DRUG POLICIES HAVE FAILED

New Solutions To The Problem Of Drugs And Drug-related Crimes Must Be Found.

KING Street may still not be the most salubrious street in the city,
but it is measurably safer than it was before police, nightclub owners
and the City of Melbourne, in a program called Operation Cabool,
cooperated to reduce violence and other anti-social behavior there.

The problem is that when there is greater surveillance of one area the
existing problems tend to shift to another.

While Russell Street is not nearly as bad as King Street used to be, a
substantial amount of the kind of violence associated with nightclubs
and the excessive use of alcohol appears to have shifted to the
eastern end of the city.

It appears that a similar operation may be needed to clean up the
Russell Street end. But what is far more worrying is the very large
increase in crime in the inner-city area in general.

Since 1994 the number of aggravated burglaries has increased by a
massive 445per cent, criminal damage by 157per cent and drug offences
by 160per cent. We should not overreact - Melbourne is still a safe
city by international standards - but the increase in violent
robberies is disturbing.

There is one main reason for it: drugs.

Police estimate that up to 70per cent of crime is now drug-related -
that is, committed either by people who are under the influence of
drugs or by people desperate to get money to buy drugs. What has long
been a fact of life in many cities of the world is now happening in
Melbourne. And it is as painfully obvious here as it is overseas that
the war against drugs by the use of blanket prohibition and draconian
penalties has been well and truly lost.

The Victoria Police deserve credit for searching for more constructive
ways of dealing with the problem, in cautioning and offering
counselling to first-time drug users, rather than charging them. But
with heroin now cheaper and more readily available than marijuana on
Melbourne's streets, it is clear that not only are we as a community
not doing enough to counteract the drug menace but what we are doing
is not appropriate. The reality is that despite criminal sanctions and
the relentless efforts of law-enforcement authorities, illegal drugs
are easily accessible to anyone who wants them. Even the policy of
containment is failing, in the face of a rising demand that encourages
organised crime and makes criminals of people who either cannot
control their drug dependence or do not see they are doing anything
wrong.

It is clear that the option of legalising, or at least
decriminalising, the use of hard drugs needs to be seriously
considered. Politicians - beginning with the Prime Minister, Mr John
Howard, who has been disappointingly inflexible on the issue - must
realise that the problem of drugs must be addressed, and quickly.