DUNCAN Campbell (Opinion, December 6) gives a good summary of the harm minimisation approach to drugs. This view says that drug abuse will always be with us, so let's try to make it safer. It also says that any attempt to ban such substances is doomed to failure. However, the harm minimisation approach is a defective and defeatist policy that exists through the perpetuation of myths and misinformation. Consider the "banning doesn't work" mentality. Prohibition, Campbell informs us, has failed. Has it? During Prohibition in the US, consumption of alcohol declined substantially, as did the cirrhosis death rate for men (cut by two-thirds between 1911 and 1929), and arrests for public drunkenness dropped 50 per cent between 1919 and 1922. [continues 697 words]
THE opiates, cannabis and heroin, if pure, are safe and gentle drugs (heroin was used in childbirth before its ban in the 1950s), with little hangover; they are non-toxic producing passive peaceful behaviour. Alcohol, even if pure, is toxic and causes irreversible permanent brain and body damage (of liver, heart, pancreas, kidneys amongst other organs, and the foetus), with boorish aggressive behaviour. The outlawing of the opiates has nothing to do with pharmacological harm but is due to authoritarian religious puritanism. In Holland in 1996 I have read there were 37 heroin deaths, mostly foreigners, probably too scared to ring for an ambulance. In Australia in 1996 the heroin deaths were 642. Dean R. Bowling, Glenelg East, SA [end]
The Truth Is Plain: Legal Alcohol Is Our Deadliest Drug FEW Australians will speak comfortably of drugs because to do so is to include themselves in the ranks of the mind-altering or psychotropic drug-takers. Fewer still worry that the alcohol industry pushes its products in ways prejudicial to drinkers, particularly the young. The latest industry profits attributed to excessive alcohol consumption gave added point to Natasha Bita's exposure (Opinion, November 15) of the dangerous directions the advertising push is taking. [continues 652 words]
ECSTASY tester kits have become the latest tool of the chemical generation to determine the quality of the illegal drugs taken at nightclubs and parties.Hailed as quick, simple and legal, the kits tell users if pills contain MDMA (pure ecstasy) or other additives such as heroin and amphetamines. The kits are promoted on an internet site that rates ecstasy varieties such as White Mitsubishis according to content, quality and effect. "Looks like a nice professional job . . . Users report a speedy, dancey, chatty pill," the site, which is not written by the kit's manufacturers, says of one pill. [continues 376 words]
DRUG runners are sneaking into Australia from Papua New Guinea to exchange cannabis for firearms, alcohol and even pornographic videos, the Australian Federal Police has warned.In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry investigating Coastwatch, AFP officials said the smugglers believed the civil surveillance authority did not operate at night. The AFP has recommended a boost to night operations involving aircraft, Customs service boats and special response teams. After an eight-hour journey to Cape York by boat, police said smugglers loaded the cannabis into light aircraft or four-wheel-drive vehicles for transportation further south =AD a journey easily completed under cover of darkness. [continues 262 words]
A bungled 1997 drug raid on a hippy commune has cost the NSW Police Service more than $1 million in damages. District Court judge Audrey Balla yesterday awarded 24 members of the Wytaliba alternative community, near Glen Innes in northern NSW, damages of between $10,308.49 and $214,749.11 each, after they sued police for carrying out a two-day raid on their property without a search warrant. The court heard that community members were first alerted to the police raid when a low-flying helicopter appeared above the property and about 12 police, who had set up a mobile centre outside the commune, swooped on to the grounds. [continues 364 words]
ALEX WODAK claimed in his letter that there were no drug overdose deaths in the Swiss heroin trial. Wrong. Of the 1146 starters 36 died -- 17 from AIDS and other infectious diseases; the rest from a mix of overdose, suicide and accidental drug cocktails. Them's the facts -- like the fact that shooting galleries are just what the doctor ordered for street drug sellers. The sellers' buyers still buy at, what? $500 per day per habit? -- shoot up and come back and rebuy. Not smart. In fact probably quite dumb. [continues 172 words]
I WISH to thank Dr Alex Wodak for his support of the Australian National Council on Drugs position paper on heroin overdose (Letters, 14/9). The federal Government's Tough on Drugs strategy was begun less than two years ago and it takes time for it to be fully implemented and for the results to become apparent. The Tough on Drugs strategy has provided $500 million to Australian services to combat the drug problem: research projects; new and expanded treatment services; education and other prevention programs; extended needle exchange and methadone programs; family support services; expanded police and customs services; the court diversion services; and indigenous programs. [continues 322 words]
Aboriginal leaders have stepped up calls for John Howard to boost indigenous health funding in the wake of a spate of heroin overdoses in Canberra.Ten per cent of Canberra's Aboriginal community, including children as young as 10 years old, are using heroin, according to a report released yesterday. Three young Aboriginal men have died in the past month, prompting a call from the Canberra-based Aboriginal health service Winnunga Nimmityjah for immediate action on indigenous health. The service's chief executive, Julie Tongs, said yesterday the deaths of two men in their 20s, and a teenager, showed that pleas for aid were being ignored by territory, state and federal governments. [continues 181 words]
