WE CAN'T WALK BY

If we are to defeat the drug menace, we have to start work on the programs
we all agree on and talk our way through the ones that divide us, says ROB
MOODIE

WHY do we fear a used needle and syringe at the local park so much more
than an empty beer can or scattered cigarette butts when alcohol and
tobacco kill many more Australians than heroin does?

We fear it because it represents the sharp edge of so many of our social
problems.

We fear illicit drugs such as heroin, because we fear how things might turn
out; we are concerned about our children and our families.

We have seen a dramatic rise in heroin use, overdoses and deaths in
Victoria, and massive increases in the social repercussions of using
illegal drugs such as heroin -- crime, street sex work, family and social
disruption, clogging of the court system.

The debate around injecting facilities has ended in division, and has
helped dilute our collective sense of humanity to such an extent that not
so long ago a young woman overdosed near the railway line in her suburb.

She lay there unconscious in the burning sun for hours. People passed her
by. She was there for so long she needed skin grafts for her sunburn.

We all agree that something should happen, but do we know what it is? Our
first step must be to find the common ground by bringing the many
interested people together -- not only at the policy level, but at the
street level.

We must learn from previous successes -- for example we decided in 1970
that we should ``declare war on 1034'' -- and we now have 600 fewer deaths,
and 6000 fewer serious injuries a year on the road.

Similarly, we have amazingly lowered the prevalence of smoking among men
from 75 per cent in the 1940s to 22 per cent now by agreeing on a
collective strategy.

Much has been made of pitching one viewpoint against the other -- those who
believe policing is the only answer, against those who infer supervised
injecting facilities will solve all our problems.

Or that abstinence is the only answer as against those who feel that is
unrealistic for all.

We first have to recognise needs -- those of users, of police, residents,
traders, of families of drug users, of youth workers, and drug and alcohol
workers, and resolve these sometimes competing needs.

To do this we need not talk-fest talk, but serious, regular problem-solving
talk, whether between the operators of a syringe exchange program and local
police, a trader and a user, or between the leaders of our political parties.

Progress is guaranteed if we start by acknowledging what we agree on, and
accepting the areas where we disagree. We can then get on and implement the
areas of agreement, while working out how to resolve our differences.

We agree on the importance of law enforcement, the need for a varied range
of treatments and of reducing demand through promotion and prevention. We
also agree on the need for street-based services for users and the need to
prevent deaths, serious injuries and the social disruption of chaotic drug use.

There is still disagreement on the need for supervised injecting
facilities, on police using needles and syringes as evidence, on the length
of jail sentences for dealers, and on the need for medical prescription of
heroin.

We strongly agree on the need to decrease the number of young (and not so
young) people injecting drugs or using other drugs harmfully.

To do this we need to increase protective factors (for example education,
connection to family, school and community, employment) and minimise the
risk factors (poor school achievement, isolation, alienation and unemployment).

And if we can get this right, we will be reducing the risk of a whole range
of issues such as alcohol abuse, smoking, depression, crime, early drop out
from school, suicide, road crashes and HIV infection.

For this we need an increasingly inclusive, tolerant and productive
society, one in which we increasingly talk with each other, not at each other.

Together we do better.

Dr Rob Moodie is chief executive officer of VicHealth.