Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Words DAVID HEILPERN
When I started practicing law, I built up a steady client base of cannabis growers and users, and keenly felt the injustice of imprisoning people for the weed. Many magistrates locked people up in those days, even for first offence possession charges, while letting drink drivers and ‘wife bashers’ off with warning after warning.
I was seething at the hypocrisy, but largely silent – kids, security, fear of alienating the bench and my peers. But then I went to Auschwitz. I cannot overemphasise the impact this had on me, seeing the photos of my murdered relatives, the containers of teeth/hair/skin. I realised that evil is likely triumph if good people remain silent, and when I returned I committed to myself that I would speak up, and as a lawyer on the north coast of NSW, hippyland, there was really only one obvious cause.
I enveloped myself in the drug law reform movement, helping to kick off the first MardiGrass, running test cases, writing articles and books. I morphed from private practice into academia, and developed an extremely popular unit – the first of its kind in Australia, still titled “Drugs Crime and the Law”. We started a law school at Southern Cross University with an emphasis on personal and environmental justice. The cannabis movement directed tons of cash into the frontline radical environmentalist movement, and hence the connection between drugs and forest blockades. I encouraged this pairing in my activism, teaching and ongoing legal practice.