PAYNE'S PAIN

THERE appears to be two main types of politician in today's
Australia, as far as illicit drugs policy is concerned.

There are those who privately know and admit that American-style
prohibition policies are futile and probably dangerous, and yet fear
the repercussions of publicly entering into the debate, and there are
those who don't allow their ignorance of drugs policy or indeed
illicit drugs themselves to temper their public commentary.

Mr Pyne's latest missive in last weeks Sunday Mail seems to suggest
that he belongs to the latter group.

His allegation that ecstasy is 'usually' cut with hydrochloric acid
is both hilarious, and disturbing.

Hilarious, because there is not a shred of evidence to support this,
and disturbing, because it reveals the true profundity of his
ignorance regarding the very illicit substances themselves, never
mind the even more difficult subject of drugs policy. MDMA certainly
exists as a hydrochloride salt, but then again, so do many antibiotics.

He merely had to consult with any year 12 chemistry student to
discover that this is very different to finding 'hydrochloric acid'
in ecstasy. If drug users are to be persuaded that their behaviour is
mistaken and dangerous, it needs to be done by persons who appear to
have at least some vague idea about what they're talking about.

And yet Australians find themselves in a position where they are
obliged to rely on his myopic insights into the current drugs problem
to protect their children. His recounting of a scenario where pill
testers tell consumers that a drug is 'safe' can only be interpreted
in one of 2 ways.

Either he has trouble intellectually with the process, in which case
parents might rightly express concern about his influence on
Australian drugs policy, or he does understand the process, but is
happy to misrepresent it for his own political aspirations.

In all formally supervised pill-testing programmes, it is axiomatic
to inform the consumer that no drugs are safe, no matter what the
results of testing. Advocates of pill-testing in Australia seek,
among other things, to convert the informal self-administered system
currently in play to a formal system by which consumers are forced to
interact with trained health professionals.

The aim is not to reassure, but to take consumers out of their
comfort zone, forcing them to acknowledge the potential health risks
associated with their behaviour.

You might excuse a simple politician from being unfamiliar with the
scientific literature, but to be unaware of your own government's
recommendations is frankly lazy. His suggestion that the NSW heroin
injecting room has been discredited is nonsense.

He admits that he arrives at his conclusion from reading the
newspapers. If he, for example, turned to something even slightly
more scientific (say, the reports commissioned by his own
government), he would quickly see that the programme is far from discredited.

Between 1988 and 2000, as a result of the introduction of needle and
syringe programs, 25 000 HIV infections and 21 000 hepatitis C
infections were prevented among people who injected drugs. As a
consequence, 90 hepatitis-C-related deaths and 4500 HIV-related
deaths would have been prevented by 2010.

This translates for the taxpayer- and this year, the voter-into cost
savings of up to $783 million for hepatitis C treatment and up to
$7025 million for HIV treatment. All this, for an estimated cost of
$150 million-peanuts in public health terms.

Put simply for the reader, for every one of your tax dollars put into
the program, nearly fifty are saved. Now that was 5 years ago, and
perhaps Mr, Pyne hasn't quite had a chance to catch up with his reading.

But this year, his own government's senate inquiry into Amphetamines
and other Synthetic Drugs supported the development of Victoria's
intention to run a trial of pill testing. Sadly, we've missed the
boat in South Australia-despite the recommendations by the experts at
the July 2002 SA Drugs Summit to conduct a trial of pill-testing,
these have quietly been ignored by state government.

Mr. Pyne attacks 'trendy answers' to the drug problem, presumably
because his department and the government he represents are bereft of
any new ideas to address a dynamic and ever changing drug market.

His policies clearing failing and the source of increasing scorn and
derision by the research community, his solution out of the hole of
'zero tolerance' is to dig faster. Like King Canute, holding out his
hand and ordering the advancing tide of designer drugs to merely
stop, he and his cronies are destined to fail.

Having returned from an international emergency conference in the
Netherlands this month, I had the opportunity to review and discuss
the formal drug monitoring system in place there. They are very happy
with the system currently in place, and since it has been functioning
since 1993, were highly amused (and somewhat flattered) that anyone
would consider it 'trendy'.

As Holland has a lower rate of MDMA use, as well as a lower injury
rates and a lower deaths rate from that drug than Australia or the
USA, one must presume that Mr Pyne's concerns regarding pill testing
are at some sort of existential level.

Recently they have expanded their testing program to include
substances seized from amnesty bins at nightclubs. In Australia,
substances seized on the door by bouncers have a tendency to find
themselves back on the market.

Are the opponents of pill testing so convinced of their position that
they would prefer to have illicit compounds circulating and available
to their voter's children, rather than to have them confiscated and tested?

Do they think that it's unreasonable to be able to test the
substances that arrive in emergency departments, in the possession of
critically unwell patients, to see if some new, highly toxic
substance has been released on the market? Or should parents content
themselves with simple post-mortem results?

Mr Pyne's suggestion that his government is winning the 'war on
drugs' smacks of George Bush's now-infamous "Mission Accomplished"
speech from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Pyne is very
selective in his use of statistics.

Diminution in drug consumption, like the heroin figures he quotes, is
more likely to be despite federal drugs policy, and as a consequence
of simple market forces and demand, rather than due to any inspired
leadership on his part.

Is he aware of a drug called methamphetamine? Anyone for 'ice'? The
biggest drug problem facing Australia in a decade, and nothing to
say? Hardly winning the war on that front, are we now? The inelegant,
unintelligent manner in which the federal government has conducted
its bogus war guarantees an even more protracted engagement.

Bullying of researchers, funding research on the basis of ideology
and not merit, manipulation of statistics and the conservative press
cadre, policy decisions behind closed doors, which are subsequently
immune to FOI enquiries, all ensure that it will be 10 years before
we can undo the damage from "Tough on Drugs/ War on Drugs" campaigns.

The tragedy is that we could have been so much further ahead in
reducing the harm caused by drugs in Australia, were it not for
wowsers playing to fringe electoral groups for cheap votes.

It is fine for Mr Pyne, or anyone else for that matter, to believe in
'zero tolerance' on moral grounds-it's his personal right, and there
is certainly a moral dimension in the debate on drugs. In medicine,
we respect the wishes of patients to decline blood transfusions, even
though that decision may result in their death.

It doesn't mean that we would ever consider closing the blood banks,
because certain individuals are opposed to transfusion. And yet we
are being asked to accept Mr Pyne's version of drugs policy, his
support of zero tolerance in the face of everything we know to be
true from science and medicine.

The Australian Medical Association-which incidentally, supports a
medically supervised, ethically approved trial of pill testing-has
said that a zero tolerance drug policy for Australia would have
'catastrophic consequences' for the country.

Mr. Pyne's polemic is yet another example of a political 'free kick',
whereby politicians, both state and federal, hide behind
press-releases and sound-bites, never having to personally face the
scrutiny of science.

If politicians of this ilk want to persuade the public that 'zero
tolerance' is the way forward, let them stop shirking behind the
skirts of their minders and debate it formally, personally, in a
public forum, against critical scientists and doctors.

If they don't know what they're talking about, they should simply not
be allowed to determine policy in such an important arena. Let's sell
tickets and give the money to charity. The Australian public are
bright enough to understand the truth about drugs and drugs policy,
if they are ever told the truth.