For over a year, a public enquiry has been sifting through the options available to set a new stance in this unwinnable drug war. Its four volume findings have been handed down and contain careful input from the very people who oversee the failed law and order approach to keep drugs out of our society, together with suggestions for a new approach that has the support of public opinion.
Before this report is even examined by parliament, the premier has dogmatically declared that her government will not decriminalize drug use and the police are baying that there will be no change to the law and order approach.
Why spend public money on a special enquiry tasked with finding an approach that actually works when the governments mind is made up that change will be rejected ? The premier is suggesting that toying with the criminal penalties will be her solution and this will probably take the form of a " three chance " system.
People caught with illicit drugs for the first time will be released with a warning. second and third offence will involve a small fine, and after that will come a court appearance and prison.
Many parts of the world are legalising Marijuana but that seems to be off the table. Drug testing at music festivals has overwhelming public support but is dogmatically rejected and the police insist on parading sniffer dogs and inflicting humiliating strip searches on patrons entering music festivals.
Our prisons are cess pools of disease because of needle sharing. Drug use is rife in our prisons and all forms of control have failed. We give free needles to the junkies on our streets and yet extending a similar programme to the incarcerated is rejected out of hand.
The average age of a member of the New South Wales parliament is over fifty and it is this mind set that will make decisions on drug use. They don't seem to understand that party drugs are now an integral part of the lives of the younger generation and despite numerous police busts, we are no nearer stopping the inward flow coming in over our borders. The huge profits to be made mean that sophisticated crime gangs will bribe their way into this country. Despite the best efforts of the police, drugs are readily available on our streets.
The main cause of drug deaths are incompetent drug cooks selling concoctions of unknown strength at music festivals. Most of the patrons take drugs and survive and that is not going to change because most of the drugs on sale are at a safe level. It is in the interests of the drug trade to sell a " safe " product.
If drugs were legal, no doubt some people would abuse them in the same way that alcohol is abused. Young people insist on achieving a " high " that requires some sort of stimulant and all the present drug laws achieve is to deliver handsome profits to the illegal drug traders - and prison to the ones that get caught, and it seems that this unhealthy cycle is destined to go on forever because the state parliament is too stupid to listen to public opinion and too frightened to make meaningful change.
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