Two MPs called on the Federal Government yesterday to make heroin and other opiates available on prescription to addicts.
The Member for Eden-Monaro, Jim Snow, and the Member for Perth, Ric Charlesworth, said urgent action was need to combat the organised crime and the health and social problems association with drugs.
Mr Snow told the House that prohibition had led to black markets, violence, greater spread of AIDS, enticement of young people into drugs, murder and crimes by addicts to support their addiction.
He said prohibition had failed. There were more addicts now than before prohibition. For 25 years law-enforcement agencies and prohibition policies had failed to stem the drug problem. Indeed, they had made it worse.
Addiction should be solely a health problem, not a crime problem as well. With the drugs available on prescription, addicts would have a better chance of controlling their habit and their lives.
At a press conference at Parliament House yesterday a different approach was being taken by the executive director of the UN International Drug Program, Giorgio Giacomelli. He said the evolution of human society had made conditions so unpleasant that humans were attracted to the anaesthetic of drugs, according to the
Mr Giacomelli was responding to the question of whether prohibition drug policies created the market for drugs that would otherwise not be there.
Mr Giacomelli said the question led into deep waters.
“”It is more complex than that,” he said.
The drug problem was the downside of the evolution of our society. It was a more open society where capital and goods could freely circulate. But family and religious taboos had broken down. The size of cities had grown. These circumstances were conducive to some anaesthetic to support humans in their uncomfortable state. At the same time advances in pharmacology made more powerful drugs available to provide this anaesthetic. This state made it easier for traffickers who were after the easy dollar.
It was not a normal market. With the huge amounts of money in it, traffickers could manipulate the production and use of drugs.
“”In this market, every customer is also a promoter of the product,” he said, “And traffickers took advantage of it.”
They created markets where they previously did not exist.
Mr Giacomelli said traffickers took advantage of unstable political situations and sought alliances with political movements in some countries, especially guerillas in Latin America. He said drug production was high in places where civil control had broken down. Lebanon, Afghanistan and some countries in Latin America were examples.
Some ethnic groups were now totally dependent upon drug production. The hill tribes in the Golden Triangle, Pakistan and the Andes were good examples.
The UN program had been set up because there was no way single member states could succeed against traffickers who operated transnationally. The UN was able to become more active in the post Cold War environment when the UN role in general was expanding in matters of transnational concern: the environment, migration, telecommunications and drugs.
Australia was playing a major role beyond its population size in UN activities aimed at suppressing the drug trade.
Mr Giacomelli saw progress in legislative changes and institution building. The anti-drug conventions had been ratified more quickly that other UN treaties. But it was not just a question of changing legislation. “”There has to be a change of culture,” he said. “”Bank secrecy should not be allowed to cover the drug trade.”
He admitted that the drug trade and the number of users was growing.