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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4200 ..
MR SMYTH (continuing):
drugs. Michael Moore tells me that he thought it was 13. I remember reading somewhere that, on average, successfully escaping drug addiction takes 17 attempts. That is the average. For some people it might be one or two, which means that for some poor sods it is probably 100 opportunities. We have to make sure that we give those people the opportunity to realise their potential.
A friend has given me a Vatican document on this subject. We know that the Catholic Church has had a say on it recently. But the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Vatican City, put the document out in 1995. It is called "Charter for Health Care Workers" and is relevant. I might seek to have the whole document incorporated in Hansard when I am finished. As this document was published in 1995, perhaps some of the understanding is a bit dated, but the points in it are really quite poignant when it comes to this debate. The document says:
Undoubtedly, the evils caused by dependency and the care it requires are not a matter for medicine alone. But medicine does have a preventive and therapeutic role.
It is not just about medicine or a medical problem. The church is saying here that it is wider than that. The document goes on to say:
To say that drugs are illicit is not to condemn the drug-user ... The way to recovery cannot be that of ethical culpability or repressive law, but it must be by way of rehabilitation, which, without condoning the possible fault of persons on drugs, promotes liberation from their condition and reintegration.
All of you would know - I make no bones about it - that I am Catholic by inclination and practice. What the church is saying there is that there are many things that we must do for people who are addicted, but it is about bringing them back into the real world. The document goes on:
The detoxification of the person addicted to drugs is more than medical treatment. Moreover, medicines are of little or no use.
I think we have made advances there. It goes on to say:
Detoxification is an integrally human process meant to "give a complete and definitive meaning to life", and thus to restore to those addicted that "self-confidence and salutary self-esteem" which help them to recover the joy of living.
That is what we are proposing here. What we get fixated on with the term "medically-supervised injecting place" is that it is somewhere that people go to use illicit drugs. But that is not all it is. It is a gateway. Michael Moore has talked many times about it being a gateway. To what is it a gateway? It is a gateway back to the world. It is a gateway back because there will be advice on nutrition, there will be referrals to detoxification and there will be an ear to listen to you. When you are alone, low, down and injecting, perhaps the first thing you need is to have somebody who will
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