A report to be released today by think tank Australia21 – which includes, among others, the Foreign Affairs minister Bob Carr – seeks to shake up the debate around drug policy in Australia.
The report claims that the war on drugs has been a failure, and that “the prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen”.
Across the world, there are increasing calls for policies that do not principally look at drug usage as a criminal issue, but rather as a question of health. Evidence is mounting that the decriminalisation of personal drug use does not lead to increases in usage, but instead dramatically increases the number of people seeking treatment for addiction, decreases disease transmission rates and hugely reduces the costs to the justice system of prosecuting and detaining personal drug users.
It is important to note that decriminalisation does not necessarily mean legalisation. Drug possession is still prohibited, but the difference is that rather than putting often already vulnerable people through the criminal justice system and into jails, people found with small amounts of illicit drugs instead have to attend counselling, rehab or something similar, and are often subject to a fine. Drug traffickers are still subject to jail terms and other penalties.
According to NSW Health, depending on the particular study, between 30 per cent and 80 per cent of people suffering a mental illness have a substance abuse problem. This is obviously linked to the high number of people with mental health issues going through the criminal justice system every year. Not only does the criminalisation of drug possession mean such people become more marginalised in society, finding it more difficult to find jobs and housing, but the fear of being caught means that they are less likely to seek treatment for the usually interlinked problems of mental illness and drug use.
It was 10 years ago that Portugal decided to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of drugs, and it has since enjoyed a marked improvement in drug-related problems. Critically, despite the drug usage rate staying more or less the same as pre-decriminalisation, Portugal has seen less teen drug use, fewer HIV infections, and fewer AIDS cases.
The biggest area in which positive changes have taken place is in treatment. The number of addicts registered in drug-substitution programs in Portugal has increased from 6,000 in 1999 to over 24,000 in 2008. By contrast, the number of Portuguese who claim they have taken heroin at least once before increased from just 1 per cent to 1.1 per cent between 2001 and 2007. Portugal has one of the lowest rates of marijuana usage in Europe, and use of most other drugs has fallen.
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David Donaldson is a Masters International Relations student at the University of Melbourne.
