Rock solid arguments are founded on facts. We operate within the law and look to science when telling the truth that benefits the greater good.
Our opinions may differ but as Australians we have a common goal – bettering our community. We respect each other’s opinions while striving to promote truth and growth in each other.
Knowledge, discomfort, empathy, understanding. These factors contribute to growth as an individual and as a community. It’s only through personal and community growth that we can create meaningful change.
We believe in our cause. We engage openly and honestly, forming a movement with the power to cannabis laws founded on public health and equality.
Gino Vumbaca is the co-founder of Harm Reduction Australia. Mr Vumbaca is the former Executive Director of the Australian National Council on Drugs, a position he held for over 15 years.
Bee Mohamed is an advocate for Harm Reduction Australia and previously the Patient Advocacy and Stakeholder Manager (APAC) for Canopy Growth, one of the world’s largest cannabis company.
Prior to Canopy Growth, Bee was the inaugural CEO of ScriptWise, a health promotion charity addressing prescription medication addiction and overdose in Australia. Bee is passionate about patient advocacy and working towards better drug policy reforms in Australia.
Mat is a lawyer and long-time advocate for better patient access to medicinal cannabis. He has provided pro bono assistance to manypatients and campaigners over the years and is currently the Principal Lawyer of Reparation Legal, based in Sydney and Melbourne.
Mat has spent the last decade in commercial law, focusing mainly on intellectual property and dispute resolution on behalf of both private clients, and also as senior in-house counsel for Stellar Entertainment and Genero Media.
In 2018 he joined the La Trobe Law School as a casual academic and has most recently held the position of operations manager of the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics at the University of Sydney.
David Heilpern has been a Magistrate for the last 21 years, having ‘retired’ in May 2020. David was the youngest Magistrate appointed in Australia. He was the leading judicial educator for Magistrates throughout Australia and internationally, and was a Senior Civil Magistrate for five years.
Prior to his appointment, David was a senior academic at Southern Cross University, as well as being in practice as a solicitor specialising in criminal law with an emphasis on drug law. He has resumed private practice as a solicitor, as well as returning to Southern Cross University as an adjunct and practice professor.
David is committed to speaking out about issues that he has long cared about, but was restrained by the ethics of judicial office. This includes drug law reform, particularly the drug driving detection laws. David is also an HRA advocate.
Tom is a co-founder of honahlee, a patient advocate and a digital marketer. Tom created honahlee to educate Australians about cannabis and improve access for those who can benefit from the plant.
Nurse, patient care, advocacy, activism, community alliance, unionist.
Deb Ranson is a Registered Clinical Nurse with a background in cardio, thoracic, transplant, community and cannabis nursing. She has spent many years advocating and actively campaigning for the Australian community to have access to cannabis as a first line medicine.
Working in a major public hospital has allowed Deb to slowly integrate education days for Doctors, Nurses and other health professionals who wish to advance their knowledge in the cannabis medicine arena. Holding educational sessions on medicinal cannabis in the public health system is a major step toward broader treatment using medicinal cannabis.
Deb actively campaigns within Nursing bodies gaining support in education and in policy development and has sat on policy committees for the Queensland Nurse & Midwives Union. Deb has also been shortlisted for a professional practice award and was selected in the Women of the World foundation (WOW) celebration. Currently Deb works in a cannabis clinic in Brisbane and continues to advocate for medicinal cannabis in many areas.
Since 2010, David has served as a Greens MP in the NSW Parliament.
As spokesperson for the justice portfolio, David is passionate about drug law reform and has dedicated his career to protect those who are the most vulnerable in our communities. In his work, David is an outspoken critic of over-policing, the abuse of police powers and the broken discriminatory drug driving laws.
In 2014, David launched the Facebook Sniff Off page which is a part of his broader effort to curb the use of Drug Dogs and Roadside Drug Tests, which often target lower socio-economic and minority groups.
David is proud to be an Ambassador for Drive Change and the opportunity continue assisting individuals unfairly targeted by punitive drug laws in NSW.
Cate Faehrmann is a Greens MP in the NSW Legislative Council (Upper House) and the Greens spokesperson for drug law reform & harm reduction.
She’s a passionate environmentalist, a fierce feminist and a long-time campaigner for social reform, being a founding director of GetUp and former head of the Nature Conservation Council. In early 2019 Cate drew significant attention when, as part of her attempt to shift the conversation on drug use, she spoke about MDMA – not as a distant, dark, shameful memory, but as something that she and many other people have experienced positively and safely.
She believes that this truth-telling around the nature and extent of drug use must be the starting point for meaningful drug law reform. Cate is an advocate for policy based on evidence and has been pushing for legislative change that focuses on harm reduction instead of punishment. In 2019 Cate introduced the first bill to establish pill testing in NSW and in early 2021 introduced the first bill to legalise cannabis in NSW. She also intends to bring forward a bill to decriminalise all drugs in the near future.
Cate is a fierce opponent of the NSW Government’s roadside drug testing regime and is campaigning for a total overhaul of our drug driving laws to ensure that drivers are tested for impairment rather than the presence of drugs and that medicinal cannabis users will be able to drive without fear.
