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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4182 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

it works for cigarettes but not for anything else. I think that is an interesting point in terms of drug education.

Among the suggestions made on how to improve drug education were comments that there should be more scare tactics and that it should be aimed at young people by young people. We are doing a bit of that. Also, it was said that it should start at Year 6 and go through to Year 12. I certainly hope that we will be doing that with our most recent education strategy. It was also suggested that drug education should be about how to avoid drugs being a part of our society and that more emphasis should be placed on the consequences. They were also asked whether they knew any ex-addicts and whether they knew what made them stop taking drugs. The main answers there were that they had had a bad health scare, that they gave up for their children or family, or that they realised that there was more to life. Significantly, their peers helped them to stop. Mr Speaker, I am quite happy to table that document, which is a pretty useful document. It was compiled this year and it shows what young people think.

There are measures which would be far more effective than having this trial. We have seen some significant advances with the use of naltrexone. The methadone program, if done properly, is something that at least enables addicts to operate normally in the course of daily life.

I had a look at what happens in Sweden and I will comment briefly on that, Mr Speaker. It has been estimated that there are between 14,000 and 20,000 heavy drug users in Sweden. They are classified as anyone who takes any illicit drug on, basically, a daily basis. The majority of the heavy drug users there are cannabis users. That is probably not very different from the number of regular drug users in Canberra, given some of the surveys we have had. Heroin users are a minority there. It is interesting that in the 1970s Sweden had a policy very much like ours in that penalties for the possession of cannabis could be waived if the quantity was limited. Basically, that meant a person's supply for one week.

Then Sweden clamped down. At present, approximately 6 per cent of the people they surveyed at about the Year 9 level have tried drugs and 9 per cent of the people in what they call their conscription age, which is, I think, 18 to 20 years, have tried drugs. In fact, only 10 per cent of their severe drug users are under 25 years of age. Sweden has adopted the approach of arresting people in the street over drug deals and putting them before the courts and of making sure that the schools, youth groups and community groups have appropriate information. It is really quite interesting to see what Sweden has done.

I am interested in the optimism expressed in the booklet I have here from the Swedish Embassy. I think it is an approach that we should seek to adopt in Australia. I would think most people in Australia, certainly all parents, would agree with it. I refer to the statement:

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