A MORE TOLERANT APPROACH TO DRUGS

Demonising The Users Of Illegal Drugs Is Likely To Make The Problem Worse,
Not Better.

Tomorrow is World No-Tobacco Day. In Australia, tobacco is the drug
most responsible for premature, preventable deaths, and yet smoking
continues, particularly among the young, despite the advertising bans,
the health warnings and the social odium that is increasingly attached
to lighting up.

Just as education campaigns and good intentions have not eradicated
smoking, so they have done little to stop the use of illegal drugs
including heroin and marijuana. Professor David Penington, who chaired
the Premier's Drug Advisory Council, believes there is a link between
society's double standard on drugs and the persistent rise of illegal
drug use. He argues that among the 50 per cent of young people who use
marijuana, its illegality is widely considered to be hypocritical.
Such an attitude can, in turn, lead to a disdain for the law.
Furthermore, the common use of marijuana forces the police and the
courts to spend their limited time and resources punishing a breach
that a significant proportion of the population considers
inoffensive.

The professor also believes there is an alarming link between the
illegality of marijuana and the rising incidence of heroin use. He is
not peddling the old chestnut about ``soft drugs'' inevitably leading
to ``hard drugs'' but describing the realities of a changing drug
market. Heroin is more affordable and available than it has ever been,
and it can be bought from the same dealers who sell marijuana, and
often is, with devastating results.

The recent Age summit on drugs revealed a heartening agreement on many
aspects of the drug debate among the State Government, the Opposition,
the police and the Salvation Army. All recognised that describing
illegal drugs as ``evil'' and morally condemning those who use them
had done nothing to stop the spread of drug use - or the crime, misery
and death associated with addiction - while allowing those who profit
from the drug trade to flourish. But this agreement is not universal.
In Victoria, the Salvation Army's Major David Brunt is at odds with
his Sydney colleague, Major Brian Watters, the Prime Minister's main
adviser on drugs, who has described drug use as a sin. We agree with
Major Brunt that such a view is counterproductive. It is more
compassionate, and more pragmatic, to regard and treat drug abuse as a
health issue.

A more tolerant attitude towards drugs and drug users is not the same
as condoning the use of drugs; rather, it involves a recognition that
drug abuse has become deeply entrenched and that no one in society can
hope to be immune from its effects. Marijuana causes less brain damage
than alcohol. It has been shown to have therapeutic benefits in the
treatment of diseases, for example, multiple sclerosis, although there
is also a danger that its use can trigger psychosis in those
vulnerable to mental illness. Decriminalising marijuana will not allow
the drug to be traded, but will mean that those who use it will not be
punished. Experience in Holland suggests that decriminalising the drug
leads to a separation of the source of marijuana and heroin, and may
therefore protect young users.

As this paper has long argued, there is also a strong case that
limited heroin trials would benefit those heroin users who have not
responded to other treatments. It will not solve the problem of heroin
abuse but Swiss trials suggests that supervised heroin use saves the
lives of addicts and lowers the crime rate.

Neither of these strategies tackles the underlying reasons for drug
use and abuse. But they suggest that benefits will flow from a more
flexible and less punitive approach to drugs.