Page 1378 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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POISONS AND DRUGS (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
Debate resumed from 20 April 1994, on motion by Mrs Carnell:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mrs Carnell, you will be concluding the debate.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (10.33), in reply: Yes, Madam Speaker. I was interrupted at the stage when Mr Connolly circulated his amendments. Many of my comments on this Bill I have already put forward. The important issue with anabolic steroids is that they are a growing problem for young people particularly in our health arena. We have seen regularly in reports - I think Mr Connolly also mentioned this - that the use of anabolic steroids is no longer just amongst our elite sportspeople, who probably have been stopped from using such things by drug testing; we are now looking at anabolic steroids being used by young people, even by young sportspeople at school level. You only have to go into gyms, body building establishments, and so on, to see quite categorically that they are a problem.
This issue has been addressed by every other State in Australia. It was brought up initially at the 1990 conference of Health Ministers, at which there was unanimous support for adopting some form of national approach to the problems of anabolic steroid abuse. I have in previous speeches spoken about the very real health problems that occur with anabolic steroids, particularly when they are used by young people who have not finished their growth phase. They can cause stunting of growth; they can cause problems with bones not reaching their full potential and with the end plates of bones not forming properly; they can cause sterility problems for young people; they can cause problems with abnormalities in foetuses for women who have used anabolic steroids in the past.
The interesting issue with anabolic steroids legislation, though, rather than that for other drugs of abuse that we have handled in this Assembly, is that anabolic steroids are not illegal drugs. They have very valid uses in medical practice for a number of different issues, which really creates some deal of difficulty in how you legislate for anabolic steroids. That is probably why we have ended up with a problem in the legislation at the moment. Anabolic steroids currently are treated in exactly the same way as other drugs that are available on prescription. That means that it is illegal to sell them without a prescription but it is not illegal to possess them without a prescription. My Bill makes it illegal for people to possess anabolic steroids that they have not got on a prescription.
Legislation is now in place in every other State, I think, although South Australia still might not have finally passed theirs. I know that it is currently on their books. The ACT has been very slow in adopting the 1990 Health Ministers conference recommendations on these drugs.
Ms Follett: And cautious.
MRS CARNELL: No, just slow in this case.
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