ENLIGHTENED MINDS NEEDED TO SOLVE THE DRUGS DILEMMA

DRUGS constitute the greatest social issue facing the nation. This is
the verdict of Peter Costello, Treasurer and thwarted Liberal leader,
in the Press last week. They are "every parent's nightmare", he added.
In contrast, the ACT Police believe that "the scoreboard is starting
to show some runs" (The Canberra Times, May 24). There's nothing like
a few big seizures to buoy spirits.

Police and aspiring political leaders need the optimism of Charles
Dickens's Micawber. Every day dawns with the hope that something will
turn up: the promise of every new law-enforcement initiative.

Back in 1980 the Williams Royal Commission thought that a "much better
result can be obtained if Australia mobilises its resources and adopts
a truly national policy against illegal drugs". Williams described the
drug problem then as containing "many elements of war time situation".
Since then it has got many times worse.

Other royal commissions then were sceptical of the extent that legal
sanctions could deter drug traffickers. For example, Frank Costigan,
QC, shared the view that the elimination of non-medical drug use
"would require a degree of surveillance of private behaviour that
simply cannot be achieved in a democratic society". Even so, law
enforcement has continued to underpin illicit drug policy.

In the meantime, out of concern that law enforcement itself was
creating serious health and social problems, Australian governments
superimposed a policy of harm minimisation on policing.

There is a tension between these approaches that is evident from
police comments. "We generally don't target the heroin user," they
say. "We're more interested in the trafficker." Fine, but users make
up most of the lower levels of the distribution pyramid. They refer to
the welcome "new-found emphasis on diverting individuals away from the
legal system and into the health system" but add that "four out of
every five burglaries in Canberra raise funds for a heroin user".

Non-attendance of police at overdoses saves lives. The provision of
clean syringes reduces the spread of blood-borne diseases and the
level of property crime is reduced among those on methadone programs.
At the same time, by obtaining and possessing illicit drugs every user
commits a crime.

This is why, for some, "harm minimisation" is a dirty term. The Prime
Minister has said on 2UE that he does not believe in it. Bronwyn
Bishop, heading an inquiry into crime, has declared that "our policy
is no longer harm minimisation". The Government has called for its
reconsideration in the current review of the National Drug Strategic
Framework.

My GP repeated to me that life itself is a fatal condition. Every time
we go to the doctor we are seeking to minimise harm. The concept
underpins traffic regulation and much else in life.

For harm minimisation to be a guide two things must be clear: what is
harmful and what interventions can minimise that harm. The first is a
moral question; the second is an issue of cause and effect that often
involves expert knowledge.

In the eyes of some, being drug free is a virtue that should be placed
in front of preserving life. Recently in sentencing an addicted woman
on a prostitution charge, an Adelaide magistrate told her: "Damn you
to death." The federal Minister for Employment, Tony Abbott, has said
that he opposes injecting facilities because people who are on drugs
are virtually dead anyway.

Much more common is a moral code that sees overcoming the harm of
addiction as only one of a number of harms associated with drug use
that we should address: the health and social functioning of users
should be improved, our young children should not be exposed to
dangerous drugs, none should have to live in fear of crime, and so
on.

The highly charged moral and political atmosphere surrounding drugs
challenges the inherently difficult process of determining what
interventions will best achieve the desired mix of objectives. As
Socrates found out, inquiring scepticism is no match for blind,
populist conviction.

In the absence of certainty, which is scarce in the social sciences,
the heads of research institutes, dependent on governments for
funding, will think twice about the consequences of advocating some
policies. Eighty per cent confidence may be good enough in business
and for most other decisions but not, it seems, when it comes to
something like the medical prescription of heroin.

Police optimism from big drug seizures has no foundation in the
absence of estimates of the size of the Australian drug market.
Without this knowledge the increased seizures could just as well
indicate that the market is growing. Most businesses will compensate
for losses in transit by increasing delivery quantities. Drug
traffickers do the same.

It is an irony that the boundaries of drug policy are set by the
Federal Government yet it is the state and local governments that have
to pick up most of the pieces in public-health and law-and-order
budgets. An economic study issued earlier this year reported the
annual costs of selected drug-attributable crime as $3 billion.

There is challenging evidence of successful interventions that can
reduce crime rates by 70 per cent or more among those we presently
warehouse in prison (each at some $70,000 per year), that will slash
public nuisance and help rebuild community where there is now
splintering. I am not just referring to the experience of heroin
prescription in four countries but there is a particular need to see
through the fear surrounding that drug.

Costello has declared he was ready to tackle the most pressing social
issue of drugs. It is imperative that all political leaders be open to
enlightenment. Unless they are we could be heading away from the
objectives we seek. We must use both our heads and our hearts.