Source: The Australian June 9th PRESSURE BUILDS FOR LAW REFORM THE DRUG TIME BOMB by Amanda Meade. An increasing number of citizens five DPPs among them believe the 'war on drugs' can't be won without a dramatic change in tactics. The nation has held at least 25 inquiries since 1971 into aspects of illicit drug use and the associated health, legal and economic problems. All but a few have recommended changing prohibition policies and embracing harm minimisation. Despite the recommendations, little has changed and this in a country with a proud record in harm minimisation; Australia's introduction of a needle exchange program and explicit safesex campaigns led the world in responding to the HIVAIDS epidemic and have succeeded in keeping transmission rates at low levels. Advocates of drug law reform say there are two barriers to a rational drugs policy: ignorance and political cowardice. These factors have long combined to blunt any moves for reform, but forces are building for change. Inertia on law reform led five State and Territory directors of public prosecutions to take unprecedented action last week; they felt so strongly that they challenged the authority of their respective governments by publicly advocating drug law reform. Led by outspoken NSW DPP Nicholas Cowdery QC, the chief law officers of Victoria, the ACT, South Australia and Tasmania issued a statement calling for "a national summit or commission" to be established to examine possible new approaches to the growing drug problem in Australian society. Their bold move was prompted by the release last month of the final report of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service. In his recommendations the Commissioner, Justice James Wood, called for a 'meaningful review" of drug laws in the form of a national summit or commission. He also recommended that safe and sanitary injecting rooms be introduced by the Government. Despite such recommendations, NSW Premier Bob Carr, concerned that the proposed "shhoting galleries" would send the wrong message to the community about Labour's stance on illegal drugs, did not welcome the suggestion. The Opposition also ruled it out. The call for a summit was completely ignored by both sides. "Much of the corruption identified in this inquiry was connected to drug law enforcement," the Wood report says. "The huge sums of cash associated with the drug trade and the apparent inability of conventional policing to make any impact on the illegal market in narcotics creates cynicism among police working in the field. It also creates an environment in which corrupt conduct flourishes. "For these reasons rhetoric based upon a 'war against drugs' or similar notions is empty and incapable of fulfilment. The problems associated with drug use require a different approach to the issues related to the drug trade. Alternate solutions need to be found in order to address drug use the criminal process does little to reduce the availability of drugs or to discourage their use. It continues to provide opportunities for corrupt police." Cowdery and his colleagues did not want the momentum created by Wood to be lost and were disappointed by Carr's public comments. They issued their statement without notice to Carr's office. Later in the week Cowdery told a University of Sydney Union debate: "It would be derelict of me to stand idly by while public resources continue to be applied inefficiently and ineffectively towards attempting to deal with these problems primarily through the criminal justice process." In his characteristically measured, direct way, he accused politicians of ignoring the issue, indeed of inventing the war against drugs to "constantly proclaim themselves the victors". "We need to mount an active, widespread and properly led search for a better way," he told the gathering. "The'war on drugs' is in reality a narrow campaign waged ... principally against the supply side, although users often become what Americans descrine as 'collateral damage'." At the same university debate, opponents of reform, including the Salvation Army, argued primarily that drug use would increase if criminality were not attacked. But Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Dr Alex Wodak counters this with the claim that illegal drugs are as available in Australia as pizzas. He says increases in the efforts of law enforcement serve to increase prices, profit and corruption. The agenda articulated by reformists such as Wodak includes support for a controlled heroin trial in the ACT, safe injecting rooms and a national summit to move towards more workable, uniform laws. One of the factors influencing the timing of the DPPs' statement is next month's meeting of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, which will be attended by all federal, State and Territory health and justice ministers. That meeting will reexamine the ACT's heroin trial, which at last year's meeting won the support only of South Australia and Victoria. While the States have not essentially changed their positions in the past 12 months, support for change has been strong in other quarters. Several police commissioners, including NSW's Peter Ryan and his federal counterpart Mick Palmer, have offered support. The Australian Medical Association, the Pharmacy Guild and the chair of the Victorian Premier's Drug Advisory Council, Professor David