poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 11,543
The war on drugs is wasting lives and wasting money
Michael Hill and Alex Wodak, between them, have over seventy five years experience of the drug scene.
Mr Hill was Chief Magistrate of Tasmania until 2005, ending a career on the bench spanning 29 years.
Dr Wodak is Australia’s leading drug addiction specialist and the founder of the highly successful, world first, heroin injecting facility in Sydney’s Kings Cross.
So when last Monday, Mr Hill and Dr Wodak launched the Community Legal Centres’ report The Case for a Health Focused Response to Drug Use in Tasmania’s Legal System, this was a big deal.
Here you have highly-experienced individuals urging an end to the failed war on drugs policy pursued by both the Liberal and Labor Parties in Tasmania.
Despite the juvenile and intellectually bankrupt response from the Health Minister Michael Ferguson to the report (Mr Ferguson seems to think because drugs are illegal that sends a message to young people that they should not use them!) this issue will not go away.
Across the world the policy of making criminals out of people who use drugs is being rethought.
In relation to cannabis Canada next year will make consumption and cultivation legal.
Personal use is legal in a number of US states, Mexico, Uruguay and in South Africa its highest court has ruled that making cannabis illegal is unlawful.
The CLC report should be compulsory reading if you really care about the health of drug users.
Ben Bartl, a lawyer and policy officer with the CLCs wrote the report and the evidence he presents for a change of tack is overwhelming not only from a social and health perspective, but as Dr Paul Blacklow from the University of Tasmania, who has written an economic analysis for the report shows, the savings to government are of some magnitude.
The CLC report makes for depressing but predictable reading.
There is no progress being made in combating drugs in Tasmania because far too much of the government’s budget is put into law enforcement and not treatment and counselling.
Drug arrests against consumers has, since 2005-6, risen most years.
The number of drug cases in the courts over the same period shows a generally upward trend.
So much for the message Mr Ferguson thinks is being sent by criminalisation.
No judge, magistrate, lawyer or police officer in Tasmania thinks that punishing drug offenders has any impact on drug use.
In fact, as one perceptive member of the legal profession once put it to this columnist, every time a drug trafficker is sentenced a new market opportunity emerges.”
The cost of pursuing a prohibition policy is felt in four areas: crime, deaths and disease (liver failure, HIV/IDS), health and road accidents.
In Tasmania during 2015-16, according to Dr Blacklow, the cost to taxpayers in Tasmania of current drug policies was $301.4 million.
The cost of police time, court time, prisons, and acute health admissions (overdoes) is a large component of that overall cost.
So let us look at the proposal by the CLC report, which is to examine applying the highly successful approach used in Portugal over the past two decades.
In that country possessing and using drugs, and even small scale selling are not criminal offences.
Instead individuals who are found to be in those categories are placed in the health system and administrative infringements are issued.
One of the major achievements in Portugal is that the use of drugs in the 15-24 age group has declined markedly.
Dr Blacklow looked at what difference the Portuguese approach would have in Tasmania. Would it drop the overall cost of drug use? The answer is yes. Dr Blacklow finds that based on the 2015-16 figures, a decriminalisation approach reduce the cost to taxes by $28.2 million.
It is a substantial saving of 10 per cent.
This makes sense because, as is the case in Portugal, by focusing on health of drug users, rather than pursuing them through the legal system one saves big dollars in policing and health care costs.
While the Greens are pursuing evidence based policies on drugs and have welcomed the CLC report, the ALP still appears too scared of the politics.
But all it would need to do is to speak with the parents and friends of drug users — a sizeable proportion of the Tasmanian population — to understand that many are demanding a different approach.
When a former Chief Magistrate joins with Dr Wodak and others around Australia such as former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer, and former premiers Bob Carr and Jeff Kennett in calling for a change in how we treat drug users, then it is time for politicians in Tasmania to devise drug policies that actually work.
The CLC report is available here.
Greg Barns is an Australian barrister, author, political commentator and former political candidate based in Hobart.
