Page 95 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 April 1992
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METHADONE PROGRAM
MR MOORE (11.37): I move:
That the ACT methadone program be expanded to meet the needs of all its potential clients consistent with an appropriate harm reduction approach.
In introducing the motion on the methadone program today I will cover a series of areas. I will cover an overview of drug policy and harm reduction with reference to both legal and illegal drugs. Today I will take the opportunity to emphasise the work of abstinence orientated rehabilitation centres such as Karralika, look at a harm reduction approach and how that might operate, having the benefit of having attended the Third International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm just a couple of weeks ago, and then talk about how the methadone program operates in the ACT and why it ought be expanded. I have discussed this issue with Mrs Carnell, who will then talk about something she is much more familiar with - how the methadone program might operate through a pharmacy, and an expansion of the program as far as pharmacies go.
Madam Speaker, I think it is important, in looking at an overview of drug policy, to understand that wherever prohibition has been used as the only approach to drug policy - the term they use in the United States is a nil tolerance approach to drug policy - not only has there been an increase in the use of the drugs; there also has been an increase in the harm associated with drugs. The irony is that the nil tolerance policy applies simply to drugs that arbitrarily have been declared to be illegal, while in almost every case there has been the opposite attitude to drugs that have been declared legal, often drugs that are much more damaging than the illegal drugs. I refer specifically to cigarettes as the most important example.
If we are to have a consistent harm reduction policy, as is the policy for every jurisdiction in Australia - as was the policy under Mr Kaine's Government, and as was the policy under each of the governments in the ACT - then we see an attempt to reduce the use of and harm associated with legal drugs as well as the illegal drugs. We have seen Mr Berry moving on that recently with reference to advertising of cigarettes, and I would like to commend him for that.
It is also important, I think, when dealing with drugs, for me to take an opportunity to commend the people who work on abstinence programs in the ACT - the people who work in halfway houses, the people who work on getting people off drugs when they are ready to do so. I have been working in this area for some time, dealing with new notions, as was required of me when I chaired the Select Committee on HIV, Illegal Drugs and Prostitution last year. Because there was an emphasis on looking for new and alternative approaches, we spent very little time giving credit where it was due to people who were working very hard to get people off drugs. That, of course, is the most important part of any approach to either legal or illegal drugs.
I think a number of us here remember a meeting at Karralika, during the election campaign, where a great deal of work has gone on. In fact, there is a world first in Karralika, where there is a program which can include the whole family in terms of part of the rehabilitation process, and that process is, of course, important.
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