Page 2110 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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I have heard harrowing stories when it comes to drug use in our community. When I first started talking about cannabis legalisation, the outreach from those in that community that have lived in the shadows and feared for their future because of their drug use was profound. I heard stories of those suffering with addiction for years on years who were too scared to seek help, and Canberra families in crisis after a son, a daughter, had taken illicit drugs and they were too scared to call an ambulance or the police due to the fear of them being arrested for drug possession. I have heard these stories time and again, and it never gets easier.
Currently, alcohol accounts for 4.6 per cent of all disease burden in Australia, and over one-third of road fatalities. When it comes to alcohol we can have a sensible discussion about how to limit its consumption and the horrors it causes on our roads. But when it comes to illicit drugs we politicise and criminalise users when we should be talking about how to reduce the total disease burden—which, for the record, is about half that of alcohol—as well as how to reduce the number of overdoses.
If we look at the burden illicit drug users place on the health system, it paints a grim picture of the way we fail drug users in this country. Suicide and self-inflicted injury is the top fatal burden, while depressive disorders and anxiety were flagged as the most non-fatal cause of burden in drug users. For those who would say this issue is a minor or a fringe one, let’s look at the numbers: 42.6 per cent of Australians will use what is considered an illicit drug. If you take cannabis out of the picture, due to the recent change to cannabis laws in the ACT, it is still a stark picture: 11.2 per cent of us have used ecstasy in our lifetime; nine per cent of us have used cocaine; and 6.3 per cent of us have used meth or an amphetamine. These Canberrans are all criminals under our current laws—most just never get caught.
What I find quite telling is that even judges say our current laws do not make sense. Former ACT Supreme Court Justice Richard Refshauge, in a 2019 paper, argued that criminalising drug consumption actually piles prejudice upon prejudice upon prejudice. He goes on to say that Australia needs to transition from a criminal-based to a health-based approach. Members of this place have a role to play in making sure that those who have struggled with addiction are able to get rehabilitated, go on to be employed and lead the normal life any other Canberran would expect. Currently, as Mr Refshauge states, what we are doing by criminalising these people is reducing their capacity to try to manage the harm the drugs are doing.
If we want to be serious about caring for the health of Canberrans we need to undertake a genuine investigation into the use of a simple offence notice in the ACT. Let’s stop criminalising Canberrans for minor drug offences. It is unnecessary and it is a flawed policy model. I challenge any member of this place to stand here and say that a person should be placed in jail for the possession of drugs for their own personal use, but I do not think any will. That says so much about how far we have come.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (4.07): It is probably going to surprise Mr Pettersson—and maybe a couple of others who like to characterise the Liberals’ view of drugs as akin to that in the Philippines, as I think the former health minister
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