-legal status of cannabis in Australia meant that while they were eligible to take it with a doctor’s consent, there was basically no point. Unless the police broke down the door and raided the pantry they weren’t going to get caught, and a prescription wouldn’t have helped with driving.
Which gets to the problem the NSW government’s proposed changes to drug driving laws grapples with. The strange, quasi-legal status of cannabis, coupled with, let’s be honest, its widespread use among some subsections of the population, means our road laws have not kept up with reality.
Last week, Premier Chris Minns announced a significant overhaul of driving rules in NSW to address this. Under the changes, people with cannabis prescriptions will be offered a medical defence and be subjected to a three-strike impairment test.
Anyone who registers a medicinal marijuana prescription with Transport NSW and records more than 50 nanograms of THC per millilitre of saliva in a roadside test will get a warning and a 24-hour driving ban. If they receive three warnings they will receive a fine and a minimum three-month licence suspension.
The policy hasn’t been universally popular. Opposition leader Kellie Sloane is among those who point to a lack of scientific consensus about what level of THC reliably measures driver impairment, while raising concerns about the explosion of cannabis prescriptions in Australia.
Taking such a step seems out of kilter for this government.
Minns, as premier, has largely avoided the type of policies which tend to whip up opposition on his right, but has now taken some significant steps on drug policy, including a pill-testing trial and changes to low-level drug possession which keep more offenders out of the courts.
He’s always done so cautiously, often quietly, and usually while stressing the limits of the change. When the government announced the pill-testing trial, for example, it came after Minns had spent months questioning its effectiveness. When they went ahead with it, he was at pains to point out it would not change police powers.
This time was different. Minns stood up with rugby league immortal Andrew Johns and SAS veteran Michael James – both medicinal marijuana users – to announce the “commonsense” changes.
Criticisms of the policy are not meritless. The weight of evidence certainly points to a pretty self-evident fact: cannabis consumption impairs your driving, and it is also true that medical marijuana in Australia is fairly loosely regulated.
The explosion in prescriptions over the past few years is proof enough of that. While prescription marijuana includes dosage recommendations, many users are experienced in self-medicating, and may not necessarily feel compelled to stick to what’s on the script.
But the politics of cannabis is not straightforward, and the reality that many people use cannabis and some of them do it for valid medical reasons has become more widely accepted.
Though the timing of the announcement in the lead-up to Labor’s state conference next month may be geared at pacifying some of those on the party’s left who are frustrated by this government, the blowback has certainly been more muted than such a change would have been 10 years ago.
People like the “tough on crime” former Queensland premier Campbell Newman and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson have spoken in favour of drug liberalisation policies, while in NSW, Police Minister Yasmin Catley, a member of the party’s hard left faction, has spoken about her staunch anti-drug position (though Catley last week spoke in favour of her government’s reforms, saying it was for “a legal prescription given by a doctor to people who are sick”).
That the government intended to introduce changes to drug-driving laws has been a badly kept secret in Macquarie Street for years, not months. Jeremy Buckingham, the Legalise Marijuana MP in the NSW upper house, has been one of the government’s most friendly crossbenchers in the parliament for good reason.
Selling the policy hasn’t been aided by the fact Minns himself has been confused on the details. Announcing the policy last week, the premier initially said the warning system would not apply for users who returned a test result between 50ng/mL and 100ng/mL.
And, as is often the case with this government, it has done itself no favours by not releasing any of the expert advice upon which it made the decision. The government commissioned Monash University’s Accident Research Centre to provide advice on formulating a drug-driving policy, but won’t release it because it is cabinet in confidence.
But the reality is the government is trying to manage something which is already happening. An estimated 300,000 people in NSW already have a medicinal marijuana prescription and many of them are almost certainly driving already. By wrapping a layer of regulation around it, the government is hopefully sending a message that dosage and duration matters.
Michael McGowan is state political editor.
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