Nimbin has famously been a place to score weed for fifty years. A lot of people travelled to the tiny village every fortnight to spend a big chunk of their social security on their choice of pain relief.

I remember a retired couple from behind the Gold Coast whose wife struggled to buy a good ounce and she asked me to help. Her husband had Parkinson’s and sat in the car. Somewhere they’d discovered the magic of weed for his condition but he needed strong buds.

We asked her to show us how it worked one day and she got her husband while someone rolled a big joint. He had terrible uncontrollable shakes and struggled to hold the joint as he took two long big lungfuls. Like magic the shaking stopped and he swayed from side to side but what i remember most was the massive grin that spread across his face.

It was a real joy to help people like that and I’ve seen street dealers chuck ounces at mothers with epileptic children who couldn’t afford to buy them.

So for decades cannabis growers and dealers have supplied medicine in Nimbin, in between doing jail time. It used to be heroin addicts who took the risks until the hippy children who grew up poor realised their parents garden was worth a fortune with a bit of risk.

Now legal weed is available on tap with a phone call and the market is rapidly changing. The imported corporate medicine is quite different and many people prefer the organic bush as it’s called here, but fact is the factory medicine is cheaper and, well, legal! The market place is changing fast and Nimbin is feeling it.

In America many of the States that legalised have prioritised giving dispensary licences and growing permits to those hard done by in the past by prohibition. Legalise Cannabis policy includes an amnesty period for current black market growers to transition to become licenced producers and if we ever do get proper regulations it will be important I believe to look after those who’ve taken the risks for us for decades now.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year, especially after the shocking and sad Bondi day. Maybe next year, in NSW at least, we’ll be allowed to drive if we have a prescription for the doctors weed. And next we need to be allowed to grow our own plants and you’d think that surely we could drive using them as well!

The party just had it’s AGM and I’d like to welcome Miles Hunt and Susan Raye onto the committee of ten, and thank Brian Walker and Greg Chipp for their time served.

The Federal Party Management Committee elected at the 2025 AGM: Michael Balderstone (President), Gail Hester (Vice President), Craig Ellis (Secretary), Suzette Luyken (Assistant Secretary), Ken Ridgwell (Treasurer), Nada Sale (Party Agent / Committee Member), Miles Hunt (Committee Member), Sue Raye (Committee Member), Fred Mulholland (Committee Member), and Melody Lindsay (Committee Member).

Love to everyone.