Heroin hypocrisy: why politicians punish the victims
By Sue Boland
The 1997 United Nations' World Drug Report shows Australian government spending on policing drug use was 14 times that for drug treatment and more than eight times that for drug education.
Clearly, Australian governments aren't serious about solving the public health issue of drug addiction. By making previously legal drugs such as marijuana and heroin illegal, and through policing this prohibition, they have made drug addiction a crime.
Drugs and crime are starkly linked. Eighty-three per cent of prisoners are in jail as a result of drug related offences, according to an Australian Medical Association report. A New South Wales study showed that the frequency of burglaries was dependent on the rate of spending on drugs. Victorian police commissioner Neil Comrie estimates that 70% of all criminal activity is drug related.
Green Left Weekly spoke to lawyers and prisoners' rights activists about how inadequate treatment services and the treatment of drug addiction as a crime rather than a health issue has criminalised a huge number of people.
Richard Bourke from the Criminal Bar Association in Victoria said courts would prefer to send minor drug offenders to a drug treatment facility rather than prison, providing there are vacancies. But there is only one, often full, juvenile detoxification centre in Victoria. The lack of treatment options means that young people are imprisoned.
According to Karen Fletcher, coordinator of the Prisoners' Legal Service in Brisbane, "It's very difficult to get a young person into a rehabilitation or detoxification centre. The beds just aren't available. Yet there are plenty of beds available in the prisons. The politicians will spend any amount of money on providing more prison cells but not on rehabilitation and detoxification services.
"Very little is spent on providing drug and alcohol rehabilitation in prisons. You can't get on a detoxification program there. You can't get methadone in Queensland prisons. Alcoholics Anonymous rarely exists. The same situation exists in youth detention centres."
Catherine Gow, from the Darebin Community Legal Centre, confirmed that a similar situation exists in Victoria. One Victorian prison, Loddon, has a very limited alcohol and drug treatment program.
Prison managements view drug addiction as a crime, not a health issue. Fletcher cited a case in which a woman prisoner suffered a drug related collapse. Five male officers grabbed her, double-handcuffed her, put her in a medical segregation cell, stripped her clothes off and put a motorcycle helmet on her head so that she couldn't "self-harm". She was left there for two days.
"The problem to be dealt with immediately is a medical problem — treating people who are addicted — and then the social problem", said Fletcher. "Many prisoners I speak to see drugs as a means of escaping from the prison for a few hours without actually getting over the walls."
Prisoners' addictions are likely to worsen, Fletcher explained. Marijuana users can't continue using marijuana inside because it's too easy to detect in random urine tests. Heroin is much easier to conceal because it only stays in the bloodstream for a day or two, making it the drug of choice.
More powers for police and prison officers would not stop the availability of drugs, said Fletcher. "Everybody who works in the prison system knows that all prisons are awash with drugs. They're brought in not only by visitors but also by professional staff, prison officers and contractors."
Police powers
Politicians' advocacy of more powers for police to "combat" drugs is ironic. In NSW, current hearings about alleged involvement of police in a cocaine racket follow the earlier exposure of widespread corruption among police there. Allegations have also been made that Kariong Juvenile Detention Centre prison officers regularly supply prisoners with illegal drugs such as marijuana and steroids.
"Another whole economy operates side by side with the legal economy. The enormous amount of money involved penetrates well into the police force and the prison service ... [up] to the highest levels", said Fletcher. A recent Financial Review article estimated that the heroin industry is worth $7 billion, more than the tobacco industry.
"Because the prison population is disproportionately addicted to hard drugs, organised crime focuses on prisons as a drug distribution point. An organised crime boss would seek to place people in the prison service and the police force.
"Usually, the addicts, not the big dealers, are sent to prison", Fletcher said. A 1991-92 study of drug offences deal with by the Victorian Magistrates' Court showed that 82% of convictions were for the lesser offences of possession and use, rather than supply.
"It doesn't matter how many inquiries are held", declared Fletcher. "Corruption will keep coming back. Because the police force is responsible for enforcing the drug laws, the opportunities are created for police to control part of the illegal drug trade."
Another issue is that drug laws give more powers to the police. In Queensland, the National Party government introduced the Drugs Misuse Act in 1986. This act gave police sweeping powers to stop and search people, including body cavities, and enter premises or search motor vehicles without a search warrant on no stronger basis than having a "reasonable suspicion" that the person possessed or had some involvement with drugs.
Queensland police have been able to use these invasive powers to harass young people, particularly black and immigrant youth in outlying suburbs. Similar laws have been introduced by the NSW Labor government.
While Prime Minister John Howard has been calling for "zero tolerance" policing, the NSW government has introduced it by stealth, incrementally implementing its various elements, says prisons researcher Jim Mellor. When new knife laws were introduced, police targeted areas with high proportions of Asian, Aboriginal or working-class youth and arrested as many as 50-60 young people at a time, Mellor told Green Left Weekly. As a result, the number of 18- to 23-year-old prisoners on remand, many without a criminal record but have been denied bail, has greatly increased.
The federal government's legal aid funding cuts also disadvantage drug users in the court system. It is now almost impossible to get legal aid for a minor drug offence going to the Magistrates' Court. Fifty-five per cent of legal aid applications are rejected, despite 74% coming from people on social security benefits. Griffith University studies show innocent people are pleading guilty because they can't afford legal proceedings or get legal aid.
"When politicians call for more prisons we must ask why", said Fletcher. "If the use of drugs such as heroin was decriminalised, and adequate treatment services were funded, there would be a dramatic decline in crime and in the prison population. For the first time, drug addiction could be treated as a health issue rather than as a crime.
"I've come to the conclusion that the government wants to maintain the illegal drug industry. The capitalists who control it are raking in $7 billion in profits, and the government is committed to defending profits, regardless of the source.
"Criminalising the use of certain drugs also serves other purposes. Poor people can be scapegoated. In the US the prisons are filled with black crack addicts while white cocaine addicts go free.
"It is a means of social control, because poor people can't organise to defend their rights if they're constantly chasing drugs. And it can be used to justify an extremely repressive police apparatus."