Daily Archives: April 6, 2018

As reported in Part 1, the Victorian parliamentary Inquiry into Drug Law Reform report was tabled in state parliament last week. It recommends a large number of sensible policy approaches to illicit substances, many of which relate to drug law enforcement.

Indeed, the report acknowledges that law enforcement strategies have had little impact on eradicating drug supply and demand, but what it has done is increased the harms associated with outlawed substances, including contributing to the growth of “black market crime.”

The document delivers recommendations regarding law enforcement that include decriminalisation for certain offences and an overhaul of drug driving laws, so there’s an emphasis on testing for impairment levels, rather than mere traces of illicit substances as currently happens.

Drug offending

The report identified a range of programs used by courts to address substance use disorders, when they’re found to be an underlying cause of people committing crimes. And the committee recommended these programs be expanded.

One of these is the Court Integrated Services Program. It provides services, such as case management, for offenders with substance use disorders four months prior to sentencing, with the aim of reducing reoffending and promoting safety.

The Drug Court of Victoria is also earmarked for expansion. It allows individuals whose offending is drug or alcohol related to undergo a treatment program, rather than incarceration. If the offender fails to complete the treatment or reoffends, they can be ordered to serve a custodial sentence.

And the drug law reform committee also recommends treating personal drug possession and use “as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue,” meaning that these offences would become decriminalised.

Law enforcement approval

Executive officer of the Yarra Drug and Health Forum Greg Denham said “quite frankly our emphasis on policing and prisons to stop drug use have failed and we need to take a new direction, with special emphasis on health, human rights and harm reduction.”

Mr Denham has keen insight into the issue of drug law enforcement as he’s a former Victoria police senior sergeant, who served seventeen years on the force. He believes the inquiry has drawn a line in the sand whereby efforts attempting to address drug harms can now be redirected.

The harm reduction advocate agrees with the “general philosophy” of the report, which would leave “the courts to deal with more problematic and difficult cases,” as “the majority of people that use illicit drugs don’t cause any harms to themselves or others and they should be treated accordingly.”

“The report makes sense from a number of perspectives, not the least of which would be the massive saving of public funding if we moved toward decriminalisation models, such as that currently used in Portugal,” Denham further made clear.

The most pressing points

Leading drug law reformist Dr Alex Wodak considers the decriminalisation of personal possession, the regulating and taxing of recreational cannabis, and the expansion of opioid substitution treatment (OST) as the most significant recommendations.

The president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation also pinpoints the trialling of the use of the pharmaceutical-grade opioid hydromorphone for individual’s that haven’t responded to other OST as important.

“Many countries have adopted these approaches some time ago,” the doctor told Sydney Criminal Lawyers®. He added that others are “now seriously considering or have approved, but not yet implemented, a number of these policies”

“It’s important to remember that there is now a large and growing consensus that the war on drugs has failed comprehensively,” Dr Wodak continued.

The legacy of the prohibition

According to Dr Wodak, “deaths, disease and costs to the economy from cigarettes dwarf” those caused by all psychoactive drugs. Alcohol is next in line. And bringing up the rear are the harms caused by prescription and illicit drugs.

The drug law reformist posed the question as to why ice suddenly became so readily available in this country. Answer: “the lore of prohibition” is that “drug traffickers try to minimise the chance of being detected, so they try to traffic more powerful drugs that occupy smaller volumes.”

Alcohol prohibition in the US saw beer disappear “replaced by wine and spirits,” Dr Wodak outlined. But, as soon as prohibition was over, “beer reappeared.” And heroin became the replacement a decade after some Asian countries banned the smoking of opium.

The need for reform is drastic

“The more and the longer we press down on the drug market, the more dangerous the drugs in the market become,” the doctor stressed. “There is growing awareness that current policies are not just ineffective, but also dangerous.”

Indeed, in the face of all this evidence, let it be hoped that Victorian authorities heed the recommendations of the report, which have already produced positive outcomes elsewhere around the globe. And from there, the various Australian jurisdictions take the hint and do the same.

