Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday Senator Richard Di Natale, Dr Sharman Stone and I, as co-convenors of the Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy and Law Reform, co-hosted a drugs summit here in Parliament House with the object of starting a meaningful conversation in this place about drug reform. It is becoming increasingly evident that the supply reduction, law and order, crime and punishment approach to drugs is not working. We see drug bust after drug bust paraded on TV. It seems to make little difference to the market for drugs while having enormous impacts on the lives of families and individuals, whose prospects for employment, travel et cetera are significantly reduced with a conviction for drug use. Our jails are crammed to overflowing with people who have done what people have done for time immemorial, and that is to take drugs, whether for spiritual or recreational purposes or to escape temporarily the misery of their lives.

Prohibition not only does not work, as we have seen with alcohol prohibition in the US in the 1920s, but directly fuels crime. Increasingly there is a growing realisation, around the world and here in Australia, that drug use should really be treated as a health issue rather than a law enforcement issue. As John Rogerson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Drug Foundation wrote in Monday's Sydney Morning Herald:

Even the Prime Minister and senior police are saying to us 'we can't arrest our way out of this problem'.

There is a growing call for drug use or possession, as opposed to the manufacture or supply of drugs, to be decriminalised. As John Rogerson explains it:

Decriminalisation is not legalising drugs. What it means is that drugs remain illegal, but those who are caught with small quantities are put through the health system, rather than the justice system.

There was a packed audience at the drugs summit that included parliamentary colleagues, a number of state and territory MPs, Indigenous leaders, representatives of users and families, health and police professionals, academics and interested community members. There were several panels of speakers, who contributed their knowledge, expertise and insights to this discussion, including many Australian experts as well as the New Zealand Associate Minister of Health, Peter Dunne, and Beau Kilmer from the Rand Drug Policy Research Centre in the US. The international experience reinforced the fact that dealing with the issues around drug use is something that every country, every community faces and always has faced, so it makes sense to look at other approaches to see what has worked and what has not worked. Portugal, for instance, decriminalised illicit drugs 15 years ago. It redirected 90 per cent of funding into the health and welfare sectors for treatment, prevention and reducing harm and directed just 10 per cent to policing. As a result, in Portugal deaths from drug overdose decreased from 80 in 2001 to 16 in 2012 and there was a significant reduction in HIV infections and problematic drug use. As Johann Hari writes of Portugal in his excellent book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs: 'Crimes related to drug consumption are now finished. It doesn't happen. They are all either on methadone, in treatment or recovering, so they don't need to rob cars or assault people. This is a complete change.'

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW has reported that the research evidence indicates that decriminalisation of drug use reduces the cost to society, especially the criminal justice system costs; reduces social costs to individuals, including by improving employment prospects; does not increase drug use; and does not increase other crime. It was observed at the summit that political leadership is needed to allow innovative health and social approaches to be tried—the kind of leadership that led to the establishment of a safe injecting room in Kings Cross, which has been so effective but unfortunately has not been repeated anywhere else in the country. As demonstrated in several European countries, drug or pill testing at events saves lives. It is also something we should be trialling here in Australia.

At present, two-thirds of Australian government funding is directed to law enforcement, while the remaining funding is applied to treatment, prevention and harm reduction. The evidence all leads to the conclusion that the priorities should be reversed. We need to reorient the three pillars approach so that more energy and resources are put into treatment, harm reduction and prevention, with a reduced emphasis on supply reduction and law enforcement, which have been shown to be less effective. We need to ensure that drug users and their families and communities are consulted and involved in any decisions and programs dealing with these issues.

I want to particularly thank my co-conveners, Dr Sharman Stone and Dr Richard Di Natale. Richard was the driving force behind the summit and the reinvigoration of the Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy and Law Reform. Sharman and I have been happy to support Richard's incredible determination and efforts in this matter. The recent medicinal cannabis debate and its successful conclusion has shown us that, when politics is put aside and all parties contribute their goodwill and energy to acting in the national interest, change for the better is possible. As Johann Hari has written:

Drugs are not what we think they are. Drug addiction is not what we have been told it is. The drug war is not what our politicians have sold it as for one hundred years and counting. And there is a very different story out there waiting for us when we are ready to hear it—one that should leave us thrumming with hope.