Pubdate: Wed, 04 Apr 2012
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2012 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  http://www.smh.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/441
Author: Mark Metherell

GILLARD SAYS NO TO ANY SOFTENING OF DRUG LAWS

THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has rejected calls for drug 
decriminalisation, isolating her Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, 
on the issue, although her drug policy advisers have left open the 
possibility of change.

Ms Gillard said yesterday that "drugs kill people, they rip families 
apart, they destroy lives and we want to see less harm done through 
drug usage". She said while the government would support people to 
get treatment, "I am not in favour of decriminalisation of any of our 
drug laws".

Senator Carr suggested Australia follow Portugal's example of 
decriminalising minor possession of illicit drugs after the release 
of a report supported by eminent Australians who have called for a 
fresh debate on drug reform, saying the tough-on-drugs policy has failed.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Mental Health, Mark Butler, who 
has responsibility for drug policy, said: "Any move to soften the 
stance on illicit drug use in Australia would need to be carefully 
considered. We will look carefully at this report and the 
contribution these prominent Australians have made."

The Australian National Council on Drugs' executive director, Gino 
Vumbaca, denied the drug policies had failed but said the council was 
"keeping a close eye" on the scheme in Portugal.

The report said Australia's war on drugs has "failed 
comprehensively", with much street and household crime driven by the 
prohibition of drugs like heroin, which was legally prescribed in 
Australia until 1953.

The report, supported by two former premiers, a former chief 
minister, a former national police chief and other eminent 
Australians, was sponsored by the Australia21 think tank.

A former chief of the Australian Federal Police, Mick Palmer, said 
that despite more effective and better-resourced police, the police 
effort in the war on drugs had "made only marginal if any difference".

"I think the public is not as resistant to [change] as perhaps some 
politicians might think ... the attitude has changed dramatically. I 
think it is time for change," Mr Palmer said.

He was one of several speakers who appealed for politicians to 
rethink the knee-jerk opposition to drug law reform.

The former Department of Defence secretary Paul Barratt said Ms 
Gillard's negative response showed the need to open up the debate and 
to "destigmatise" the notion of drug law reform.

Mr Barratt said all available evidence showed the tough-on-drugs 
policy had failed. The United States had spent $1 trillion on its war 
on drugs but drugs and drug crime were still commonplace.

The report does not propose a specific set of reforms but says it 
sees the need "to unmask prohibition and its harms and to place the 
onus on our lawmakers ... to develop a process that stops the 
criminalisation and continuing drug deaths of too many young Australians".

The report says that despite gains made in Australia's harm 
minimisation program for drug users, begun 20 years ago, illicit 
drugs still damage society.

About 400 Australians die each year from illicit drug use and 
thousands of others suffer significant ill-health as a result of 
unsafe injecting and infections.
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