Pubdate: Wed, 18 Feb 2009
Source: Green Left Weekly (Australia)
Copyright: 2009, Green Left Weekly
Contact:  http://www.greenleft.org.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2753
Author: Paola Harvey
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?237 (Drug Dogs)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

NO ZERO-TOLERANCE DRUG POLICY!

The death of Gemma Thoms at the Perth Big Day Out music  festival on 
February 1 was tragic and preventable.

Reportedly, Thoms quickly swallowed several ecstasy  pills at once, 
afraid that they would be detected by  sniffer dogs. This kind of 
panicked response is not  unusual. It happens at countless festivals, 
pubs and  clubs around the country.

Many have argued that the use of sniffer dogs at music  festivals and 
other venues is responsible for this  risky behaviour. In September 
2006 the NSW Ombudsman  addressed this concern in his review of the 
police use  of drug detection dogs.

However, the police and the politicians responsible for  the policy 
continue to deny any responsibility in the  death of Thoms.

The reality is that this "zero-tolerance" approach  means that harm 
minimisation for people who choose to  take drugs is ignored. 
Recreational drug users are  treated as hardened criminals.

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan denied any 
police  responsibility for the death. He told the February 
4  Australian: "Some of their propositions are quite  frankly absurd 
and suggest that police should turn a  blind eye, do nothing about 
drug possession, and ignore  the state's laws regarding illegal drugs".

However, by indicating that "we [the police] will be at  the Big Day 
Out next year doing exactly the same thing"  in an interview with ABC 
local radio, O'Callaghan has  shown that he is turning a blind eye to 
the possibility  of more deaths occurring.

You need only to look at the numbers and types of  arrests to see 
that this strategy targets recreational  drug users rather than drug dealers.

Dance culture website, inthemix.com reported that there  were "60 
drug-related charges handed out on the day  including 55 for 
possession, three for intent to sell  or supply and four for 
possessing smoking implements".

This policing strategy neither works to reduce  drug-related problems 
nor protects the public. But  rather it is used as a public relations 
exercise to  make an example of people and to be seen to be doing something.

Melbourne DJ Meg Mundell pointed in the February 4 Age  that young 
people "take drugs for different reasons: to  enhance the effects of 
music, lose inhibitions, escape  everyday reality, experience altered 
states, block out  problems, bond socially, copy their friends, have 
fun  or just stay awake".

The police's "zero tolerance" strategy does not address  any of these 
reasons, but rather relies on creating an  aura of fear -- the same 
fear that caused Gemma Thoms  to take all her drugs at once.

Young people are not the only age group that uses  drugs. It has been 
common knowledge than in many highly  paid professions with long 
working hours, cocaine and  amphetamine use is high.

A high profile case was the death of Melbourne QC Peter  Hayes after 
he was found unconscious in an Adelaide  hotel in 2007. Another 
Melbourne lawyer Andrew Fraser  was jailed for possession and 
trafficking in 2001 after  he developed a $1000-a-day cocaine habit.

Conservative Melbourne barrister Peter Faris, claimed  on his blog in 
March 2007, "I have had anecdotal  evidence over the last 7 years or 
so that cocaine is  the drug of choice of high-flyers on the 
Melbourne legal scene."

"Obviously I do not have evidence of all this, but the  reports that 
I have are sufficiently common to make the  matter very disturbing."

He also stated that "When we witness the tragedy of  young people 
dying from drug overdoses, we sometimes  (partly) explain it by youth 
and immaturity. That makes  it all the more shocking if some of the 
leaders of the  legal profession are risking death by the use of  cocaine."

Despite this, we do not see police applying for  warrants for the use 
of sniffer dogs at legal  profession social events or corporate boardrooms.

Rather, police are targeting venues and events 
attended  predominantly by young people.

Without addressing the reasons for why young people, or  anyone else, 
chooses to take drugs the government  cannot claim to be concerned 
about harm minimisation or  protecting the public.

Today's drug laws simply persecute the small-time  recreational users 
- -- targeting young people and  working class people.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom