PEACE PLAN FOR NARCOTICS WAR

MAKING a significant contribution to many a gross national product, the
international drug trade turns over $1 trillion per annum. That doesn't
count the billions of dollars spent on the policies of prohibition and
interdiction, let alone the costs of incarceration. Grieving over the
killing of a young colleague, a police officer in Vancouver, Canada, tries
to put US president Ronald Reagan's "war on drugs" into perspective: "He
died because of a small amount of powder used by consenting adults."

It's perhaps time to revive the term the silent majority to describe the
bulk of our population who know that the war on drugs is useless — worse,
counterproductive.

"The War Against the War on Drugs" is a documentary to be screened on SBS
next month and features many people who have changed their minds on the
issue: police chiefs, city mayors, front-line cops, judges and businessmen.
One of the most successful capitalists in the US and among its greatest
philanthropists, George Soros, has given about $3 billion to good causes and
one of them is this war against a war.

Soros talks of the unintended consequences of well-intended actions — the
increasing vortex of drugs and crime. Although conceding that there are no
simple answers, he insists that we should begin the process by
decriminalising the drugs we've demonised.

The poor in the US aren't covered by the health plans that corporations give
their executives. They can’t afford anti-depressants, let alone the tender
care of a therapist. So they finish up prescribing themselves narcotics.

Such is the failure of the war on drugs that they have never been cheaper.
Whether you're in a US ghetto or an Australian suburb, heroin comes at a
bargain price. A few kilograms are seized by Customs, but tonnes make it to
the market. Yet out of every 100 drug-related deaths, perhaps two or three
are a consequence of heroin use: 90 per cent, at least result from alcohol
or tobacco.

Reagan liked a good war. There is, of course, much drug-taking among the
glitterati, from Beverly Hills to Wall Street, but Reagan's drug war was
aimed at people forced on to drugs by deprivation and unemployment.

Soros is right: "There are no simple answers." And some experiments in harm
minimisation, such as the famous "needle park" in Zurich, have been
unsuccessful. But having found that inviting users to hang out in a central
park led to a political and medical nightmare, the Swiss learned their
lesson and decentralised the approach, away from schools and residences.
Addicts can buy their heroin over-the-counter, free of fear of AIDS or
adulteration, for "about the cost of three beers".

They must inject their heroin on the spot, so that it can't be accumulated
or traded on the street. The result? Disease and drug-related deaths
plummeted, as did drug-related crime.

RESULTS were even better in Liverpool, where doctors can prescribe heroin to
addicts beyond the reach of methadone. Not enough for a high, just enough to
stave off the pain of withdrawal. Users get their heroin and a set of clean
needles — or a daily dose of methadone — on the National Health Service.

Our silent majority knows that current drug policies are a bad joke. As in
so many other matters, they look for political leadership. In a country
where (apart from South Australia) marijuana is still deemed the devil's
weed, where the most timid heroin trials are vetoed with ludicrous
objections raised about shooting galleries, this leadership is a lot harder
to find than a fix.