Nimbin Mardigrass, 2024, had a colourful Saturday with some big names in attendance to celebrate, as well as some new events in the ever-popular Hemp Olympics. There were also many politicians and professionals to discuss the benefits of cannabis use and issues with the legislation.

Michael Balderstone, the founder of Nimbin Mardigrass, is a fixture, and he was joined this year by Graeme Dunstan, one of the founders of the Aquarius Festival in Nimbin, back in 1973. The Aquarius Festival was a ten-day event and is claimed to be the first time a Welcome to Country ceremony initiated an event.

Michael is very happy with Mardigrass 2024 and says “ I just want everyone to enjoy themselves and have a good time.” He speaks of the new “sport” in the Hemp Olympics, which is called Dealers Dilemma. “The dealer is in a house, doing a deal, and the sirens wail as the cops show up. The dealer then has to throw one-pound bags (of dope) out a window. 16 of them!”

Michael mentions that Julian Assange's father, John Shipton will also be in attendance. ”John gets a lot of support from around here and it would be great to get some good news regarding Julian.”

As ever, the locals and tourists alike turned out to enjoy one of the biggest events in Nimbin of the year. 

The Jungle Patrol, a local contingent to help with crowds is there. Max from the Jungle Patrol said, “For the last 32 years, we have run a community safety initiative to make the festival comfortable for everyone who comes and joins in.” Another member claims they are “Keeping Nimbin Nearly Normal. Peaceful, goodness, happiness, love and respect, that's what it's about.”

Rose from the Northern Rivers Hemp Growers Co-op was involved in a talk about the latest in Hemp product development. He talks about the myriad of uses of cannabis, “It’s the only plant in the world that can house, clothe, feed and be used for medicine."

“All 60,000 uses have merits and there are so many still being explored. For our region, using locally grown, tested and with proven health benefits topical pain-releasing oils have been in huge demand, however, the hope is to build a community from hemp, as a building product it is perfect for fire and flood-prone areas, all while being ideal for absorbing carbon from our environment.”

On the other side of Hemp Culture is the battle with legislation. There are plenty of placards around with slogans illustrating perspectives and serious discussion about the future of cannabis use in Australia.

)"Peaceful not criminals" Nimbin Mardigrass slogan)

Michael says the biggest point in the legal discussion is drug driving testing, “Saliva testing of drivers is just disgusting. It's nothing to do with impairment, nothing to do with helping people on the road, and it's this unique thing in Australia which our cops seem to think is cool. No other country is doing it.”

David Heilpern (Dean of Law at SCU) and Sue Higginson (Greens) spoke about Cannabis Laws in Australia. Both are passionate about Australia’s drug driving laws, which they agree are outdated.

Mr Heilpern said that his advocacy stems from his experience as a magistrate, “I couldn't stand drug driving. So many people with prescriptions, single mums coming before me and I'd have to take away their licences even though they had a script. One million Australians have a prescription for cannabis, and they can't drive.”  

Cannabis can stay in your system for a day or more, and to drive with any trace of cannabis in your system is currently a criminal offence. Mr Heilpern claims research shows that if cannabis is prescribed by a doctor, it will not impair your driving.

“The problem is, of course, that 11,000 people every year in New South Wales will go before the court and have their licence suspended for driving with cannabis in the system. Broadly, more than half of those are for medicinal purposes.”

“For me, the priority is medicinal cannabis users should be in the same boat as medicinal valium users, or anti-anxiety pill users, or medicinal opioid users. They should be able to drive in accordance with their doctor's instructions.”

225,000 drug drive tests have been carried out in NSW in the last year.

Ms Higginson said, “The government needs to realise they have a whole class of people who are trying to have self determination over their health and wellness, and they have found a mechanism to do that but it ultimately criminalises them.”

Mr Heilpern questions the industry, “I'm quite surprised that the cannabis industry hasn’t started doing their own marketing. Why aren’t they running ads on social media in the papers and on the Lismore app saying, this law needs to be changed.”

Discussion turns to international determinations. Ms Higginson says, “We are so far behind that when we are looking at countries that have legalised it, they have different models of legalisation, and it's not in the medicinal cannabis stream any longer.” Mr Heilpern says that there are medicinal defences in New Zealand, Ireland, England, Canada, most of the U.S. and most of the EU.

Senator David Shoebridge of the Greens represented at the Uppers & Lowers talk: the Legislative Path to Legalising Cannabis. The senator is firm in his conviction, “One of the biggest hurdles to getting proactive cannabis laws for Australia has been the lack of political imagination, thinking it required step-by-step reform in each state and territory. 

“The good news is, as the Greens’ Federal Justice spokesperson, I have presented the Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 to the Senate and it shows how we can, in a single piece of legislation, legalise cannabis for the whole country.

“This Greens’ Bill shows how the Federal Parliament can create a single legal cannabis market across the country that is not dominated by multinational pharmaceutical, alcohol and tobacco companies, and that creates thousands of new sustainable green jobs. 

“When the Commonwealth parliament finally makes cannabis legal, that will also turn off all the State and Territory laws that criminalise cannabis across the country.”

Jeremy Buckingham (Legalise Cannabis) gave a talk on It’s High Time We Legalise Cannabis with Cate Faehrmann (Greens). He spoke about how close he thinks the legalisation of marijuana use is, “It’s hard to say when it will happen. Our hope and expectation is that legalisation will be an obvious recommendation to come out of the planned NSW Drug Summit later this year. The Government could be brave and simply agree to the recommendation, but it’s more likely to take it to the next election. So assuming Labor gets a second term, my bet would be some form of legalisation in 2027. Full legalisation, with shops on the corner, will take much longer.

“Our main goal before legalisation is to change our insane driving laws to allow medicinal cannabis patients to drive whilst not impaired. The saliva tests that we use right now are a joke – they test for presence and not impairment, and can be easily rendered ineffective if you know what you’re doing.”

Mr Buckingham appreciates the role the Nimbin Mardigrass has played in Cannabis legislation, “ Full credit to Michael Balderstone and his Hemp Embassy crew for putting on MardiGrass. Back in 1993, when it started, cannabis legalisation seemed a very long way off indeed. Now we are right on the edge of it. So often the people who were called crazy are really just visionaries – they can see further into the future than the rest of us. It’s both a party and a political act to take part in MardiGrass. The best of both worlds!”

The Mardigrass kicks off this morning at 10am. The Hemp Olympics starts at 11.30am and the Cannabis Law Reform Rally and Parade is on at 2.30pm.