It is unfortunate that Prime Minister John Howard’s first public reaction to the Health Ministers’ tacit go-ahead for the heroin trial was on talk-back radio, particularly on Alan Jones’s talkback radio show. It is a show that panders to the instant opinion and the knee-jerk reaction. Talk-back of its nature is not profound, reflective or thoughtful.
The trouble with the problem of heroin addiction is that it has already defied the simple “”solution”: ban it and lock the users up. Heroin is killing between 500 and 600 people a year. Its prohibition is causing addicts to entice others to addiction to help finance their habit. It is also causing addicts to turn to crime to pay for a drug whose price has sky-rocketed with prohibition.
It is politically difficult for Mr Howard, when confronted by an interrogator like Alan Jones on talk-back radio to say anything favourable about a heroin trial. In that medium there is no time or opportunity to do into detail of fact or argument. To his credit, Mr Howard acknowledged that a lot of people in the community wanted the trial to go ahead, not least the friends and families of dead addicts who quite cogently argue they would rather have had their loved one alive using heroin than dead and abstaining. Mr Howard also stated that he was expressing his personal opinion when expressing opposition.
It would be better now if Mr Howard were able to allow his Health Minister, Michael Wooldridge to have the carriage of the matter. It is important for Australia that this trial gets a fair go. Mr Howard seems to have that view, despite his scepticism. That takes some courage.
It is also important that trials of detoxifying drugs proposed by other states be given a fair trial, as the Health Ministers agreed.