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Ecstasy users should not be charged by police, former federal health minister Neal Blewett says.
The former Labor MP also says cannabis laws around the country are "chaotic" and need reform.
Dr Blewett made his assertions in a keynote address to a police drug and alcohol forum in Australasia on Tuesday.
He believed resources should target the most serious drug abusers.
"Already we struggle with drugs, including designer drugs scarcely on our horizon in the past," said Dr Blewett, the minister who launched Medicare.
"The whole development of the internet has introduced a vast new range of problems in the ways drugs are distributed in our society," he told 6th Australasian Drug and Alcohol Strategy Conference.
"The fact that the majority of criminal justice resources are absorbed by minor first-time drug users, by the way of cannabis and ecstasy, should make us rethink the use and allocation of these resources."
He said all use and possession of small amounts of cannabis should be treated as a civil misdemeanour. "And there is a good case for treating ecstasy in the same way."
In NSW, police charge anyone in possession of ecstasy, with the courts deciding whether a criminal conviction is recorded. With cannabis, police have the discretion to issue warnings rather than lay charges.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/scra...-exminister-20130320-2gf4q.html#ixzz2Ou40KXJW
The former Labor MP also says cannabis laws around the country are "chaotic" and need reform.
Dr Blewett made his assertions in a keynote address to a police drug and alcohol forum in Australasia on Tuesday.
He believed resources should target the most serious drug abusers.
"Already we struggle with drugs, including designer drugs scarcely on our horizon in the past," said Dr Blewett, the minister who launched Medicare.
"The whole development of the internet has introduced a vast new range of problems in the ways drugs are distributed in our society," he told 6th Australasian Drug and Alcohol Strategy Conference.
"The fact that the majority of criminal justice resources are absorbed by minor first-time drug users, by the way of cannabis and ecstasy, should make us rethink the use and allocation of these resources."
He said all use and possession of small amounts of cannabis should be treated as a civil misdemeanour. "And there is a good case for treating ecstasy in the same way."
In NSW, police charge anyone in possession of ecstasy, with the courts deciding whether a criminal conviction is recorded. With cannabis, police have the discretion to issue warnings rather than lay charges.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/scra...-exminister-20130320-2gf4q.html#ixzz2Ou40KXJW