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/o...y/news-story/36c59af48c8ac98e8be54668522e02a5
Michael Hill and Alex Wodak, between them, have over seventy five years experience of the drug scene.
Mr Hill was Chief Magistrate of Tasmania until 2005, ending a career on the bench spanning 29 years.
Dr Wodak is Australia’s leading drug addiction specialist and the founder of the highly successful, world first, heroin injecting facility in Sydney’s Kings Cross.
So when last Monday, Mr Hill and Dr Wodak launched the Community Legal Centres’ report The Case for a Health Focused Response to Drug Use in Tasmania’s Legal System, this was a big deal.
Here you have highly-experienced individuals urging an end to the failed war on drugs policy pursued by both the Liberal and Labor Parties in Tasmania.
Despite the juvenile and intellectually bankrupt response from the Health Minister Michael Ferguson to the report (Mr Ferguson seems to think because drugs are illegal that sends a message to young people that they should not use them!) this issue will not go away.
Across the world the policy of making criminals out of people who use drugs is being rethought.
In relation to cannabis Canada next year will make consumption and cultivation legal.
Personal use is legal in a number of US states, Mexico, Uruguay and in South Africa its highest court has ruled that making cannabis illegal is unlawful.
The CLC report should be compulsory reading if you really care about the health of drug users.
Ben Bartl, a lawyer and policy officer with the CLCs wrote the report and the evidence he presents for a change of tack is overwhelming not only from a social and health perspective, but as Dr Paul Blacklow from the University of Tasmania, who has written an economic analysis for the report shows, the savings to government are of some magnitude.
The CLC report makes for depressing but predictable reading.
There is no progress being made in combating drugs in Tasmania because far too much of the government’s budget is put into law enforcement and not treatment and counselling.
Drug arrests against consumers has, since 2005-6, risen most years.
The number of drug cases in the courts over the same period shows a generally upward trend.
So much for the message Mr Ferguson thinks is being sent by criminalisation.
No judge, magistrate, lawyer or police officer in Tasmania thinks that punishing drug offenders has any impact on drug use.
In fact, as one perceptive member of the legal profession once put it to this columnist, every time a drug trafficker is sentenced a new market opportunity emerges.”
The cost of pursuing a prohibition policy is felt in four areas: crime, deaths and disease (liver failure, HIV/IDS), health and road accidents.
In Tasmania during 2015-16, according to Dr Blacklow, the cost to taxpayers in Tasmania of current drug policies was $301.4 million.
The cost of police time, court time, prisons, and acute health admissions (overdoes) is a large component of that overall cost.
So let us look at the proposal by the CLC report, which is to examine applying the highly successful approach used in Portugal over the past two decades.
In that country possessing and using drugs, and even small scale selling are not criminal offences.
Instead individuals who are found to be in those categories are placed in the health system and administrative infringements are issued.
One of the major achievements in Portugal is that the use of drugs in the 15-24 age group has declined markedly.
Dr Blacklow looked at what difference the Portuguese approach would have in Tasmania. Would it drop the overall cost of drug use? The answer is yes. Dr Blacklow finds that based on the 2015-16 figures, a decriminalisation approach reduce the cost to taxes by $28.2 million.
It is a substantial saving of 10 per cent.
This makes sense because, as is the case in Portugal, by focusing on health of drug users, rather than pursuing them through the legal system one saves big dollars in policing and health care costs.
While the Greens are pursuing evidence based policies on drugs and have welcomed the CLC report, the ALP still appears too scared of the politics.
But all it would need to do is to speak with the parents and friends of drug users — a sizeable proportion of the Tasmanian population — to understand that many are demanding a different approach.
When a former Chief Magistrate joins with Dr Wodak and others around Australia such as former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer, and former premiers Bob Carr and Jeff Kennett in calling for a change in how we treat drug users, then it is time for politicians in Tasmania to devise drug policies that actually work.
The CLC report is available here.
Greg Barns is an Australian barrister, author, political commentator and former political candidate based in Hobart.
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/o...y/news-story/36c59af48c8ac98e8be54668522e02a5
