HOWARD'S DATED DRUGS APPROACH

The Prime Minister Must Come To Terms With The Reality Of Drug Abuse In
Australia.

THE only "glib and simplistic" response to the epidemic of heroin
abuse now sweeping Australia has been that of the Prime Minister, Mr
John Howard, himself. These were the words with which he last week
dismissed the proposal of legalised heroin trials in the fight against
drug abuse.

Mr Howard's position has quite rightly drawn informed criticism from
eminent workers in the field. Professor David Penington, who chaired
the Victorian Government's drugs advisory council, believes the
prohibition model to which Mr Howard subscribes will never work. In
recent weeks, the Government and law-enforcement agencies have
trumpeted the success of the "war against drugs". Large seizures of
heroin stopped on its way into the country are held up as showing not
only that the strategy is working, but that it is the best strategy.

An essential policy question to be faced is whether drug abuse is seen
as a matter of criminal law or as a public health issue. The current
Australian approach is total prohibition based on criminality. It is a
dated approach, drawing heavily on United States experience, which has
historically never succeeded in relation to drugs or alcohol abuse.
The criminality of drug abuse is only part of the problem.

Prohibition is not and will never be the whole solution. It dates from
a time when drug abuse here was not widespread. It is a 1950s solution
to a 1990s problem. Australia is too big a place and the ways and
means of getting drugs into the country too diverse for this strategy
ever to work completely. At a time when the Government is claiming
great success in stemming the flow, the price of a cap of heroin is
less than that of a slab of beer. While vast sums of money have been
poured into policing measures, worldwide production of illicit drugs
has reached record levels. Heroin is more freely available in
Australia and in a purer form than it has ever been.

Yet Australia is a signatory to international conventions that lock us
into an approach based on prohibition. The United Nations, through the
International Narcotics Board, and the US through direct
representations have blocked a multilateral approach to drug reform in
Australia and in other countries. The prohibition approach is
entrenched in US law enforcement and international protocols. It makes
it difficult for Australia to go it alone, especially as to do so
might jeopardise Tasmania's lucrative legal opium-growing industry.
That industry is worth more than $80million annually.

In the end it depends on what value we place on the 600 lives that are
lost in this country every year from opiate overdoses. In Victoria
there were more than 250 deaths from heroin last year. The toll is
rising. This year 48 people died in the first 38 days. The failure of
prohibition is being counted out in the lives of the addicted.

What is called for are fresh and imaginative approaches that
acknowledge the wider range of issues at stake here. Simply legalising
heroin is probably not the answer, but we must look at easing
prohibition to the point that other solutions can be sought. Legalised
heroin trials, shooting galleries and liberally funded public health
and education programs must all take their place if the enormous drug
abuse problem Australia now faces is to be tackled.

Mr Howard is out of step with the reality of the drug problem that
besets his nation. He needs to lead here, not follow.