Michael Balderstone, Legalise Cannabis Party President, The Nimbin GoodTimes

Dear Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,

Firstly, congratulations Albo and thank you for Labor preferences on the Senate tickets. It looks like you have an opportunity to stay at the helm for a while and bring in some significant changes. Fair to say we were disappointed by our result, even though we got more than half a million first preference votes.

The Legalise Cannabis Party grew out of the Nimbin HEMP Embassy, which in truth grew out of the Nimbin community.

We’ve come to understand, here in this refugee camp from the ‘drug war’, how dreadful this war is; particularly on cannabis (in our case), but really on all illicit drugs.

When you understand it’s all a scrap over who gets to profit from our pain relief, the best business on the planet, it starts to make sense. It is all about money, Albo, you must know that.

The Big Pharma lobbyists endlessly walk the corridors of parliament and police insist we maintain the war which keeps their jobs and power. Totally vested interests from both of them.

We all know it’s an unwinnable war and drug use is really a health issue, but it goes on relentlessly. The jails are stuffed full, there are more Aboriginal deaths in custody than ever, and our health bill is out of control.

Our “end the drug war” voice is literally crying in the wilderness. Even with four Legalise Cannabis state MPs, their efforts are being ignored, even mocked, as we saw in Victoria last week.

The war on Cannabis sativa is 100 years old in Australia now, while increasingly people are realising that it is good medicine, like we’ve been saying forever. We’ve been scapegoats for 50 years for our cannabis use.

This is an invitation for you to visit us in Nimbin, to apologise (if you can), but in particular for you to give this issue an hour or two of your time and hear why it would be so good for you in Canberra, with the co-operation of the states, to legalise cannabis.

It would be so good in multiple ways to have a standard law across the country, Albo, rather than different laws in each state (which has created chaos in the USA).

Next time you’re up on the North Coast visiting your Federal Member for Richmond, Justine, please consider including us.

Australia could be the first country to formally say it is time to start considering if the “war on drugs” is working.

Medical cannabis is all business, with doctors prescribing, who mostly don’t know much about it and have little experience with it, and the ‘Big Medical Cannabis’ lobbying frantically to keep control of the market and stop any adult-use legalisation.

Legal medical cannabis is virtually all grown commercially indoors, overseas. It’s an absolute slap in the face to us, after decades of trying to be heard, on this safest of medicines.

Nimbin is sometimes described as a “free-range pot hospital”. I was here for years before I realised how many epileptics lived here, and alcoholics who don’t drink anymore and so on.

They’re not having seizures because they smoke cannabis and it is the best substance for getting off other drugs.

The other thing is the massive numbers of Aboriginal people in jail. They love cannabis as it keeps them off the grog a lot. It chills them out. It’s anti-violent. It takes the inflammation out of our bodies and our emotions.

It’s a peaceful herb that in biblical times was known as “God’s gift”, not only for medicinal and spiritual benefits but as a fantastic high protein seed and best quality fibre for clothing.

Please consider our invitation to visit Nimbin, Albo. It’s the appropriate place for you to make some announcement saying it’s time we started reducing the stigma on cannabis use.

Maybe the hippies were right after all; even on the environment and war as well.

Best wishes and love from Nimbin to you and your family, Prime Minister. 

This article appeared in The Nimbin GoodTimes, November 2025.