DRUGS

The good news about illicit drugs is the increasing worldwide support for a
drug policy based on evidence rather than prejudice.

In 1971, President Nixon discovered that the 'War Against Drugs' was a
political 'Viagra' for aging male politicians gradually losing their
electoral potency. But the world now faces its most serious public health
problem since the Black Plague. Injecting drug use is today the major or
second major factor in HIV infection for 90 per cent of the world's
population. Slowly but surely, populist, short-term approaches to drugs are
being replaced by longer-term, evidence-based approaches. Drugs, considered
a criminal justice issue for more than half a century, are now increasingly
being redefined as primarily a health and social problem.

My interest in this area began 20 years ago when it became apparent that
Australia faced a major threat from AIDS. In 1986, after more than a dozen
of my submissions for a pilot needle syringe programme had been rejected or
ignored, my colleagues and I started Australia's first needle exchange.
Within a couple of years, all states and territories had established legal
needle syringe programmes.

In 2002, a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Health
from independent experts estimated that needle syringe programmes had, by
2000, cost governments $122 million, prevented 25,000 HIV infections plus
21,000 hepatitis C infections, saved at least $ 2.4 billion and, by 2010,
would have prevented 4,500 deaths from AIDS.

Harm minimisation is now the mainstream drug policy in Western Europe,
Canada and New Zealand and has been endorsed by the International Red Cross
and many major UN bodies. Prime Minister John Howard still strongly
supports zero tolerance and consequently there has been some recent
ambiguity in Australia's drug policy. But Prime Ministers come and go.

Our real task is to learn how to better manage drugs. We cannot repeal the
law of supply and demand.

The good news is that more people are now finally accepting this reality.