Page 1383 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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Contrary to the approach taken by the Minister for Health whereby we would put somebody in prison for six months or impose a $5,000 fine, the sensible approach would be to say that, where somebody makes what I perceive to be a ridiculous decision to build their body by using these sorts of drugs, there ought not to be a penalty. Rather, we should be bringing people into the health sector, because it is a health and psychological question rather than a question of illegality. We risk here having exactly the same problems as we have created with so many drugs that are illicit by moving them over into the policing section rather than keeping them within the health arena. We should be dealing with the problem of steroids as a health issue rather than as a policing issue.
It is for that reason that I have proposed an amendment that covers a person who has in his possession a very small amount of steroids - just five tablets or 10 ampoules. If you think in terms of a packet of Panadol, say, we are talking about a packet with double or triple that number of tablets in it. So we are talking about only a very small amount for personal use. Under those circumstances, to turn somebody into a criminal - because that is what will happen under this legislation - is entirely inappropriate. That takes account of the first of my amendments.
The second amendment suggests that where people have just a little more than that - about double that quantity - we should be saying to them that we consider this entirely inappropriate, and use an expiation or traffic fine system, which this Assembly approved with the legislation on cannabis, and provide for an expiation notice system of $40. It is a very sensible approach to personal use or, as it is described in the legislation, administration. It is important that we distinguish between those sorts of people and people who are using steroids as a part of their competitive sport. We have appropriate drug testing in competitive sport to catch people who are cheating. The rules for competitive sport provide that you cannot use steroids, and I have no difficulty, where people are participating in competitive sport, in having a set of rules.
But, additional to that, we have a large number of people who believe that they will in some way enhance their body by using steroids as part of the body building process. These are the people I am concerned with. My personal opinion is that they have psychological problems if they need to try to change their bodies in that way instead of accepting themselves for what they are. However, that is a personal view. It is not something for which I would want to put somebody into gaol, and that is the ramification of the legislation as it stands.
I believe that the amendments I have put up are very sensible. They take a much more rational view, and they also take into account general thinking in Australia, which advocates harm minimisation. When you use a system that penalises people and gaols them for personal use, you are talking about a system of prohibition, and we know that prohibition does not work; it makes things worse. It has made things worse in every other case where we have used it, with the exception of barbiturates. It made things better with barbiturates because there was an alternative. Here we have no alternative.
In Sydney there is a doctor by the name of Tony Millar, whom I mentioned in my in-principle stage speech, who prescribes steroids for body building use because he believes, and argues very strongly, that if people are going to use steroids they ought to be able to do so safely; they ought to be able to do so other than in the black market.
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