Source: ABC News
“A prisoner on Monday lost his challenge to an Australian state’s ban on inmates eating Vegemite after he argued in court that withholding the polarizing yeast-based spread breached his human right to ‘enjoy his culture as an Australian.’ Andre McKechnie, 55, who is serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle for the salty, sticky, black-brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of the state of Victoria last year. … Justice Claire Harris accepted prison authorities’ refusal to allow McKechnie Vegemite ‘limited his cultural rights’ under the charter. But she found the ban was justified in meeting authorities’ goals of removing illicit drugs and alcohol from the prison system. … Prison officials testified at a trial in July that Vegemite had been banned throughout the state’s 12 prisons for the past 20 years because it could potentially impair sniffer dogs’ ability to detect narcotics and could be used to brew alcohol because of its yeast content.” (10/27/26)