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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3691 ..

Under clause 629, the prosecution can aggregate quantities of drugs sold over any length of time by a habitual user, the only limitation being that each occasion was not longer than seven days apart from another of the occasions. The MCCOC report admits that aggregation of small transactions has the potential to amplify the liability of habitual users who engage in frequent small sales to sustain a habit. Therefore, they could well be charged with trafficking in a commercial quantity of drugs for which the penalty is $250,000 or 25 years in jail, or both.

This legislation is not confined to big time drug offenders. This legislation will also catch our young people. The minister has misrepresented its scope. Are the minister and the government prepared to justify to families of this territory who are desperately trying to help their kids with addictions and other drug problems that they could be liable to be sent to jail for the next 10 years?

It is hard to believe that this bill has been proposed by a government that prides itself on its defence of human rights. Addiction is a health condition. How does the government reconcile this bill with the right of everyone, recognised in the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health?

I understood that the government was committed to harm minimisation. That term is not mentioned once in either the presentation speech or the explanatory statement. There is nothing to show that the government has even attempted to reconcile what it is proposing with its drugs policy. Instead, we are carrying on with the model criminal code work, even though its philosophical basis does not include a good understanding of harm minimisation.

The MCCOC report said in response to the extensive submission from the Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform:

A number of submissions which addressed the issue of harm minimisation proposed more radical measures such as decriminalisation of use and the provision of licit supplies of controlled drugs to dependent users. It is possible that some alleviation of existing social problems associated with illicit drug use might be achieved by introducing regimes of controlled availability of heroin or other illicit recreational drugs. It is also possible that such measures would result in an unacceptable growth in the population of habitual or dependent users. The resolution of this debate is beyond the scope of the Committee’s brief and expertise.

At least they admit it. The report continues:

The issues are, moreover, largely irrelevant to the issues involved in the preparation of trafficking legislation. In any conceivable regime of control, it will be necessary to protect licit systems of supply from attack by commercial predators.

I think that anyone who had done some basic work on harm minimisation and who was a member of Parliamentarians for Drug Law Reform could see the flaws in that reasoning. This is just the sort of failure to think through the causes, impacts and effects of criminalisation that we are trying to overturn. Indeed, it throws doubt on what was thought to be the government’s approach. Only last sitting week, the government finally

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