OUR MPS MUST SHOW COURAGE ON DRUG POLICY

Our best efforts to stop heroin reaching the streets have failed. Criminal
sanctions for use of heroin have failed. It seems that everyone, including
the previous state government, has now acknowledged that something else must
be done.

The recommendations of Dr David Penington's Drug Policy Expert Committee
arose from the report he prepared for the Kennett Government. But that
government did not act on those recommendations and now, in opposition, says
it has "grave concerns" about their implementation.

We all share those concerns. But we need to have the courage to try
something new and it should be our MPs who have the vision and leadership to
show us the path to follow.

Concerns expressed about injecting heroin in a supervised facility being
legal when injecting it outside the facility is illegal are easily addressed
by decriminalising personal use of heroin and other drugs. It is time we
recognised that criminal sanctions have not answered what is essentially a
health problem.

It is disappointing to hear the Prime Minister and others say that the
results of overseas supervised injecting rooms are uncertain and that they
refuse to support the trial of such facilities here. The numbers are clear.
The reduction in overdose deaths is massive in almost every case.

We understand the worry expressed by independent MP Russell Savage (outlined
on this page last Thursday). He says that as a policeman he has seen
first-hand the misery caused by drugs. This misery has also been seen, and
continues to be seen, by scores of leading criminal lawyers who, with
directors of public prosecution from throughout Australia, last year drew up
a policy declaring that heroin is a health problem, not a criminal issue.
The Law Institute of Victoria, representing the state's 8000 solicitors,
adopted this policy and now it has the backing of the Law Council of
Australia, meaning all of the nation's lawyers.

Lawyers want supervised injecting rooms to be set up immediately in areas of
high drug use. They also want the cancelled ACT trial of medically
prescribed heroin to go ahead, and legislation giving courts the option of
suspended or deferred sentences for drug addicts who have a real prospect of
rehabilitation.

Finally, they seek the immediate decriminalisation of possession and
cultivation of cannabis for personal use, with the aim of separating
cannabis users from those who would sell them heroin.

Russell Savage boldly asserts that Britain has no injecting centres.
Recently SBS TV screened a documentary that included a former heroin addict
who lives in Liverpool, England, going to his chemist for his supply.
Another user interviewed said that she had got her life back together and
had a job and a flat and was reunited with her family, all through this
program.

In calling for more police to make heroin harder to obtain, Savage sadly
falls into the old trap. A war on drugs is useless. In the United States a
$25billion-a-year war jails more people than those charged with murder,
rape, robbery and assault combined. One in six people in jail is held for
marijuana-related crimes. The "tough on drugs" policy has failed hopelessly.

We must look at other ways to save lives, end the pitiful family breakdowns
and lower the level of drug-related crime and the resulting corruption that
infests police forces everywhere the "war" is declared.

Perhaps if those who oppose the proposed trial were prepared to talk to
Penington for an hour or two, they might find the intellectual courage to
provide our community with the leadership it deserves.