Page 4303 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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I want to make just a couple of points. The first point relates to the massive size and escalation of the illicit drug trade and the resulting prevalence and power of organised crime. Giorgio Giocomelli is the director of the International Narcotics Control Board. In December last year, in a press conference in Canberra actually, he said that the illicit drug trade has now surpassed the petroleum industry, making the illicit drug trade the second most lucrative business in the world. After over 60 years of prohibitionist policies - in fact, you can go back really through most of this century - that is the result of extreme prohibition, particularly as practised in the United States. The same extremities of policies are not practised in Australia. Speaking of prohibition in that sense, it may be of interest to members to know that this is our first sitting day since the anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition in the United States. Last Sunday was the 60th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition, and I hope that you all had a drink to that. If not, it seems to me that it is not too late, which raises the question of people's drug of choice.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that this chamber can look with some pride at both the urgent reforms and some of the short-term goals which have been adopted by this parliament and by the Government. There is no doubt that broad-based methadone programs have been established and that needle exchange programs are well accepted here. We have wide-ranging rehabilitation programs. Our education programs are based on self-reliance and sound scientific research, which I must say contrasts greatly with some of the education programs that I saw being used in the United States. They call them education programs but they really are propaganda programs. One of the difficulties with running propaganda programs is that when young people realise that something they are being told is simply not true they are just as likely to dismiss the whole range of information that is being presented to them, which includes very important information about some of the medical implications of the use of illicit drugs, for example.
I would like to comment on the recent trip I made to the United States and some of the movements in drug law reform there. The Mayor of Baltimore invited cities throughout the world to come and join him in a push towards drug law reform. They have a long way to go. One of the most interesting speakers at that conference was a chief of police from New Haven, Connecticut, by the name of Nick Pastori. He had advocated needle exchange in his city, where 95 per cent of the population is black. The result of the needle exchange program was that not only were people put into a much better health situation but also his police officers developed a much more humanitarian and understanding approach to people. They lost the macho image of the police officer that was so common in other parts of the United States. At the same time there has been an increase in violence in almost every city of the United States. There has been consecutively a 40 per cent increase in violence in each of those three years. Harm minimisation does work and we ought to pursue it as far as we can.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (3.27): Mr Deputy Speaker, I take the opportunity to talk on this matter predominantly to put on the record the policy of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy. I think it is important that the direction that Australia is taking in this regard is a matter of record in this place.
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