The long-awaited Victorian parliamentary Inquiry into Drug Law Reform report was released last week. The 50 recommendations delivered read like a checklist of proposals that drug law reformists and harm reduction experts have long been advocating for.

Significantly, politicians of all persuasions have recommended a much-needed sensible approach to illicit substances, in an acknowledgement that the intensified drug law enforcement approach that’s marked the close to fifty years of the war on drugs is failure.

Inquiry chair Labor MP Geoff Howard remarked in the forward to the report, that “there is growing recognition that a dominant focus on law enforcement strategies… has contributed to increased harms, such as overdoses and black market crime.”

Reducing youth harms

“We keep saying that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem, yet year on year the amount of drug arrests increases,” stressed Reason Party MLC Fiona Patten. “It is very clear that current policy isn’t working and the government needs to accept these recommendations.”

The inquiry recommendations include that Victorian authorities look towards decriminalising personal possession and use, trialling pill testing at events and removing drug detection dog operations at music festivals.

“At the moment, the war on drugs is a war on our young people,” Ms Patten continued. She explained that a third of Victorians under the age of 30 admit to using illegal drugs, and she doubts this figure is likely to change.

Swimming with the tide

Ms Patten initiated the drug law reform inquiry that received 230 submissions and held nine days of hearings. And she’s no stranger to sparking inquiries that have successful outcomes.

The Reason Party leader instigated the end of life choices inquiry, which saw voluntary assisted dying laws passed last November. And her private member’s bill prompted an inquiry, which saw the Andrews government agree to a trial of the Richmond medically supervised injecting centre (MSIC).

The positive outcomes produced by MSICs around the globe, as well as the Kings Cross injecting facility, are proof “that a progressive approach to drug law really works,” Patten made clear. Not only is the health of injecting drug users improved, but so is the amenity of the local community.

And the inquiry’s recommendations are in line with this type of reform. “We can limp on with our current policy or we can make some real changes,” Ms Patten explained, “by moving the focus of drug offences to health treatment rather than criminalisation.”

Recreational cannabis

The heavy-handed law enforcement approach to drugs embraced by Australian authorities began in the US, when Nixon launched the drug war in 1971. And further back, the prohibitionist system now enshrined in the UN drug conventions was also provoked by the States a century ago.

However, the use of pot for pleasure is now legal in nine US states. And Canada is set to legalise recreational cannabis later this year. The 23rd inquiry recommendation suggests investigating these developments with a view to implementing a system of legalised cannabis for “adult use” in Victoria.

Last year, the committee members paid a visit to Colorado, the first US state to sell retail recreational cannabis. Tax generated by the market has been funnelled into schools and health services. “The regulation of cannabis businesses in Colorado was inspiring,” Ms Patten recalled.

And patients who use medicinal cannabis will be glad to note that the inquiry recommends both the state and federal government slash the red tape preventing access to cannabis medicines, which despite being legal, are currently inaccessible to the vast majority of people who need them.

Opioid substitution therapy

The report states that “the main form of treatment for opioid dependence in Australia is opioid substitution therapy (OST), where the drug of dependence is substituted with controlled opioid medication, mainly methadone and buprenorphine.”

The inquiry makes a number of OST recommendations, including expanding access to treatments, that the government fund dispensing fees to remove barriers to access, and establishing a dedicated arm of government to oversee OST policy.

Ms Patten’s one misgiving is that the report doesn’t feature the Heroin Assisted Treatment program in Switzerland and Canada, which provides heroin to people, who don’t respond to OST. Evidence shows it’s a pathway to stopping, and 99 percent of Swiss participants stay clear of crime.

It’s not the first time

The Andrews government now has six months to respond to the report. Ms Patten believes “the political climate is right to embrace these recommendations.” And she points to the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis, when the federal government became a world leader in drug reform and harm reduction.

“Victoria has a chance to do the same with drug reform and the recommendations of the report give the government a fantastic foundation to build on,” she concluded.

Part 2 of the report on the Victorian drug law reform inquiry reflects on law enforcement proposals and the problems of prohibition.