WHY CARR IS RIGHT ON DRUGS

DURING the Reagan presidency, Mrs Nancy Reagan caused a furore by suggesting
that the answer to America's drug problem was for addicts and potential
users to "Just say no". This was absurdly simplistic, the then First Lady's
critics said, and encouraged the view that victims of drug abuse were wholly
to blame for their predicament. Now the NSW Premier, Mr Carr, has drawn flak
for his comment on Tuesday that heroin addiction is ultimately a question of
individual responsibility. "This problem begins when people are silly enough
to pick up a needle and inject an addictive poison into their veins," Mr
Carr said. The Premier's comment has been criticised by some drug
rehabilitation professionals as presenting a black-and-white view of
addiction that essentially blames the victim.

There is a difference, however, between what Mrs Reagan was doing and what
Mr Carr is saying. "Just say no" became an excuse for a strategy to combat
drug addiction in the US; Mr Carr is saying that unless the debate about
drug abuse is grounded in reality, the search for solutions won't go far. He
is right.

Obviously, it is true that many addicts are people trying to deal with past
or present experiences of severe physical, sexual and psychological abuse.
Just as obviously it is true that many addicts are not trying to deal with
those kinds of experiences at all. Moreover, not everyone who has been the
subject of abuse turns to drugs.

The reasons why some people turn to drugs, and others don't, need to be
considered. Part of the appeal of drugs, for instance, may have something to
do with the way drug use is often portrayed as a sign of mature or "cool"
behaviour.

Part of the reason may have to do with certain young people lacking the
strength of character to counter peer pressure. The reasons behind the
choice people make on drugs will help determine what kind of anti-drug
education campaigns are successful.

At a more general level, there is a tendency within contemporary culture to
offload the adverse consequences of individual choices.

Blaming someone or something else has become preferable to taking personal
responsibility for actions that go wrong.

This approach often leads to an unreasonable expectation that governments
can and should fix the problems individuals bring upon themselves by
throwing scarce public resources at what are the results of poor private
choices.

The drain on the public hospital system of the ill-health attributable to
cigarette smoking is a case in point.

And yet, when the Prime Minister announced last week that the Federal
Government would support diverting offenders from the criminal justice
system to assessment and rehabilitation, many health care workers questioned
the compulsory element built into the strategy.

Successful rehabilitation, they said, required the consent of addicts to
treatment.

If voluntarism plays a role at the end of the addiction spiral, surely it
plays a role at the beginning as well.

By saying that heroin use, at least initially, does involve a high degree of
personal choice, Mr Carr is simply stating the obvious.

He is not prejudging the conclusions of the Drug Summit which he has called
next month, or indicating that his mind is closed to suggestions about how
best to deal with the drug problem.

As Mr Carr put it on Tuesday: "My message to the community is don't expect
the Government, or the police or the health workers [to] solve this problem
for you." The sooner the community, including its addicts, stops looking for
magic panaceas, the sooner sensible solutions to the heroin problem may be
found.