PRESSURE BUILDS FOR LAW REFORM
THE DRUG TIME BOMB
by Amanda Meade.

An increasing number of citizens five DPPs among them believe the 'war
on drugs' can't be won without a dramatic change in tactics.

The nation has held at least 25 inquiries since 1971 into aspects of
illicit drug use and the associated health, legal and economic problems.
All but a few have recommended changing prohibition policies and
embracing harm minimisation.

Despite the recommendations, little has changed and this in a country
with a proud record in harm minimisation; Australia's introduction of a
needle exchange program and explicit safesex campaigns led the world in
responding to the HIVAIDS epidemic and have succeeded in keeping
transmission rates at low levels.

Advocates of drug law reform say there are two barriers to a rational
drugs policy: ignorance and political cowardice. These factors have long
combined to blunt any moves for reform, but forces are building for
change. Inertia on law reform led five State and Territory directors of
public prosecutions to take unprecedented action last week; they felt so
strongly that they challenged the authority of their respective
governments by publicly advocating drug law reform.

Led by outspoken NSW DPP Nicholas Cowdery QC, the chief law officers of
Victoria, the ACT, South Australia and Tasmania issued a statement
calling for "a national summit or commission" to be established to
examine possible new approaches to the growing drug problem in
Australian society.

Their bold move was prompted by the release last month of the final
report of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service. In his
recommendations the Commissioner, Justice James Wood, called for a
'meaningful review" of drug laws in the form of a national summit or
commission. He also recommended that safe and sanitary injecting rooms
be introduced by the Government.

Despite such recommendations, NSW Premier Bob Carr, concerned that the
proposed "shhoting galleries" would send the wrong message to the
community about Labour's stance on illegal drugs, did not welcome the
suggestion. The Opposition also ruled it out. The call for a summit was
completely ignored by both sides.

"Much of the corruption identified in this inquiry was connected to drug
law enforcement," the Wood report says. "The huge sums of cash
associated with the drug trade and the apparent inability of
conventional policing to make any impact on the illegal market in
narcotics creates cynicism among police working in the field. It also
creates an environment in which corrupt conduct flourishes.

"For these reasons rhetoric based upon a 'war against drugs' or similar
notions is empty and incapable of fulfilment. The problems associated
with drug use require a different approach to the issues related to the
drug trade. Alternate solutions need to be found in order to address
drug use the criminal process does little to reduce the availability
of drugs or to discourage their use. It continues to provide
opportunities for corrupt police."

Cowdery and his colleagues did not want the momentum created by Wood to
be lost and were disappointed by Carr's public comments. They issued
their statement without notice to Carr's office.

Later in the week Cowdery told a University of Sydney Union debate: "It
would be derelict of me to stand idly by while public resources continue
to be applied inefficiently and ineffectively towards attempting to deal
with these problems primarily through the criminal justice process."

In his characteristically measured, direct way, he accused politicians
of ignoring the issue, indeed of inventing the war against drugs to
"constantly proclaim themselves the victors".

"We need to mount an active, widespread and properly led search for a
better way," he told the gathering. "The'war on drugs' is in reality a
narrow campaign waged ... principally against the supply side, although
users often become what Americans descrine as 'collateral damage'."

At the same university debate, opponents of reform, including the
Salvation Army, argued primarily that drug use would increase if
criminality were not attacked.

But Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Dr Alex Wodak
counters this with the claim that illegal drugs are as available in
Australia as pizzas. He says increases in the efforts of law enforcement
serve to increase prices, profit and corruption.

The agenda articulated by reformists such as Wodak includes support for
a controlled heroin trial in the ACT, safe injecting rooms and a
national summit to move towards more workable, uniform laws.

One of the factors influencing the timing of the DPPs' statement is next
month's meeting of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, which will
be attended by all federal, State and Territory health and justice
ministers. That meeting will reexamine the ACT's heroin trial, which at
last year's meeting won the support only of South Australia and
Victoria.

While the States have not essentially changed their positions in the
past 12 months, support for change has been strong in other quarters.
Several police commissioners, including NSW's Peter Ryan and his federal
counterpart Mick Palmer, have offered support. The Australian Medical
Association, the Pharmacy Guild and the chair of the Victorian Premier's
Drug Advisory Council, Professor David Penington, also support the
trial.

