Page 2037 - Week 06 - Thursday, 26 June 2008
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We work long hours. For those of us who love our work, it is fine; because we derive pleasure from it, we do not need artificial stimulants. But some people work in very difficult and unpleasant jobs that we have not chosen to work in. The relationship between truck drivers and methamphetamines is well known; it is a work-related hazard. We really need to see drug use in those contexts.
Another context that is relevant is the legal context in which drugs are used. We must always remember that often the criminality of drug use is as much of a problem as the drug itself. I want to quote Dr Alex Wodak, who said in an interview with Virginia Trioli on 15 March last year:
Who would believe that a democratic government would pursue for eight decades a failed policy that produced tens of millions of victims, millions of dollars of illicit profits to drug dealers, cost tax-payers hundreds of millions of dollars, increased crime, destroyed inner cities, caused widespread corruption and violations of human rights, and all with no success in achieving the stated unattainable objective of drug-free America.
That was a quote from Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. There are quotes like this from the highest of the high in our communities—people who are held in the greatest of repute. The plain fact is that, whether we like it or not, the war-against-drugs approach has failed, and failed miserably.
We have to remember that ice has emerged at a time when Australia is supposed to be fighting a war against drugs. This is consistent with the iron law of prohibition—that the more zealously, the more stringently, law enforcement authorities pursue illicit drugs, the more likely it is that more dangerous drugs replace dangerous drugs. Perhaps that is the context in which ice has emerged as a more widely used drug; I am not sure.
The risks of ice use are well known and they are detailed in the report. I have brought them together in a list. There is the rise in sexually transmitted infections through the prevalence of unsafe sex with multiple partners and unsafe sex with more stable partners, because risk-taking behaviour is a lot easier when you are high on ice—and probably other things as well: alcohol, for instance.
There is unsafe driving. Though the link has not been definitively made, other behaviours that go with drug use indicate that that could be an issue with this particular drug. There is the rise in blood-borne viruses amongst injecting ice users. There is the unreliability of the purity of the drug and unknown additives—and this will always be a problem while the drug, or any drug, is illegal.
There is the cost of procuring the drug in a criminal market, which makes it more expensive and gives the supplier power. And there are the flow-on effects of operating in a criminal market. Even very ordinary people often use illicit substances; they put their whole family at risk, as well as themselves, just by pursuing their habit.
There are the impacts on families. We are fairly familiar with the impact of alcohol. Consider, too, the impact when that drug is illegal. There are break-ups, poverty and chaos—the family chaos that can occur when there is not enough money when people
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