THE DRUG TRADE'S REAL ATTRACTION

The staff at Hungry Jacks on the corner of Russell and Bourke Streets do it
tough. Surely no workers anywhere in Melbourne do their thing in
surroundings so charged with negative energy. There they are, in uniform
and funny hat, bagging Whoppers and fries, while right outside the window
all hell is breaking loose.

This is the corner where drug deals are made and scores settled; where the
threat of violence is as real as the ambulance parked on the footpath;
where eyes are either cast down in loss or are darting about, seeking
contact and a sale.

It is also a corner where two economies - the mainstream and the
underground - coexist in a fashion more blatant than anywhere else you'd
care to imagine.

One economy for burgers and smiles. Another for drugs and denials.

The sheer size of the illegal drugs industry is something you can't ignore
when you wander along Russell and into Bourke. The whispered call of "you
chasin'?" seems to echo off the walls, tailing the weary pedestrian like a
ghost every step of the way.

Granted, the dark rings that sit naturally under my eyes probably make me
more of a target for drug dealers than most, but I swear I get more
attention from salespeople on Russell Street than I ever get in Myer or
David Jones.

And this makes sense in a sad kind of way. For isn't the market that
supplies heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana to anyone and everyone who
wants it just a dark mimicry of consumer capitalism at its most bold? A
market with its own fluctuations in demand and supply? Its own need for labor?

But we rarely think about the drugs issue in this way. Our concern is
always centred on the dangerous attraction of the drugs themselves. The
incredible appeal of drugs as an industry - particularly to those
marginalised young people who do not feel very welcome in the mainstream
economy - is a subject too complex and loaded to want to enter into. So we
limit our discussion of drug dealing to simple dismissals of the dealers as
despicable human beings who support their own sickening habits by preying
on the weak and vulnerable. End of story.But such homespun commentary -
while no doubt containing grains of truth - belies the size and complexity
of the drugs industry in Australia.

A recent survey, for instance, put the number of Australians who had used
an illicit drug of one sort or another in a 12-month period at more than
3.3 million. This figure is about equal to the population of Melbourne.

Just what a market of this size means in terms of profits for the drugs
industry is as staggering as it is carefully hidden. Recent estimates put
turnover for marijuana alone at $7 billion a year in Australia. This is
more than wool and dairy exports combined.

The attraction of such a booming industry for teenagers who have seen the
number of full-time jobs available to them in the mainstream economy fall
by more than 50 per cent in the past decade must be dangerously real.

I mean, how many windows of opportunity are there today for young people
with less than 15 years of education behind them? The days of entry-level
jobs in areas such as manufacturing, banking and the public service are a
distant memory. In fact, for some 16-year-olds they're not even that.

Not to say the news is all bad in the unskilled labor market. There has
been huge growth in recent years in casual employment in the service
sector. Hungry Jacks on the corner of Bourke and Russell is just one of 180
franchises of the burger chain sprinkled, like salt on fries, over every
state and territory in Australia.

And it is young people who grab these jobs in the fast-food business.
According to the Australian Retailers Association, more than 80per cent of
those selling burgers, nuggets and hot apple pies are under 21. At
McDonald's, the percentage is even higher.

But beyond the McJobs - the low-pay, no-future positions in the service
sector - the employment outlook has never been dimmer for young people
short on skills and experience than it is today. Within this dismal
environment of reduced opportunity and fading hopes, the reasons not to
sell drugs must seem awfully weak. After all, when you've got nothing,
you've got nothing to lose.

Down on Russell Street there are plenty of kids who have nothing. And just
a couple of metres from where some teenager bags fries for Hungry Jacks,
another kid is busy dealing drugs for an industry with all the global reach
of the burger chain, but many, many times the number of takeaway outlets.