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[LETTER #1]

TIME TO CHANGE THINKING ON ILLICIT DRUGS

Senior figures in the NSW Police Service have admitted (Herald, July
21) that intensive operations in Cabramatta targeting drug traffickers
cost millions of dollars, failed to reduce the number of heroin users
and simply redistributed the problems to new areas.

These police should be commended for their honesty and courage. It is
extremely unfortunate that the Police Commissioner in the past has
been ordered to refrain from commenting on drug policy.

Commentators often argue that governments should be run more like a
business. What private business would continue to allocate 85 percent
of its resources to an activity shown again and again to have failed?

After the State police commissioners' meeting which was held in
Melbourne in April, the Victorian Police Commissioner, Neil Comrie,
said at a press conference that "we have to almost wipe the slate
clean" and move from punishment to rehabilitation.

What more evidence do we need after the Fitzgerald and Wood royal
commissions that current policies lead inevitably to more deaths,
disease, crime and corruption? Doing more of the same will not improve
outcomes.

The first step to progress in our community's problem with illicit
drugs is to admit the futility of relying so heavily on law
enforcement.

Dr Alex Wodak, President, Australian Law Reform Foundation, Darlinghurst.
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[LETTER #2]

Drugs, they cost a packet! In fact $1.6 billion a year in thefts to
buy heroin (Herald, July 18). Not only that, the cost to the taxpayer
of police, courts, customs and prisons are estimated at more than $2.5
billion a year. And still the drug war on our youth goes on with our
pollies frantically competing with each other to outbid the amount
spent on law enforcement.

Isn't it time we called for a halt and thought cooly about some
possible alternatives to control the problem? Professor Ian Webster
warned against the political shift towards law enforcement and
emphasised the need to have an integrated approach involving
education, grassroots support and the health system. Carefully
monitored trials such as safe injecting rooms, greater access to
counselling and treatment, the ACT heroin trials and alternatives to
criminal charges for first offenders (as in Victoria) are some of the
approaches, to name a few.

It is patently obvious that the old system is not working and there
has to be a better way. Apart from the social effect of current laws
on the lives of young people and their families, the cost to the
victims of drug-related crime and the ever-increasing costs to the
taxpayers simply cannot be sustained indefinitely. It is getting
altogether too expensive.

Joan Kersey, Point Piper.
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[LETTER #3]

Your story on the billions needed to feed heroin habits is even more
dramatic from the human side (Herald, July 18). All of the robberies
had victims. Some were burgled residents. Others were old folk who
were injured in bag snatches. And all in the pursuit of a drug which is
now being successfully prescribed to addicts by doctors overseas! Do
we need to change our thinking?

Dr Andrew Byrne, General Practitioner, Drugs & alcohol,
Redfern.

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Peter Watney Internet : petrew@pcug.org.au
30A Kellermann Close Fidonet : 3:620/243.71
Holt ACT 2615 Australia Telephone: +61-2-6254-1914
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Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"