Penington, also support the trial. Penington's 1996 report, which proposed a move away from prohibition and a repeal of laws covering personal use of cannabis, convinced Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett to back the ACT's heroin trial. South Australia was the first State to try decriminalisation and has supported the trial from the outset. Last week's statement by the DPPs also gave support for the heroin trial. The DPPs' move to speak out will have shocked their masters, but ACT DPP Terry Buddin QC says their intervention in policital debate is justified. "People who are involved in the criminal justice system at the coal face have an opinion about whether the laws are working as well as we would want them to work," he says. "The statement was not advocating any particular position; it was just saying, let's have a debate about it. Clearly the proposed heroin trial may be a viable option. We now have a very well respected judge having conducted a royal commission; it does give it some legitimacy when someone so well respected and as prudent and cautious as this comes up with this sort of thoughtful response." Ultimately, Carr holds the key to the heroin trial because two of its stages will be impossible without the involvement of NSW addicts. Carr's political doublespeak on the issue was lampooned publicly last week by federal Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge. "NSW is saying we won't stand in the way," Wooldridge told ABC radio in Canberra. "Well obviously that's rubbish. Unless NSW comes on board, you might as well forget it because you cannot run a trial that's big enough in stage two and three without NSW, so getting the consensus is going to be extraordinarily difficult. "You could run stage one here in the ACT, but there's no point in doing stage one unless people are prepared to go through all the difficulties ... unless the States are prepared to come on board and at the moment NSW is standing there piously saying we won't stand in the way. Well, rubbish. That's as good as saying it's dead." Wooldridge's cutting assessment went to the heart of the reason the heroin trial has stalled. Without the involvement of NSW in the later stages of the experiment the trial would be meaningless. A spokesman for Carr said last week: "He is happy to support the ACT heroin trial, that's what it's called, that's what it is and there are no plans for a similar trial in Sydney." That was code for a refusal to allow the scientific experment, which involves distributing heroin to registered addicts, to be carried out within the borders of NSW. Carr believes such a move would be electoral suicide. Drug prohibition has little to do with the harmful effects of drugs, and everything to do with cultural, historical and political factors. Mindful of this, ACT's Chief Minister Kate Carnell empathises with Carr. Carnell says she understands why people are horrified at the idea of a heroin trial. "Everone who now supports drug law reform, like me, once didn't and the reason is we became more involved and we became better informed," Carnell says. "When you look around at all the reports, regardless of how conservative the people doing the inquiry were, not one didn't say prohibition has failed, we have to do something else." But Carnell says the NSW Opposition will carry just as much responsibility for the success or failure of the trial as the Government. "The politics of drug law reform is very difficult without a level of bipartisan support," she says. Carnell is confident the Commonwealth will fund the trial, but Wooldridge can't move until NSW is on board. "It's an issue that we as politicians must have the guts not to use politically," Carnell says. "What happens after that must be based on good research, good information and a lot of soul searching. If the risks are too high, we look for other options. I am not saying it is an answer, I am saying it may be one answer." [unquote] Inset in the above article is a Profit and Loss statement: [quote] * The illicit drug trade is the second largest industry in the world and nets about $500 billion a year in profits $2 billion in Australia. * More than 100,000 Australians use heroin. * 39 per cent of Australians aged over 14 have tried illicit drugs. * Every hour a drug user contracts hepatitis C. * Every 16 hours a drug user dies from an overdose. * 18,000 addicts are on methadone treatment, with more on waiting lists, which are growing at 1015 per cent a year. * Drug law enforcement cost almost $500 million last year, a figure that has grown by 40 per cent in the past four years. * Elements of that $500 million are: Australian Federal Police $43.6 million; State police $83.5 million; prisons $230.5 million; courts $64.1 million (all figures for 1992). * We spend between $1000 and $2000 a minute trying to stop illegal drugs crossing our 30,000km shoreline. * Only 10 to 20 per cent of illegal drugs are found. * The link between drugs and crime has not been quantified but it has been estimated 8000 young Australians are in jail every night because of drugs. Sources: Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform; Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health; Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation. ( DPP means Director of Public Prosecutions and is more or less equivalent to the American term Attorney General.)