LEGALISATION THE ANSWER FOR LOST WAR ON DRUGS

AFTER decades of pursuing drug criminals and packing them into the jails,
things are worse instead of better.

There is more of everything - more heroin, more cocaine, more cannabis,
more amphetamines and more prescribed drugs. It is all cheaper than it used
to be. Heroin is purer, thus more perilous, for unsuspecting users.

These messages are contained in what many see as the most comprehensive
study of illicit drugs, the Australian Illicit Drug Report 1996-97,
produced by the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence.

Its underlying theme is chilling - the war against drugs cannot be won.

It is clearly time for a new approach. That, in my opinion, is to legalise
the arsenal of illicit drugs before the situation gets worse.

It would enable governments to control the use and distribution of these
substances instead of drug lords. It might save our children.

Police and politicians have consistently taken the "hard line" against
drugs, yet this continued approach is not the solution in the light of this
report.

The drugs report says the number of dependent heroin users in 1995 ranged
from 36,000 to 150,000.

There were 778 deaths attributable to illicit drugs in 1995, 3642 from
alcohol-related causes and a massive 18,124 from the effects of tobacco.

Deaths from illicit drugs are minimal compared with alcohol, yet we do not
dare try prohibition after the experience in the United States, where it
was taken over by the Mafia. That is roughly what has happened with the
illicit drugs phenomenon.

The report shows that police everywhere put more users before the courts
than suppliers, so the wrong people are going to jail. The cost of law
enforcement is enormous, at $450 million a year for illicit drugs alone.

The economic cost of drug abuse to the community is $18 billion, but
illicit drugs just $1.6 billion.

World-wide production of opium is increasing. Seizures have risen over five
years and it is readily available. Sydney is the biggest disembarkation
place in the country, unfortunately it is just three hours drive away. The
report says "law enforcement efforts are having only a limited effect".
Dealers can always match demand.

Massive police operations aimed at detecting drugs and catching traffickers
and distributors are costly too, absorbing millions of dollars each year, a
crippling burden for all communities and governments.

The strength of police forces has ballooned in response to the drugs- crime
phenomenon, as drugs of all types dominate headlines and police operations.

A ratio of eight in 10 inmates is rotting in jail for drug-related crime.
Property crime has become a vast enterprise, touch almost every household.

Mortality and morbidity associated with illicit drugs involve three
factors: the administering method (such as dirty needles), overdoses and
the lifestyle element, including the criminal activities, low living
standards, prostitution, and poor health.

The report shows cannabis to be Australia's most popular illicit drug.
One-third of the population has used it, as have 140 million users world-wide.

It is a large-scale domestic industry in Australia. Growers use the latest
hydroponic techniques, which the report says has increased in the past decade.

Narcotics and cannabis are the lucrative mediums of exchange for the
generals of the underworld. Cannabis is also a widely used social drug.

Amphetamines, or speed, the party drug, are a revenue raiser for illegal
bikie gangs, who manufacture in back-street chemical labs, mixing dangerous
chemicals without any medical controls.

The drug lords are getting richer and fatter.

Reports of deaths from drug overdoses now appear to outnumber road deaths.
Ambulance paramedics go out to more overdoses than they can count.

When patients are given a dose of the life-saving Narcan, which reverses in
moments the effects of heroin, some wake up and shake their heads. They ask
why they were given the shot. "I was feeling great," one dazed drug user
said resentfully. "But you were dying," was the reply.

Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone gave her blessing this week to another
injection of money to take a hard line against drugs. It is a ritualised
response that has been tried for 40 years and it is not working.

THE ONLY retreat by police in the report is to concede that decriminalising
cannabis would free police resources allowing them to tackle hard drugs.

Hard drugs? Heroin is nowhere near as devastating to health as methadone,
the government-approved syrup which serves as a heroin substitute.

You can recognise a long-term methadone user by the holes in their teeth.
They are more highly addicted to methadone than to heroin.

One user told me, :It makes your bones rot."

Police in the United States prefer heroin to crack cocaine, which is the
drug of choice, because crack users go berserk. Heroin induces a milder
disposition.

Synthetic drugs, or amphetamines, have 30 million users world-wide and it
is increasing too.

It is time to put a stop to the costly law-enforcement debacle. Governments
must decriminalise the whole stable of illicit drugs. They no longer have
the resources or the ability to stamp them out. The costly efforts may have
held the line to some degree, but that is all. The report clearly shows this.

Controlled production means fewer impurities. It means safer amounts. It
puts a stop to the dreaded slavery of methadone. License and legalise them
and use the taxes to promote education and safe use.