More prison drug focus needed on root causes, says Australian National Council on Dru

[poledriver]

More prison drug focus needed on root causes, says Australian National Council on Drugs

Australian prisons are investing heavily in trying to stop drugs getting into jails when they should be more focused on root causes, the Australian National Council on Drugs says.

As Canberra's jail introduced two new drug-detection dogs on Wednesday, council executive director Gino Vumbaca called for more funding in prisons for addiction therapy and rehabilitation programs.

''You could spend an exorbitant amount of money on reducing supply but there'd always be drugs in prisons,'' Mr Vumbaca said.

Drug testing is mandatory on admission to the Alexander Maconochie Centre, and from late 2011 to early this year 77 per cent of results indicated drug use.

''Invest in demand reduction,'' Mr Vumbaca said. ''Treat the drug use, deal with the substance misuse problems; in the long term and the medium term, it's the best return on your investment.''

Minister for Corrective Services Shane Rattenbury said the territory did invest significantly in therapeutic and rehabilitative programs, including the Solaris program at Alexander Maconochie

''The Solaris program … allows detainees with substance abuse issues to receive therapeutic counselling and support while incarcerated,'' Mr Rattenbury said.

However, as he welcomed Boone and Teddy to the K9 Unit to replace two retiring dogs, Mr Rattenbury maintained supply reduction had an important role to play at Alexander Maconochie.

Illicit drugs were intercepted on 18 occasions last year, including 14 seizures by sniffer dogs.

''Every jail across the world has issues with people trying to smuggle contraband in,'' Mr Rattenbury said.

''The AMC (Alexander Maconochie Centre) takes a very serious approach to security.

We've got a range of detection techniques, including physical searches and X-rays, and the dogs certainly add an extra layer that really helps us keep out as much contraband as possible.''

K9 Unit officer in charge Jeffrey Kennedy said the English springer spaniels would be trained for passive alert detection of illicit drugs and used for visitor, cell and vehicle searches.

''Drugs will get into every jail anywhere in the world,'' Mr Kennedy said. ''It's just one of those things.

''The dogs are very effective, and they're a very good visual deterrent as well … the dogs will have their day in the end.''

Mr Rattenbury also confirmed that the development application for an expansion to the Alexander Maconochie Centre had been finalised to accommodate last year's surge in prisoners, blamed for the rise in contraband smuggling at the jail.


Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act...il-on-drugs-20140723-zw4on.html#ixzz38L3or1kv

 

[CLICKHEREx]

''The dogs are very effective, and they're a very good visual deterrent as well … the dogs will have their day in the end.'' - Dogs can only be trained to detect a modest number of drug types, such as cannabis, meth / ice, opiates, cocaine, and MDMA / esctasy, and the more types people try to train them to detect, the more false positives they will produce.

They will have no hope with the Novel Psychoactive Substances / synthetics, as there are hundreds of them already, and potentially many millions.

Dogs also need to ingest the scent molecules in sufficient quantity, and by carefully packing drugs, and keeping them in places where dogs normally don't have access, or so that the trail of molecules they emit doesn't reach the dog's nose, as well as thoroughly cleaning any scent traces from hands, body, and clothing, the risks of detection can be greatly reduced.

Every human culture has means of attaining altered states of consciousness, with drugs being a popular method in most countries, these days, and it's about time that repressive control freak politicians and law enforcement realised that, and stopped trying to prevent people from doing what they want to, if they are not harming others.

They say it's fine if you want to base jump off cliffs, hang glide, climb Everest, etc., or get other type of adrenaline, or fatigue poisons, alcohol, and such like, but not to take drugs.

Their war on drugs has failed, their "just say no" approach as well. They increase the penalties; it increases the risks, demanding higher prices, thereby creating greater incentive for people to produce, transport, and sell drugs. Decriminalise and legalise; strip the wealth of people who can be shown to have made their money from illicit drugs. Stop persecuting drug users.

Sure, let them set up drug treatment and rehabilitation programs in prisons, for those who want to attend voluntarily. But then they'll want to adopt the carrot and stick approach.

 

[poledriver]

Using dogs to find smallish amounts of drugs seems like such a waste of money and time, why bother, drugs still get in, just in other ways.

At music festivals and raves here there are ALWAYS drug dogs now and have been for along time, in some places the cops just walk the drug dog around town and into pubs and clubs, it's so shit, as if it's making any difference getting a whole bunch of end users and maybe a couple of really small time dealers.

In some of the large festivals girls and guys use condoms to hide the drugs inside themselves and in the bathrooms you see loads of discarded condoms from it. Others will have all their drugs before they walk in, which can be dangerous of course, to avoid detection from the dogs.