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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (5 November) . . Page.. 3608 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Their names have just slipped my mind, but I can find them for any member who is interested. The report said that one of the most successful strategies in the world, and an approach they should continue, was the harm minimisation approach. That study was done over a year. It took into account a whole range of community opinions and listened to the evidence of others.

That was not the approach taken by Max Moore-Wilton, who I presume spoke to a couple of bureaucrats, to the Salvation Army and to the Americans. He probably did not need to speak to the Americans. He already knew what they thought. I do not have a problem with the Salvation Army having that view. It is a consistent view. They oppose the use of any drugs whatsoever. I can understand that. I can see the consistency. What we are interested in, though, is a public health approach. The only public health approach that has shown any effect at all across the world has been one based on harm minimisation. I know that Mr Berry, as Minister, also supported that approach of harm minimisation. That is why generally I support this motion.

I will be moving an amendment to paragraph (4) to make sure that it is very clear that harm minimisation is the priority. To explain it, I would like to read a declaration of a meeting of the Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform in Melbourne on Sunday. This meeting included members of the Liberal Party, the Labor Party, the Greens - Ms Tucker was there representing the Greens - the Democrats, and Independents. They were a very wide-ranging group of people. We made this declaration:

This meeting of the [Parliamentary Group], specifically called to discuss drug education -

note that the group was meeting specifically to talk about drug education -

has warned the Prime Minister that `zero tolerance', abstinence-based drug education is doomed to failure and is likely to lead to increased drug use.

The evidence is overwhelming. The declaration continues:

This meeting recognises that any drug education program focusing on abstinence not only does not work, but also undermines the development of sound information-based programs.

The [Parliamentary Group] therefore calls on the Prime Minister, in implementing a drug education strategy, to:

Present information which is based on sound scientific research;

Ensure that programs seek to enhance genuine knowledge and awareness of drugs, their dangers -

and they all have dangers -

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