NEWS: Sydney Morning Herald - 08/02/2007 'Parliament to hold drug inquiry'

[lil angel15]

Bishop misfires in shallow aims of one-eyed war on drugs
19 September 2007
John Ryan

Drugs are a hard issue. Ask anyone with a drug-using son or daughter. No one in the world has discovered the formula to stop societal drug use, but plenty are making a profit from it, and not just drug dealers.
Drugs and mental illness is a complex area and we are still learning, whether police, scientist, parent or policymaker. We can get caught up in reaching for miracle cures and simple "magic bullet" solutions, outlandish claims and hallucinations.

The latest misfire is Bronwyn Bishop's parliamentary committee report, The winnable war on drugs: The impact of illicit drug use on families, an artefact of shallow thinking. Bishop has sadly followed the wrong leads and aimed at the wrong enemy. Her inspiration comes from Drug Free Australia (DFA), the dads' army of illegal drugs policy in Australia. She has taken up this policy agenda and elevated moralism over the suffering of fellow Australians grappling with drug problems, and she has been suckered into celebrating their pet hates. The DFA approach is to attack outspoken harm reductionist Dr Alex Wodak and others who are determined to reduce the burden of drugs. Harm reduction has the audacious premise that drug use has a very long history. That we must apply ourselves to the reality that hundreds of thousands of Australians have broken the law and to be responsible we must have policies that respond to this, rather than the pyrrhic "just say no".

At the DFA conference earlier this year, there was a failure to be enriched by diverse perspectives and to rise above petty personal attacks to address these difficult issues. There was applause when individuals (who weren't there) were maligned. They were referred to as "the other side".

Like Bishop, some speakers even held dedicated professionals responsible for our drug problems. Wodak, a drug-treatment physician, supporter of harm minimisation and highly regarded all over the world, is DFA's bete noir.

Science, evidence and compassion are sacrificed on the altar of Bishop and DFA's twisted logic that people wanting to reduce the harm from drugs are actually responsible for creating the problem. Just like the argument at the conference that condoms are fuelling the HIV epidemic.

The conference even went to the extent of flying in one of DFA's purists, Dr Kerstin Kall, of Scandinavia. How does the obscure, hardly published Kall gain Bishop's attention to supposedly unravel the evidence of harm-minimisation programs in Australia, including the internationally successful needle and syringe programs?

There is an escape clause for Kall though: according to the strong praise and amens (literally) of the delegates, the scientific standards are an enormous conspiracy too. Peer-reviewed academic journals are not truth-seeking research journals aimed at improving knowledge and building our civilisation, they are just pedlars of pap and, in the drugs area, dominated by the legalisers and other enemies of the people, "the other side".

I support harm reduction as a viable public-health approach to drug issues. Harm reduction coexists with interdiction, but for Bishop they are mutually exclusive. She mischievously forgets it is the drug pedlars, with no regard for our community but with enormous financial clout, who should be a key focus of our attention and interdiction rather than ordinary Australians struggling with their drug problems. These criminals hold hard-working, community-minded and compassionate Australians in contempt. They should make us all worry. They are misery profiteers, willing to corrupt our police and judiciary, and to pay no tax. But at the DFA gig, and in Bishop's report, Wodak got more negative attention.

In the worst tradition of political correctness, Bishop wants to change the language from harm minimisation to harm prevention.

This is not a great leap forward, but it is code for dismantling Australia's global leadership in drugs policy. This ideological posturing is reprehensible.

For the past 20 years Australia has taken a comprehensive approach to drug use, and it is called harm minimisation. It includes police and drug treatment as well as interventions for current users. The "war on drugs" is a re-badge, but part of the Australian tradition, aiming to balance supply control with interventions for people who are using, including drug treatments, and needle and syringe programs.

Bishop wants to move the goal posts so that anyone who delivers and supports harm-minimisation programs in Australia should be de-funded. The result would be worse drug problems and more lives lost. I wish we could eradicate drugs too, but let us stay real and seriously engage with a global phenomenon.

Seeing drugs are already banned, Bishop wants to ban words. Words like "recreational drugs" because it sends the "wrong message". That this is a priority when people are losing their sons and daughters to drugs is reprehensible. Bishop is yet to figure that "ice" sounds really cool, but sooner or later we won't be able to describe this pernicious form of amphetamines in shorthand.

