DAVID HEILPERN shares his unique story

Up until aged about 15, I was a very naughty boy at school. My poor parents had to cope with suspensions and stern meetings with principals, my teachers had to manage outrageous disobedience, and I had to cope with ritual humiliation, corporal punishment and social isolation.

And then I discovered cannabis. I was able to focus for the first time in my life. Not so much when stoned, but for days afterwards. I ended up in the top classes for my final years of school, and came second overall, a star debater – getting into law. Even then, I was outraged at the criminalisation of me and my peers for outlawing our medicine and our fun.

For my studying years at university, I just stopped smoking. I thrived in the freedom and self-discipline. Then, halfway through my degree, I met Maria, and we became children having children at 22 years. I finished my degree externally while working and parenting and eventually practicing law. Cannabis use was my recreational drug of choice for those early parenting years – it made me more patient, creative and much less anxious. I was never an everyday smoker, probably once a week, and especially playing music – I was an almost passable banjo player with cannabis, and a painful one without it!

Then, strangely, I was appointed to the bench, and I stopped smoking for 23 years. I did not miss it, but I became known for my teaching, judging and ongoing activism for drug law reform – more quietly and surreptitiously than before. I had to apply the laws, but used every ounce of discretion to lessen the impact on individuals.

The injustice of the drug driving law outraged me. Clearly this is fightback by police, big pharma, the alcohol industry and organised crime against medicinal cannabis and any movement toward harm reduction. Taking licences from people for using prescription medicine where they are demonstrably not ill-affected was one of the reasons I left the bench.

Finally, in my current role as Professor and Dean of Law at Southern Cross University, I feel like a caged animal re-wilded. I am unstoppable and insatiable in my desire to see legal change. In my early days of practice I appeared for abortionists, euthanisers, homosexuals, prostitutes, roulette gamblers blasphemers, vagrants, and SP bookmakers. All of these are now legal. But it still an offence to grow a single plant.

I cannot rest easy while such injustice remains.

Angry? Yes.

Determined? More than ever.

Despairing? At times.

Optimistic? Always.

Stoned? No comment.