Consult the data and you’ll find that the majority of recreational drugs users in this country aren’t perpetrators of violent crimes. Dig deeper and you’ll find that it is statistically likely to have tried drugs by the time you reach your twenties, killing the supply is impossible, and that in all likelihood you will not die from illegal drug use. Nope. Good legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco on the other hand…
Why then, is the discourse surrounding recreational drug use in this country so irrational, hysteric and devoid of foresight?
Australia’s archaic drug decriminalisation views came back under the spotlight in Hobart this week at a drug forum held by the Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs Council (ATDC). The prevailing message? Don’t incarcerate drug addicts. Help them.
One of the most vocal supporters of decriminalisation was former Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Palmer, who echoed the views of his Australia21 think tank colleague and former Foreign Affairs minister Bob Carr who pleaded for an end to the war on drugs two years ago, arguing that the government should recast cannabis as a health and education issue instead of a legal one.
“Drug use and possession really is not a law enforcement issue, it’s essentially a health issue,” Palmer said. “It makes no sense to me that we lock up young men and women for possession or use of cannabis, create huge employment difficulties for them going forward, sometimes visa and travel problems when we’re only arresting some 3 per cent of users in this country.”
“To deal with that as a criminal matter seems to me to be counterproductive.”
A view he expressed in a Fairfax op-ed piece two years ago.
“The reality is that, contrary to frequent assertions, drug law enforcement has had little impact on the Australian drug market. This is true in most countries in the world,” Palmer wrote at the time. “In Australia the police are better resourced than ever, better trained than ever, more effective than ever and yet their impact on the drug trade, on any objective assessment, has been minimal.”
“The reality is that, contrary to frequent assertions, drug law enforcement has had little impact on the Australian drug market. This is true in most countries in the world,” Palmer wrote at the time. “In Australia the police are better resourced than ever, better trained than ever, more effective than ever and yet their impact on the drug trade, on any objective assessment, has been minimal.”
But what does the health industry think? The forum heard similar views from Australian addiction specialist Dr Alex Wodak who condemned the war on drugs as an ineffectual PR exercise.
“It’s very clear now that the war on drugs has been an expensive failure,” he said. “It’s made a bad problem even worse.”
ATDC Tasmania CEO Jann Smith urged all Australians to have a rational discussion surrounding decriminalisation of recreational drug use.
“Cannabis is one of the most prevalently used illicit drugs in our community so we think it’s a discussion that shouldn’t just be pushed under the carpet,” she said. “We’ve seen without a doubt that in many countries globally there’s been recognition of the real value to people for the medical use of cannabis.”
In short: the war on drugs has squandered billions of dollars in resources, diverted police from doing more important things, hiked arrest rates related to victimless crimes and galvanised the power of drug cartels. Most damning? It doesn’t even fucking work!
Name another public policy disaster where a failure this huge would be tolerated? Don’t worry, we’ll wait…
There isn’t one!
One day soon we might be rational enough to see that.
