Major Speaker Announcement
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Professor David Heilpern was a magistrate and judicial trainer from 1998 (at the time the youngest magistrate in Australia) to 2020. Prior to this he was a litigation lawyer on the North Coast and co-founded the law school at Southern Cross University (SCU) in 1992. David graduated with a Masters in Law from SCU and was the Alumni of the Decade in 2005. He ‘retired’ after 21 years on the bench in New South Wales in May 2020.
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During his time on the bench, David was the principal educator for new magistrates throughout Australia and the Pacific and made several important reported decisions on criminal, environmental and evidence law. In August 2022 he was appointed as a Dean and Chair of Discipline (Law) at SCU.
His comments after retirement about the injustice created by the offence of driving with a detectable level of ‘drugs’ are a clear demonstration of his character. He leads the organisation, Drive Change, alongside a team of advocates who joined forces to be part of the voice for cannabis law reform Australia-wide.
More recently, David has pointed out that, “In Tasmania, having a medicinal cannabis prescription is accepted as a defence... legally allowed to drive and the Tasmania road toll has not been adversely affected. Victoria has similar laws in place and New South Wales is moving to update their laws as well”.
He went on to say, “Your average medicinal cannabis user is a woman in her 40s who suffers from chronic pain. She will take her medicine at 5pm and sleep better because of it... There is no evidence that she’s unsafe to drive”, and further that, “What we’re seeing is Queensland is out of touch with the rest of Australia. There is absolutely no evidence that medicinal cannabis users... have increased road trauma anywhere” .
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