Page 1002 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2016
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method that can save lives. This is an attitude that members of the Assembly take, despite the evidence to the contrary. Minister Corbell says the government takes an evidence-based approach that delivers positive outcomes for the Canberra community. In some areas this is the case. In other areas the government does seem to have a blind spot. It is not because the evidence does not exist; it appears to be because the ACT government and the opposition are just not ready or willing to explore some of these options.
What benefits might be realised if we explored civil penalties for other drugs in addition to cannabis? Would there be merit in removing the criminal sanctions that apply for people who do not comply with the requirements of our drug diversion programs or by reconfiguring the eligibility requirements? We will not know because it seems it is not an approach the government supports. In the 1990s and 2000s, under both Labor Party and Liberal Party governments, we had governments that were willing to explore safe, supervised injecting facilities. Clearly the world has changed, and perhaps it is the different political and media environment, but now we do not see that same courage in trying to tackle the hard issues that this Assembly should be tackling.
There is plenty of work to be done in the area of harm minimisation, treatment and a health-focused drugs policy. The parliamentary drug summit confirms this. The Canberra declaration on illicit drugs and its signatories confirm this. Essentially, the amendment proposed by the government rejects the premise and says the ACT is already doing everything right. Interestingly, despite the fact that members in this Assembly do not support an examination of decriminalisation initiatives, there is considerable support among the Australian population for decriminalisation responses to illicit drugs. The 2013 national drug strategy household survey showed 88 per cent support for decriminalisation responses to cannabis, 74 per cent for ecstasy, 64 per cent for heroin and 66 per cent for methamphetamine.
On the issue of ice, I know that nationally the level of seizures of methamphetamine has been rising. However, it has not been rising as fast as the number of arrests of users of methamphetamine. Again, we see that the enforcement approach is taking the lead. Not only is the lion’s share of funding going into enforcement but also within that enforcement model it is still individual users who are being captured into the criminal justice system more than the suppliers of the drug.
The ACT criminal justice statistical profile also shows that charges for personal use or possession of illicit drugs are considerably more frequent than charges for offences such as supply, cultivation, import or export or dealing. It is these suppliers and manufacturers that I would like to see subjected to criminal sanctions more often. Users, the people who are really at the end of the illicit drug system, can often do with our help, more so than a criminal justice response.
I listened to members’ contributions today and there were some positive comments, but there was also some of the same old myth-peddling that does not move us forward in this debate at all. Mr Hanson noted that these drugs are not harmless, and I completely agree with him. The very point is that they do inflict harm, and the policies that we are putting in place at the moment and the approaches that we are taking are not reducing that harm.
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