PANDERING TO THE WRONG CAUSE

Users of a range of fairly common and freely available pharmaceuticals
are sternly admonished not to drive or operate heavy machinery. What
then seems to be the problem about warning parents who habitually use
illicit drugs that they will not be permitted to take charge of
children, especially as those parents are likely to be even more
greatly impaired by the potency of the drugs they take?

That acquiescent attitude toward illegal drug use seems to be at the
heart of the approach to the drug culture embraced by the handwringers
in the NSW department and in particular, the Department of Community
Services and its well-meaning director-general Carmel Niland.

Until the State Government recognises that drug abuse is an inherent
evil, its officers will continue to pussyfoot around the issue and
play with such nonsense notions as harm minimisation, and the Fairfax
press, an agile accomplice in this farce, will continue to write about
"bad" heroin as opposed supposedly to some form of "good" heroin that
other junkies may shoot up safely.

Ms Niland has asked that I "walk a mile in the shoes" of one of her
child protection workers to experience at first-hand the thankless job
she says they perform, but I don't believe merely "walking" the walk
would address the profound cultural problems that exist within DOCS.

While it is true that my experience with Ms Niland's staff is limited,
I do know the anguish experienced by a close colleague whose errant
adolescent daughter was effectively enticed into a "wimin's" shelter
by conspiratorial DOCS workers who then refused to tell the distraught
parents where the child was being hidden.

And I am well aware of the awful statistics released by the Child
Death Review Team which found that 80 children of drug-dependent
parents died, 70 of those children being "known to DOCS".

Ms Niland adopts some sophistry to claim that only six of the 70
youngsters died as a result of child abuse -- six too many.

The remaining 64, she wrote in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, "died
from factors like natural causes, fires, car accidents and drownings".

"No one," she wrote, "can blame DOCS for these deaths."

Oh no? Just keep reading.

I blame DOCS and Premier Bob Carr and Special Minister of State John
Della Bosca and everyone else who continues to pander to the junkie
culture for not only the deaths but also for the totally screwed-up
lives of each and every child who is not removed by the State from the
so-called care of a drug-affected parent and placed in a drug-free
environment!

Or, in keeping children with their drug-addled parents are Ms Niland
and the Carr Government tacitly telling the community that being doped
to the gills is no big deal?

If such parents (like the drug-affected father photographed by this
newspaper clinging for support to his toddler's pusher in Oxford St
last Wednesday) are to be permitted to lamentably remain risibly
responsible for their kids, why not let them operate heavy equipment?
Drive buses and trains? Direct the traffic?

Given the state of the railways and the ludicrous excuses made for
their decrepit state, perhaps those in charge are already on dope. Who
could tell?

The suggestion by Major Brian Watters, the sanest voice on drug issues
in NSW, a drug-free status be a requirement for employment in the
public sector has been attacked by all the usual voices who claim
there might he civil rights issues at stake. A particularly strong
blend of drugs would be required to reach that conclusion.

As the nominal employers of public servants, taxpayers SHOULD be
demanding drug tests for civil servants, and particularly those such
departments as health, Attorney-General's, police and DOCS, where this
State's loopy drug policies are formulated.

According to research from the US Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), one of the great nanny-state enterprises,
drug-using employees use more health and insurance benefits, are more
frequently absent, are less reliable, are more at risk from accidents
and are less productive.

Why don't taxpayers demand the State Government, as the ultimate
paymaster for the public service, reduce all of the above traits by
instituting a drug-free regimen?

Start there, and who knows, the community's concerns about the use of
illegal drugs may even be reflected by the Government.