Sophia is the Legalise Cannabis WA member for the South West Region.
Sophia was initially trained as a Registered Nurse at the Anna Reynvaan School of Nursing in Amsterdam before moving to Western Australia with her parents in 1983.
Prior to politics she studied at Perth Academy of Natural Therapies and has been practising Naturopathic and Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Perth metropolitan area. As “the first person, and thus the first woman, to have been voted in on a legalise cannabis platform alone”, Sophia stresses the need for cooperation in the 41st Parliament.
Positively grabbing life by the ovaries, Ms Moermond embodies the imminent uprising of the voices of marginalised populations in the political arena by proposing radical preventative, innovative and cost-effective policy reforms in partnership with the experts adversely affected by existing service delivery failures.
Mike has been a paediatrician in Campbelltown for 37 years and has dedicated his life’s work to make sure our kids get the best start in life.
In 1984, Mike and his wife Sharon moved to the Macarthur Region where they raised their six children. Mike commenced work at Campbelltown Hospital where he took on the role as Head of Paediatrics from 1986 to 2013. Despite his workload as a paediatrician Mike still finds time to give back to his profession, teaching the next generation of doctors as a lecturer at Western Sydney University.
In his near 4 decades as a paediatrician in the Macarthur region, Mike has seen over 200,000 patients. Mike has increasingly seen his patients and their families face issues of access; access to healthcare, access to work, access to housing and access to education. As the Federal Member for Macarthur and Chair of The Parliamentary Friends of Medicinal Cannabis, Mike is also fighting for better access and improved laws around medicinal cannabis.
Michael White is a sceptical behavioural scientist with a PhD in Psychology from the University of Adelaide (UoA). In particular, he’s interested in the translation of research findings into policy – where political and economic pressures can easily distort the truth.
Michael has been involved in drug-driving policy development and research for many years. From 1998 to 2000, he was a member of the Austroads Drug Driving Working Group. He also worked on drug-driving projects at the UoA’s Centre for Automotive Safety Research and is the co-author of three published peer-reviewed journal articles on drug driving.
“Australia’s cannabis-presence driving offences have no legitimate scientific justification. The introduction of the offences, with their associated penalties, is one way that the counterproductive War on Drugs is currently prosecuted. This enforcement regime is particularly cruel for medical users of cannabis.”
Originally from Poland, Teresa has been a doctor in Australia since 1991. In 2016, Teresa became interested in medicinal cannabis and described her journey as “from ignorant and opposed to an educated advocate.” She founded, Medihuanna, an organisation devoted to delivering science-based, college accredited medicinal cannabis education for health professionals.
Teresa was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. After 18 years cancer free, it re-occurred with metastases to her left lung and bones. She has been using medicinal cannabis in conjunction with conventional treatments for the last 2 years with good effect on her symptoms.
As a doctor, Teresa sees these laws as a major roadblock to public health. Her experience shows that many clinical decisions are based on driving laws, not patients’ needs.
Teresa is passionate about seeing these laws change and will be fighting for public health and patients’ rights.
Tammy Franks was elected in 2010. ‘Driven’ for more than a decade, Tammy has taken-on countless issues and continues to advocate tirelessly for people and the planet. Tammy’s determined work enabled the passage of the SA Industrial Hemp Act 2017 in 2017, and in parallel, her compassionate advocacy for better and more affordable access to medicinal cannabis for patients continues.
Recognising that whilst legal to be prescribed Medicinal Cannabis, the State’s drug driving laws are discriminatory.
“Patients should not have to choose between medicine or mobility.” Tammy is honoured to be associated The Cannabis Law Reform Alliance to #DriveChange
Michael John (Mick) Palmer is a barrister and 33 year career police officer with extensive experience in police leadership and reform in community, national and international policing. In 1994 Mick was appointed Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP). He was also the inaugural Deputy Chair of the National Council against Drugs (NCAD), a position he occupied until retirement in 2001.
Mick is currently a spokesperson for the Ted Noffs Foundation’s Take control Campaign, for Safer, Saner Drug Laws, a Director Emeritus of Australia 21 and an Ambassador for SMART Recovery.
Lucy is a retired nurse, mother and grandmother, who is known for being the lynchpin in the legalisation of medical cannabis in Australia. Lucy founded non-profit United in Compassion in 2014 and is both a patient advocate and educator and does this in Dan’s memory.
In 2020 Lucy became a co-founder and chair of the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association and founded the Australian Chapter of The Society of Cannabis Clinicians. Lucy strives to keep the emerging industry patient centric and morally grounded.
Fiona Patten has been a Member of the Victorian Legislative Council for the Northern Metropolitan region since 2014. Fiona is Leader of the Reason Party, described as a future-focused, evidence-based movement committed to delivering equality, sustainability and freedom through new methods of political engagement and pragmatic consultation.
In October 2020, after a 5 year battle, Fiona’s proposal to change driving laws for cannabis patients was slated for approval. Victoria will be the first state to change the medical cannabis and driving laws.