HEROIN users may be given the revival drug naloxone to treat overdoses in their peers as part of a new national push to curb drug deaths. The move comes as the federal Government is reconsidering subsidising the heroin-craving blocker drug naltrexone for heroin users in response to new research supporting its effectiveness. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, made up of national health ministers, is considering a trial of naloxone, marketed as Narcan, in light of the continuing toll of heroin deaths, which has topped 1000 per year. [continues 280 words]
A MAGISTRATE has been appointed to Western Australia's first drug court to establish the structure of the new institution. Barrister and solicitor Julie Wager would take up the post on October 3, beginning her term by working out the day-to-day processes of the court, WA Attorney-General Peter Foss said yesterday. The drug court initiative was announced earlier in the year as a preventative measure intended to minimise drug use and crime by professional treatment and other support. [continues 99 words]
It is disappointing and frustrating to read the comments about supervised injecting places made by the International Narcotics and Control Board (11/7). They highlight the misunderstanding of the reasons for establishing these facilities in the first place. Supervised injecting places the board says, "will not contribute to the reduction of drug abuse and trafficking". That is not the objective. In the case of supervised injecting facilities, the objectives are clear: to save the lives of those who inject drugs in public places and to provide them with access to treatment and other support services; to provide a safer environment for everyone, with reduced risks such as discarded needles or inappropriate behaviour in public. These objectives can be measured. [continues 104 words]
JOHN KERIN reported that the International Narcotics Control Board is not happy with Australia's "all-in strategy combining the fight against legal with illicit drugs". Surely society should be concerned with drug abuse regardless of the legal status of the drugs involved. The INCB's view that abuse of alcohol is somehow different to abuse of heroin is not only anachronistic but hypocritical in the extreme. Dr MICHAEL DAWSON Senior Lecturer Department of Chemistry, Materials and Forensic Science University of Technology, Sydney [end]
Surely society should be concerned with drug abuse regardless of the legal status of the drugs involved. The INCB's view that abuse of alcohol is somehow different to abuse of heroin is not only anachronistic but hypocritical in the extreme. Dr MICHAEL DAWSON, Senior Lecturer Department of Chemistry, Materials and Forensic Science University of Technology, Sydney [end]
Prominent Melbourne lawyer Andrew Fraser was committed to stand trial yesterday over the importation of cocaine after a court was told he used secret phone codes to arrange drug deals and procured cocaine for a friend.The 49-year-old criminal lawyer, whose former clients include Alan Bond, will remain free on bail and continue to practice until his County Court trial later this year. At the committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday, self-confessed cocaine addict and disgraced forensic psychologist Tim Watson-Munro told how he and Fraser used football metaphors to talk about drugs on the telephone. [continues 294 words]
A HIGH-level UN committee has condemned Australia's $500 million anti-drug effort for failing to curb abuse and trafficking and making illicit drug abuse more socially acceptable. In a damning assessment of Australia's harm minimisation strategy, the International Narcotics Control Board says it has failed to reduce drug abuse and trafficking over the past decade. It warns that promoting an all-in strategy combining the fight against legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco with illicit drugs leads to illicit drug use becoming more "socially acceptable". [continues 303 words]
ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell has pulled out of a delegation of Australian leaders travelling to London and has threatened to call a snap election to break the impasse over her Budget.Ms Carnell was due to travel to Britain this week to join John Howard and other state and territory leaders for the Centenary of Federation celebrations. But she is now expected to continue negotiations with Independent MPs this week. Ms Carnell said on Saturday she would go to the polls within four weeks if she was unable to convince either Labor or two Independents to pass her minority Government's $1.6 billion Budget. [continues 338 words]
PRIVATE clinics claiming to offer a "magic cure" for heroin addiction using Naltrexone should be subject to government regulation, the inquest into Australia's first Naltrexone-related death was told yesterday. Coroner John Arms found the death of 31-year-old addict Larissa Hawkins was caused by a reaction to either the Naltrexone or Narcan administered at a private hospital. He criticised the doctors responsible for the fatal treatment early last year, and the case will be referred to the Health Care Complaints Commission for further investigation. [continues 180 words]
COMMUNITY opposition would not stop the Victorian Government pushing ahead with legislation to establish safe injecting room trials, Steve Bracks said yesterday.As advocates of a proposed facility in Footscray accused one community group of scaremongering over the issue, the Premier said his Government would "have the courage of our convictions", even if it meant losing votes. "Votes aren't the issue here - if it becomes unpopular but it is the right thing to do, we will do it," he said. His comments followed a heated public meeting in Footscray at the weekend, during which local Labor MP Bruce Mildenhall was shouted down as he attempted to outline the Government's proposed legislation on injecting rooms. [continues 207 words]
