AUSTRALIA: NSW GREEN PARTY DRUG PLATFORM IN TABLOID "EXPOSE"

Furor as Election Looms

Drug policy has become a hot issue in elections two weeks away in
Australia's New South Wales (NSW), thanks to a tabloid "expose" of the
NSW Green Party's platform on drugs and harm reduction. Never mind
that the platform, official NSW Greens policy since last September, is
posted on the Internet
(http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/images/pdf/drugsharmmin03.pdf)
or that the NSW Greens sent out a press release saying "Greens launch
drugs policy" on January 29. Last Sunday the Murdochian tabloidesque
Sunday Telegraph (Sydney) suddenly discovered the Green drug menace,
blasting the story into the media spotlight under the headline "Hidden
Policy on Drugs," accompanied by a poison pen editorial titled "Greens
Go Soft on Hard Drugs." The Sunday Telegraph story was run virtually
intact by newspapers including the Queensland Sunday Mail, the
Courier-Mail, and the Herald Sun, generating a bevy of additional
stories in the Australian press as politicos of all persuasions took
the opportunity to weigh in on the topic.

The NSW Greens currently hold one seat in the NSW Legislative Council,
or upper house, and are seeking two more, as well as their first seat
in the state's Legislative Assembly. Described by one observer as a
"major minor" party in the state, the Greens are NSW's fastest growing
party, but trail far behind the governing Australian Labor Party and
its primary foes, the Liberal-National "coalition." The Greens were
expected to gain support because of strong sentiment against war in
Iraq -- the national government of Prime Minister John Howard has
committed to back any US invasion -- and it remains unclear how the
tempest over their drug policy will affect their chances.

"I doubt that the drugs issue will cost them many votes as I think
there is evidence that many community members are ahead of most
politicians on this issue," said Dr. Alex Wodak, director of St.
Vincent's Hospital Alcohol and Drug Service. "In my opinion, some of
the drug policies advocated by the Greens are not so much wrong, as
poorly expressed. The Greens have been unequivocally opposed to the
imminent war in Iraq, and I suspect they will gain a lot of support
for that, making it hard to work out the impact of the drug policy
controversy," he told DRCNet.

What is the platform that is garnering all the attention? According to
the Greens web site, the "policy is based on harm minimization and an
understanding that drug use should not be treated as a crime, but as a
health and social problem." Specific planks include:

. Removal of all criminal sanctions for personal drug use, and an end
to the use of sniffer dogs.

. Education programs for schools and the community

. Health and social programs aimed at drug users to minimize the
adverse impacts of the user and the spread of disease.

. Voluntary detoxification and rehabilitation for users wishing to
control or end their drug use.

. Provision of needle and syringe exchange programs, including wide
bore needles.

. Controlled availability of heroin and safe injecting
rooms.

. Programs leading to the controlled availability of other drugs, such
as ecstasy and speed, under the supervision of medically qualified
personnel.

. Removal of all criminal sanctions for the possession and cultivation
of cannabis for personal use.

. Introduction of mechanisms for testing the quality, purity and
potency of drugs.

. Banning of advertising that promotes tobacco smoking and excessive
consequences of alcohol.

"The Greens want the major parties to make harm minimization the
central philosophy of drug policy, not just the justification for a
few small diversionary programs," said Green Member of Parliament Ian
Cohen in the January 29 press release.

"The Greens want voters to demand that this election sees a mature
debate about the failings of prohibition policing and new approaches
that treat drug use as a health and social issue," added NSW Green MP
Lee Rhiannon.

Perhaps a mature debate is too much to ask for, but debate there has
been. Prime Minister Howard's chief drug war lieutenant, Australian
National Council on Drugs chair and Salvation Army Major Brian
Watters, quickly weighed in against, claiming in an interview with The
Age newspaper that making illegal drugs available in a controlled
manner would send the wrong message. He also ridiculed the notion that
providing a controlled supply of drugs could wean users away from
them. "That is the equivalent of saying if we provide alcoholics with
alcohol they're somehow going to stop drinking," he said.

As for the recreational use of drugs, Watters was equally dismissive.
"Anyone who talks about ecstasy and cannabis in terms of recreation is
trying to equate them with tennis or golf," he said. "These substances
destroy people."

But Watters sounded positively reasonable compared to NSW Premier Bob
Carr and Opposition leader John Brogden, who both used the Sunday
Telegraph "expose" to attack the Green drug platform. "I am deeply
opposed to the greater ongoing use by Australians of amphetamines and
ecstasy," Carr told the Sydney Morning Herald. "I don't want us to be
a pill-popping society with youngsters boiling their brains on
amphetamines and marijuana."

Brogden, for his part, described the Greens policy as "dangerously
irresponsible," adding: "We say no to free heroin to heroin addicts
and we say no to a ludicrous, crazy and dangerously irresponsible plan
from the Greens to sell ecstasy over the counter in drug shops in NSW.
It's a plan I find personally dangerous and abhorrent. It sends a
frightening message to young people in NSW. Every parent in this state
should be alarmed."

The Green platform, as noted above, does not call for selling "ecstasy
over the counter in drug shops in NSW," but for looking into its
"controlled availability -- under the supervision of qualified medical
personnel."

But the platform has also gathered cautious public support, and the
Greens have also taken the opportunity to support and amplify their
position. The Australian Medical Association is backing the Greens'
proposal for controlled heroin availability for addicts. "Difficult as
this is for society to look at and see, solutions may involve limited
trials of prescribing heroin to addicts," AMA national vice-president
Dr. Trevor Mudge told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on
Sunday. "I think that as long as it is on a trial basis and we
evaluate whether it works, we do need to get out of the current
thinking about the heroin problem."

Addiction specialist and former director of the Illawarra Drug and
Alcohol Service Dr. Alexander Leach also got behind much of the Green
platform. "In many ways, the Greens are at least trying to address the
reality," he told the Illawarra Mercury. "Prohibition is not working,
the sanctimonious line put forward by governments isn't working, and
there is some merit in the view that the personal use of drugs should
be decriminalized, and most of the treatment field would agree with
that. I have worked in a medically regulated and controlled
environment that deals with narcotics, and it is a field that resists
control and regulation," he added.

St. Vincent's Dr. Wodak, while telling DRCNet it was not his role to
endorse the platforms of political parties, said, "The Greens have
expressed grave reservation about a drug policy heavily reliant on
supply reduction, and I certainly share that view. Taxation and
regulation of cannabis seems to me to be the least worst option for
cannabis and is in my view politically and legally feasible. But
that's a different story from amphetamine."

More research is required on the controlled prescription of
amphetamines, said Wodak. "Until I am convinced the research shows
that prescription control of dexamphetamine is safe and effective (and
maybe also cost effective), then I will assume that it is unsafe and
ineffective." Some research had been done, said Wodak, but it was not
conclusive. "My approach may seem conservative to some, but that does
not trouble me at all. Medical research should be conservative.
Terrible errors have been made by medical research which was not
conservative."

While the doctors were cautious, national Greens leader Bob Brown
stuck by the NSW platform. "The direction of harm minimization must be
brought onto the agenda. I think it's a very courageous but proper way
to go," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "The
alternative is prohibition, and we're seeing up to 1,000 Australians
dying because of that. It's not meeting the problem in the way more
enlightened countries overseas like Switzerland are."

State parliamentary elections are set March 22.