Time for drug decriminalisation

Time for the decriminalisation of drugs

The campaign was meant to be launched last July but it was suddenly
withdrawn after Howard's office criticised the content of the parents'
booklet for not being tough enough. A Howard staffer rewrote key sections
of the booklet resulting in criticism from health professionals that the
booklet contained unscientific statistics and misinformation. For example,
the booklet said that “Studies overseas reveal that young people from families
who eat together at least five times a week are less likely to be involved
in drugs”.

This campaign is a monumental waste of money. As Australian Drug Law
Reform Foundation president Alex Wodak pointed out in the March 26 Australian,
the $27 million could buy places for 15,000 people in methadone and other
treatment programs.

Currently, drug users find it extremely difficult to get into detoxification
centres and treatment programs, especially pharmacological ones, because
of the great shortage of places.

Howard has taken personal responsibility for anti-drug programs, insisting
on a policy of “zero tolerance” instead of “harm minimisation”. To ensure
that his approach prevails, Howard is purging his main drug advisory body,
the Australian National Council on Drugs, of people who advocate drug law
reform rather than Howard's law enforcement “just say no” to drugs approach.

Under this strategy, programs which discuss safe drug use will be axed
and heroin prescription trials and safe injecting rooms will be ruled out.
In 1997 the federal government intervened to prevent the ACT government
from conducting a trial which would have issued free heroin to a specific
number of drug users.

The $27 million which the government is spending on its anti-drugs “education”
campaign is just a small part of its $500 million anti-drugs campaign.
The lion's share of this money will be allocated to law enforcement and
only a small amount to rehabilitation.

In 1997 the UN World Drug Report showed that Australian government spending
on policing drug use was 14 times that for drug treatment. The figures
would be little different today.

Howard's “tough on drugs” stance does not extend to legal addictive
drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, a further demonstration of government
hypocrisy.

After decades of federal and state government drug policies concentrating
on prohibition, the strategy has been thoroughly discredited. Even conservative
establishment figures, such as police commissioners have begun calling
for alternative approaches to be considered.

Why do governments refuse to consider decriminalising illegal drugs
and treating drug addiction as a health matter rather than as a crime issue?

Decriminalisation would result in a dramatic reduction in drug-related
crime and the number of prisoners. Decriminalisation would subject currently
illegal drugs to regulation regarding their ingredients. This alone would
decrease the number of drug related deaths.

Decriminalisation would, however, result in a decline in profits for
the capitalists who derive their profits from illegal drugs. A 1999 Australian
Financial Review article estimated that the heroin industry is worth
$7 billion — more than the tobacco industry.

Given the utter failure of the drug prohibition policy, are federal
and state governments just being irrational for pursuing this policy?

Despite their “tough on drugs” approach, Australian governments would
prefer the status quo than decriminalising drugs. For a start, drug addiction
is a means of social control. Wealthy drug addicts aren't subject to the
vicious drug laws that exist in states such as NSW, because their drug
use is behind closed doors. It's only poor drug addicts who face arrest
by doing drug deals and injecting on the street.

There are different penalties for different drugs. The possession of
cocaine, the drug of choice for the wealthy, attracts a much lighter penalty
than heroin. As heroin is cheaper than cocaine, it is generally used by
poorer people, thus criminalising large numbers of poor people.

It suits capitalist governments to treat drug use as a criminal issue
rather than a health issue because it criminalises the poor, and, it suits
governments to use the “war on drugs” as an excuse to attack our civil
liberties. In the days of former premier Joh Bjelke Peterson, the Queensland
police used the extra powers given to them by the drug laws to put political
activists in jail before important demonstrations.

Images of people whose lives have been destroyed through drug use are
hypocritically exploited by capitalist governments in order to win public
acceptance for more repressive police powers and laws on the premise of
getting “tough” on drugs. Meanwhile, these same governments refuse to fund
adequate treatment facilities for drug users.

From GLW issue 443