WHAT FINE?


Possession of marijuana for personal use has been effectively decriminalized throughout much of Australia. In Western Australia those found with a small quantity of mull are either fined a small sum or ordered to attend a drug education session. These penalties are apparently insufficiently lenient:

More than 30 per cent of offenders have ignored fines or refused to complete a cannabis education session since WA introduced softer cannabis laws three years ago.

Of 9563 people issued with cannabis infringement notices since then, 4879 were referred to the Fines Enforcement Agency because they didn't pay fines or attend a one-hour counselling session.

And 3079 of them have escaped scot-free.

Break a drug law and escape punishment but, whatever you do, don't speed:

THE State Government is planning an all-out assault on speeding drivers - possibly including dozens more speed cameras along WA roads.

Fixed cameras, radical new point-to-point speed cameras and combined speed and red-light cameras could all be used in conjunction with more hand-held radars and mobile speed cameras to catch speeding motorists.

Already, more than 670,000 speeding tickets are being processed each year, and the financial pain for speeders could soon get a lot worse.

The revenue produced has nothing to do with plans to increase the number of speed cameras, of course.