These are not socialists whining about correct language, but drug zealots carping about conspiracy theories of endless mendacity. They tut-tut together about evil language being used as a beach-head in efforts to spread drug use.

Even the Minister for Ageing, Christopher Pyne, acknowledged at the DFA conference that in a liberal democracy we must indulge a diversity of opinion. He even celebrated the fact that he had sponsored conferences where some speakers criticised the Government.

At the recent Anex Mental Health and Illegal Drugs Conference, attended by more than 400 harm-reduction workers in Australia, there was a thematic thread to the sessions: stick with the evidence and lead with compassion. I wish Bishop could have been there perhaps her opinion and the resulting recommendations would have been more balanced and founded.

John Ryan is chief executive officer of Anex, the Association for Prevention and Harm Reduction Programs, Australia.

Canberra Times

 

[drplatypus]

All it takes for evil to occur...

...is for good people to stay silent. There is a formal response to this report being formulated through the independent Australian Science Media Center, and also through JTV. Many of us "Drug Industry Elites"are incredibly disappointed with the 'No Comment' approach from some of the larger agencies, including those who administer the Party Drugs Survey. It is academic cowardice not to stand up to this pseudo-science. I suggest that those of you who collaborate regularly with these agencies ask the them why they feel they can't stand up to this bullying- maybe a representative might like to voice their opinion in this forum...?

 

[Tronica]

I'm not going to respond "as a representative", and I should note for the record that I have no current connection to the PDI/EDRS project. My personal opinion though is that it is an assumption to state that if you are silent, then you 'agree'.

Remember that any publicity is publicity, whether good or bad. If we keep responding to it, it remains in the media spotlight all that time. I think it's clear to anyone with half a brain that this report is partisan and non-representative. What power does this report have? It's a stunt.

I'm disappointed that politicians have the power to intimidate people through the senate inquiry process.

My hope is that, with a change of government, or at least, with a change of senate so that the Greens hold the balance - some of the ways that the Australian political landscape has been muted can be reversed (see Silencing Dissent).

 

[drplatypus]

I don't think that anyone I know in the research community agrees with this report, Tronica, but I do think that certain agencies silence is damaging and damning.

Those of us who work in the field all know that this report is nonsense, and it's not unreasonable to assume that people with more than half a brain would see it for what it is. But then again, one might have thought that people with half a brain might have similarly seen through the scare tactics of the current administration regarding boat people, children overboard etc. Unfortunately, and at the risk of sounding arrogant, we have to assume that there are a lot of gullible people out there, and prohibitionists are scoring a few too many free goals.

Moral high ground has to be fought for, and to get people to change behaviour regarding drug use means that they have to believe us and our message of harm minimisation over that of the prohibitionists. If we don't engage the enemy, we run the risk of the general public falling for the politician's pseudoscience, not because their message is particularly persuasive, but because their message is the only one out there. Until we win the hearts of the general public, we have no chance of substantially altering drugs policy in Australia.

 

[phase_dancer]

I'm meeting with Qld EDRS people next week so I'll make sure the subject is raised.

 

[drplatypus]

If enough people undertake to speak to PDI/IDRS interviewers about their concerns, it would be an interesting test to see if they grow balls enough to incorporate that commentary into their reports. I'm skeptical, but would be happy to be proven wrong...

 

[Tronica]

Until we win the hearts of the general public, we have no chance of substantially altering drugs policy in Australia.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, as I'm sure you already know!

I'm trying to play devil's advocate here - and also tried to put myself in everyone's shoes/minds (include Bishop for a while, trying to get some sense of where she is coming from and why she see her position as justified).

What this thread has made me ponder is that drug research organisations have a number of stakeholders that they would need to consider when making policy and action decisions.

From the drug users perspective, for a drug user who is aware of and concerned about their rights and policies that influence their lives, they would want to know that their interests are being considered when decisions are made at this level - whether it is about what research ideas to put out for funding, how research is conducted, and how organisations might respond to political challenges.

Of course there are other stakeholders with strong demands, but I personally believe that research organisations need to keep drug users in the forefront of their minds when making decisions. After all, what is research into drug use about if not for improving the lives of people who use drugs? (including improving pathways to abstinence if desired, as well as reducing harms of drug use if it continues - both are important outcomes).

