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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 358 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The Fitzgerald commission of inquiry and the Wood royal commission indicate to us that prohibition causes corruption and a series of other problems. Ms Follett enumerated those other problems very effectively, and it is those problems we are attempting to deal with. There is no reason why this sort of process should not go hand in hand with the possibility of an effective education program for the community. But wherever we establish education programs, and that is an issue raised by the task force, we should realise that the education program for young people needs to be one that goes through their peer groups and uses their sorts of communication systems, such as the modern music you might find on Triple J, because exactly the opposite happens. The other day, as part of the preparation for a conference I will be attending, I asked my son to find for me five top songs from Triple J that refer to drugs. He said, "That's easy", and he had a few lines out of each prepared for me in less than half an hour. In each case, the group was celebrating the fact that they were using one of the illicit drugs. So, before we start on a program of education, we have to think about how these issues are promoted and deal with it in the most effective way, which is through the peer groups, knowing, as we do, that the peer groups work through a pyramid sale scheme in order to reach those young people.

There is a great deal of harm caused in the community by the use of illicit drugs, but there is also a great deal of harm in the community about the fear of alternative policies. I think it is that fear of alternative policies that makes us all particularly cautious. On this issue I have probably been less cautious than almost any other member of parliament in Australia over the last six or seven years. Even so, I believe that I have dealt cautiously with it as I have sought to find alternatives that will take a more rational, more tolerant, non-judgmental, humanitarian, understanding approach to people who currently use illicit drugs, rather than the approach that is often taken in our community. What we have to deal with is the community fear of the alternative. It seems that over the last 50 years we have forgotten what happened when we did not have prohibition of heroin, and that is an issue the task force took into account. It is interesting that in the task force's conclusions they state:

On balance, the Task Force believes the potential benefits of the trial outweigh the potential hazards, and the trial should go ahead.

I think that is the real crunch for us all. We all are conscious of some concerns associated with running such a trial. We all are conscious that the very day an individual is provided with legal pharmaceutical heroin the whole discourse on the issue of heroin goes through a change. We go through a transition, if you like, in the debate. We are conscious of that, Mr Speaker.

We are conscious, as indeed the task force said, of the concerns about sending mixed messages to our children, and nobody is more concerned than those of us who have young children, children going into high school, who are exposed to mixed messages. I must say that when I send messages to my children I want them to have no misunderstandings, no mixed messages. I want them to understand that, although I personally disapprove of this type of activity, I do not think the way to deal with it is in a punitive way. It is a health issue that should be dealt with as a health issue. I think that is the sort of balance we have coming out of this very careful report by the task force.

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