Tough-On-Drugs
Policy Abysmal Failure: Report
Ross
Peake, Canberra Times (6/3/06)
The
Howard Government's 'tough-on-drugs' policy is castigated
as a failure in a report being published today.
The
Australian Institute report says hardline policies
have failed to dent illicit drug markets but have
exacerbated the social cost of illicit drug use.
It
says stricter drug laws will worsen mental health
problems. The issue of drug abuse needed to be confronted
as a health rather than a legal issue.
A
controversial section in the report, Drug law reform:
beyond prohibition, is criticism of the Federal
Government for claiming the main cause of the Australian
heroin drought was international and national drug
law enforcement.
Recent
evidence suggested the most likely cause of the
drought was a decision by heroin producers and traffickers
to switch to methamphetamines, largely unrelated
to the efforts of police.
The
Institute's deputy director, Andrew Macintosh, accused
the Government of back-to-front thinking, saying
80 per cent of state and federal funding for dealing
with illicit drugs was going to law enforcement.
'This
hugely disproportionate spending of funds has not
been accompanied by reductions in drug use and drug-related
harm, but it has been accompanied by increased mental
health and other social problems.
'Treatment,
on the other hand, has been shown to substantially
reduce drug and mental health problems and drug-related
crime and corruption. We are coming at the problem
from the wrong way users are at the end of the line
and the statistics show that legal threats are not
deterring them.
'Prevention
and treatment programs within a health context hold
far more promise.'
Mr
Macintosh said many claims of success over the illicit
drug trade were illusory. 'The Federal Government
pats itself on the back for the decline in heroin
use, while methamphetamine problems have increased
dramatically.'
The
report says more liberal drug regimes are likely
to reduce drug-related harm.
'A
small increase in drug use may be the price that
society must pay for a decline in substance misuse
disorders, corruption, crime, mental illness and
the other economic, social and political costs that
arise because of strict drug laws,' the report says.
'For
around half a century drug issues have been seen
primarily as a legal issue . . . This strategy has
been an abysmal failure.'