I think I've digressed - the crux of it about trust. Trust between the people who volunteer their time and expertise for research, and drug researchers - trust that those researchers put the interests of drug users above the interests of zero tolerance zealots like those who headed up this report.

As a discussion point, perhaps research organisations decide that if they continue to do research into harms and health promotion and prevention, as well as some research which is more contentious (harm reduction based), then they will have a better chance of continued funding, and being able to do useful work.

What this all comes down to is whether it is the job of a research organisation to also be an advocate. Or, does having this dual role mean that "objectivity" is lost, and the research becomes somehow "biased"?

Feel free to discuss :D

 

[drplatypus]

As ever, a well articulated argument, Tronica! And of course I know where you are personally coming from.

I agree in your assessment- the crux of the issue IS about trust. And I think academics betray the trust of the population when they don't stand up to represent the truth and the science in the face of lies. The argument regarding whether a research organisation should be involved in an 'advocacy' role is a distracting mantra used almost almost exclusively by Australian AOD researchers to excuse their lack of engagement in vigourous debate.

The Europeans have traveled far further down the role of rational drugs policy precisely because of their ability and willingness to publicaly challenge nonsense reports such as this. The 'advocacy' that they aren't afraid to wear is advocacy for the publics health. It just so happens that harm minimization is also kinder on the consumer in the short term.

In Australia, we as a research community, are failing to explain that the benefits to the consumer of harm minimization as far as their ongoing drug consumption is concerned, is almost coincidental compared to the benefits of containing the harms to society caused by drugs.

Australian researchers run the risk of becoming mere librarians, documenting every slow and inexorable step towards a prohibitionist society, and the consequences of that death march, and never once piping up to say "Hang on a minute- the emperor's not wearing much here..."

And as to creating the term "drug industry elite", it is the worst type of McCarthyism, and only in Australia would an academic community tolerate this, and not turn on a government committee and take off a bloody arm in response... What sort of sad, sorry whipping boy have we become? The trust you speak of requires faith, and belief... What sort of faith and belief can we expect the drug consumer, and the general public at large, to have in us, if we appear to have none in ourselves...?

 

[Tronica]

If you would like to sign a petition against this report, details are below:

In collaboration with a number of other services in response to the Family and Community Services Committee report "The winnable War on Drugs" we have put together a considered response to the 31 recommendations.

The responses can be viewed at http://www.fds.org.au/report2007.html

We feel it is very important that a response be given to whichever party win the next election to counter the negativity contained in this report.

The Australian National Council on Drugs have agreed to present the responses and signatories to the Prime Minister and other key Ministers.

We feel the responses are considered and reasonable and may be not all that everyone would want but sufficient to satisfy most points of view.

We are aiming to get 500 signatories at least, to the report. We currently have 150 signatures and need more!

We would like you to add your name to the list.

If you are willing please email your name /and title. If you work for an organisation would you please add the organisation name.

Please respond – we really need your help.

Tony Trimingham CEO Family Drug Support

N.B. Email your response to [email protected]. In the ‘subject’ window of you returning email type ‘signature’ or fax to 02 4782 9555 or mail to PO Box 7363 Leura NSW 2780

 

[ayjay]

^I'm not totally happy with all of FDS' responses, so I won't be signing that one...

 

[Tronica]

Fair enough ayjay... I'm interested in what you would have changed/added/amended to be satisfied with the FDS response?

 

[ayjay]

Recommendation 1 - partially supported by FDS - but not by me: I think the balance of spending between the 3 prongs of HM in Aus needs serious reconsidering.

After that - well, there are a number of "partial supports" that I'm not totally comfortable with - including inquiries into effectiveness of pharmacotherapies and NSPs - these things are well researched already. I can see where FDS is coming from, but I might have worded my opposition to key elements of those recommendations more strongly..

I'm also totally opposed to workplace drug testing as recommended, and also roadside drug testing.

 

[Tronica]

Yes I can see the case that FDS have been too conservative in their responses. My personal response would have had less of the partial agreements too. But I'm putting my name to it, as it's certainly more in line with my views than Bishop's report is!

I agree that pharmacotherapies and needle exchange do not need 'inquiries into their effectiveness'. That's just rubbish...

In the end, the issue of this inquiry can be revisited after the election, once we know who we are directing our concerns at.