[420 Girl]

IF Prime Minister Kevin Rudd can't stop giggling, feels paranoid or overly hungry when he visits Lismore hospital, he'll know exactly what's to blame.

It could be the subliminal influence of a 10-metre inflatable joint, which drug legalisation lobbyists will use to try to get the prime minister's attention during his visit tomorrow.

Members of the Nimbin Hemp Embassy will gather outside the hospital with their trusty mascot, hoping to talk to Mr Rudd about what they say is a health issue - legalising cannabis in Australia.

The group's president Michael Balderstone says he hopes to appeal to Mr Rudd's Christian sense of compassion.

"I think he is a compassionate man and he is a Christian and what would Jesus say – we're talking about the best pain-relieving herbs on the planet," he said.

Mr Balderstone said young people in Nimbin are constantly targeted in police raids and suffer permanent consequences. Nimbin has become a centre for alternative culture after a new generation of people decided to settle there following the Aquarius Festival in 1973.

"I live and work in Nimbin and we've become this big backpacker place and ... (police) are busting a lot of young people," he said.

"And it's making no difference and they're just all getting criminal records for life.

"Politicians are quite sheltered in a way and what's going on out here in the street is a huge culture of people who have lost respect for the system, because these laws have criminalised them and made something that makes them feel good into an illicit act."

Mr Rudd has previously said he has never smoked marijuana and takes a tough line on drugs.

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