Penington's 1996 report, which proposed a move away from prohibition
and a repeal of laws covering personal use of cannabis, convinced
Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett to back the ACT's heroin trial. South
Australia was the first State to try decriminalisation and has supported
the trial from the outset. Last week's statement by the DPPs also gave
support for the heroin trial.

The DPPs' move to speak out will have shocked their masters, but ACT DPP
Terry Buddin QC says their intervention in policital debate is
justified. "People who are involved in the criminal justice system at
the coal face have an opinion about whether the laws are working as well
as we would want them to work," he says.

"The statement was not advocating any particular position; it was just
saying, let's have a debate about it. Clearly the proposed heroin trial
may be a viable option. We now have a very well respected judge having
conducted a royal commission; it does give it some legitimacy when
someone so well respected and as prudent and cautious as this comes up
with this sort of thoughtful response."

Ultimately, Carr holds the key to the heroin trial because two of its
stages will be impossible without the involvement of NSW addicts.

Carr's political doublespeak on the issue was lampooned publicly last
week by federal Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge. "NSW is saying we
won't stand in the way," Wooldridge told ABC radio in Canberra. "Well
obviously that's rubbish. Unless NSW comes on board, you might as well
forget it because you cannot run a trial that's big enough in stage two
and three without NSW, so getting the consensus is going to be
extraordinarily difficult.

"You could run stage one here in the ACT, but there's no point in doing
stage one unless people are prepared to go through all the difficulties
... unless the States are prepared to come on board and at the moment
NSW is standing there piously saying we won't stand in the way. Well,
rubbish. That's as good as saying it's dead."

Wooldridge's cutting assessment went to the heart of the reason the
heroin trial has stalled. Without the involvement of NSW in the later
stages of the experiment the trial would be meaningless. A spokesman for
Carr said last week: "He is happy to support the ACT heroin trial,
that's what it's called, that's what it is and there are no plans for a
similar trial in Sydney."

That was code for a refusal to allow the scientific experment, which
involves distributing heroin to registered addicts, to be carried out
within the borders of NSW. Carr believes such a move would be electoral
suicide.

Drug prohibition has little to do with the harmful effects of drugs, and
everything to do with cultural, historical and political factors.
Mindful of this, ACT's Chief Minister Kate Carnell empathises with Carr.
Carnell says she understands why people are horrified at the idea of a
heroin trial.

"Everone who now supports drug law reform, like me, once didn't and the
reason is we became more involved and we became better informed,"
Carnell says. "When you look around at all the reports, regardless of
how conservative the people doing the inquiry were, not one didn't say
prohibition has failed, we have to do something else."

But Carnell says the NSW Opposition will carry just as much
responsibility for the success or failure of the trial as the
Government. "The politics of drug law reform is very difficult without a
level of bipartisan support," she says.

Carnell is confident the Commonwealth will fund the trial, but
Wooldridge can't move until NSW is on board.

"It's an issue that we as politicians must have the guts not to use
politically," Carnell says. "What happens after that must be based on
good research, good information and a lot of soul searching. If the
risks are too high, we look for other options. I am not saying it is an
answer, I am saying it may be one answer."
[unquote]

Inset in the above article is a Profit and Loss statement:
[quote]
* The illicit drug trade is the second largest industry in the world and
nets about $500 billion a year in profits $2 billion in Australia.
* More than 100,000 Australians use heroin.
* 39 per cent of Australians aged over 14 have tried illicit drugs.
* Every hour a drug user contracts hepatitis C.
* Every 16 hours a drug user dies from an overdose.
* 18,000 addicts are on methadone treatment, with more on waiting lists,
which are growing at 1015 per cent a year.
* Drug law enforcement cost almost $500 million last year, a figure that
has grown by 40 per cent in the past four years.
* Elements of that $500 million are: Australian Federal Police $43.6
million; State police $83.5 million; prisons $230.5 million; courts
$64.1 million (all figures for 1992).
* We spend between $1000 and $2000 a minute trying to stop illegal drugs
crossing our 30,000km shoreline.
* Only 10 to 20 per cent of illegal drugs are found.
* The link between drugs and crime has not been quantified but it has
been estimated 8000 young Australians are in jail every night because
of drugs.

Sources: Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform;
Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health; Australian Drug
Law Reform Foundation.

( DPP means Director of Public Prosecutions and is more or
less equivalent to the American term Attorney General.)