Drugs are a health issue, not a crime
If someone’s struggling with drugs, they need a doctor, not a criminal record. A harm reduction approach keeps people safer and gets them help sooner.
Riley Aickin
Legalise Cannabis Victoria candidate for the Northern Metropolitan Region
Drugs are a health issue, not a crime.
Vote Legalise Cannabis Victoria in the Upper House on Saturday 28 November.
About Riley
Hi, I’m Riley Aickin, and I’m running for the Upper House in Northern Metro.
I live in Newport with my fiancée and work as a sustainability lead. My job has me on the road across Melbourne’s north most days: clients in the CBD one day, Essendon Fields or Brunswick the next, and out past Craigieburn to Beveridge after that. It’s a big, diverse region, and what matters in Richmond isn’t always what matters in Wallan.
I’m also a medicinal cannabis patient. I’ve seen how our laws treat people who are doing the right thing: paying too much for a legal prescription, and risking a court appearance on the drive to work even when they’re perfectly safe to drive.
This campaign is about fixing a system that eats up police time, hands an estimated $1 billion a year to criminals, and treats a health issue like a crime.
The Upper House is Victoria’s house of review. The job is reading legislation closely and asking hard questions, so I’m studying a foundational certificate in legal studies after work. I’m not a lawyer and won’t pretend to be, but I want to be ready to scrutinise every bill properly on behalf of Northern Metro.
What I stand for
Free up police for serious crime
The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates Victoria Police spent around 56,800 hours on cannabis-related crime in 2024–25. That’s the equivalent of 27 full-time officers.1 I’d rather that time went to family violence, break-ins and the crimes that actually make people feel unsafe. And for the person on the other end, a cannabis charge can mean time off work to go to court, and a criminal record that makes the next job harder to get.
Take the money off criminals
Victorians spend an estimated $1 billion a year on illegal cannabis, and all of it ends up with criminals.4 Legalise Cannabis Victoria’s plan would let adults grow up to six plants at home and share small amounts with friends, building on what the ACT has done since 2020.5 Add regulated, not-for-profit cannabis clubs, like those in Germany and Malta, and you cut criminals out of the picture.6
A fair go for medicinal cannabis patients
If your doctor prescribes it, you shouldn’t be priced out of it, and you shouldn’t be treated differently at work for taking it exactly as prescribed.
Let patients drive
Roadside testing should catch people who are unsafe to drive. Right now it can catch patients who are perfectly fine behind the wheel, just because there’s a trace of their legal medicine in their system. Medicinal cannabis should be treated like any other prescription medicine: test for impairment, not presence.
Being charged while not impaired: since 1 March 2025, magistrates have discretion over licence loss for medicinal cannabis patients, but a positive roadside test can still lead to a charge and a court appearance.7
The government spent $4.9 million on a closed-track driving trial to find out how prescribed medicinal cannabis affects driving.8 The trial is still running, and results aren’t expected until 2027. Legalise Cannabis Victoria is pushing the Victorian Government to release the results as soon as possible.9
Build with hemp
Hemp grows fast, and when it’s turned into building materials like hempcrete, it locks carbon away in the walls of our homes. I work in sustainability, and I think Victoria should be backing hemp as a local industry: good for farmers, good for builders, and good for the climate. Legalise Cannabis Victoria has already introduced a Hemp Industry Bill to help get it there.10
You don’t have to use cannabis to support this
Never tried it and never will? That’s completely fine. You can still think it doesn’t add up that police spend tens of thousands of hours a year chasing it while criminals pocket the profits.
Legalisation means less money for crime gangs, more police time for serious crime, and fewer people’s lives turned upside down over a plant. That’s a better deal whether you use cannabis or not, and it’s why around 80% of Australians say having cannabis for personal use shouldn’t be a crime.11
More than one issue
Legalise Cannabis Victoria’s two MPs, David Ettershank and Rachel Payne, have shown how much a small crossbench party can get done. Alongside cannabis reform, they’ve decriminalised begging, so people are no longer punished under criminal law just for experiencing hardship,12 and won the change that means medicinal cannabis patients no longer automatically lose their licence.7 They’ve also fought for justice for victim-survivors of institutional child abuse, fair, frequent and free buses, and stronger independent oversight of police misconduct.
That’s the approach I want to bring to Northern Metro: work with anyone who wants to get things done, read every bill properly, and speak up for the community on every issue, not just one.
Across the north
Northern Metro runs from Richmond and the CBD all the way up to Wallan. It takes in 11 districts: Broadmeadows, Brunswick, Essendon, Greenvale, Kalkallo, Melbourne, Northcote, Pascoe Vale, Preston, Richmond and Thomastown.
I’m visiting every one of them during the campaign. Follow along on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, and let me know where I should stop next.
Why your Upper House vote matters
Northern Metro elects five MPs to the Legislative Council, Victoria’s Upper House. Because laws have to get through the Upper House too, a handful of crossbench MPs can decide whether a bill passes, gets changed or gets knocked back.
That’s why your Upper House vote matters, and it’s where a party like Legalise Cannabis Victoria can make a real difference.
Vote Legalise Cannabis Victoria in the Upper House on Saturday 28 November.
Sources
- Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office, Impact of legalising cannabis on police resources: Police time and operating costs (November 2025), available under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Australia.↩1↩2
- Rachel Payne MP, Transparency needed on police oversight, Legislative Council, 27 November 2024 (IBAC figures for 2023).↩
- Rachel Payne MP, 12 per cent of arrests, 1 per cent of the population, Legislative Council, 2 April 2025 (Crime Statistics Agency data, 2020–2024).↩
- Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office estimate of the value of Victoria’s illicit cannabis market in 2022 ($1.02–1.27 billion).↩
- Parliament of Victoria, Legal and Social Issues Committee, report on the Regulation of Personal Adult Use of Cannabis Bill 2023 (media release).↩
- Legalise Cannabis Australia, Legal regulation of cannabis in three stages.↩
- Department of Transport and Planning, Medicinal cannabis and driving.↩1↩2
- Premier of Victoria, Green light for world-first medicinal cannabis driving trial (21 May 2024).↩
- Legalise Cannabis Victoria, Victorian Government Swinburne University driving trial update.↩
- Rachel Payne MP, Hemp Industry Bill 2024.↩
- National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022–2023.↩
- Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Victoria takes overdue step to decriminalise begging (September 2026).↩
Get involved
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