Analysis
Should drugs be banned, or should they be allowed in regulated quantities?
Yet the approach to dealing with drug use in Australia has splintered along two, at times, ideological lines—a similar fault line exists on how to deal with criminals and prostitution.
One side argues for “abstinence,” which calls for drug users to immediately go “cold turkey,” or delaying first use for as long as possible, with a person never touching illicit drugs in their lifetime, ideally.
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Such an approach aligns firmly with harsher penalties on drug use and crackdowns on drug dealing.
The other approach is “harm reduction.” It generally supports “diversion” programs away from prison onto health programs, concerned that a tougher approach will drive drug use underground.
“Proponents are seen to prioritise the harms of illicit drugs by facilitating ‘safe’ injecting rooms, methadone maintenance, and needle distribution for drug users,” Jan Kronberg, national president of the Drug Advisory Council of Australia (DACA), told The Epoch Times.
“This policy approach is centred on the prevention of harm, rather than the prevention of an individual’s drug use in the first place.”
A Short History
Under the current government, drug policy is centred on “harm minimisation,” which focuses on—demand, supply, and harm reduction.
Harm reduction came to the fore again after Kevin Rudd won government for Labor in 2007 and continues today.
How Harm Reduction Works
This means authorities can provide needle and syringe programmes (including injection rooms), therapy programs meant to wean users off opioid (such as taking methadone and naloxone), medicinal cannabis, and, more recently, pill testing.
But Shane Varcoe, chief executive of the Dalgarno Institute, said injecting rooms or pill testing programs, are at odds with other initiatives to curtail drugs, namely demand and supply reduction.
This approach encompasses delaying drug use, improving community knowledge, cutting illicit drug supply, and deploying heavy law enforcement.
Varcoe says legalising substance abuse has simply moved people’s addictions elsewhere.
“Needle and syringe exchange programs initially were to help people manage their intravenous drug use by using clean and or brand new syringes and needles, so that they are not reusing old ones—that quickly disintegrated into a needle and syringe distribution programs,” Varcoe told The Epoch Times.
“People can now be on opioid substitute treatments like methadone for decades. So we’ve got illicit use of an opioid, not for health reasons, but for maintaining an addiction framework,” Varcoe said.
Varcoe notes that methadone and opioid substitute programs can be useful if there is a sunset clause that exits users, while roadside and alcohol testing play a crucial role.
Harm Reduction Has a Place: Psychiatrist
Yet Dr. Tanveer Ahmed, a psychiatrist, said that harm reduction strategies have their roles, pointing to the needle and syringe programmes.
“The needle and syringe programs save lives. Opioid replacement therapy saves lives. The North Richmond Injection Facility in Victoria has prevented overdose deaths and managed thousands of overdose deaths,” he said via video conference at Victoria Parliament on Aug. 19.
“I think it’s intellectually dishonest to call that a failure. But we have to ask what happens next?” Dr. Ahmed asked.
“Keeping somebody alive is not the same as helping them recover.
“Sometimes, the enforcement pathway and the health pathway they don’t always mix or combine as well as they probably should in the place of addiction,” he said, likening harm reduction to a building.
“Harm reduction is the floor, treatment is the brick, but recovery—as a compassion to live an ordinary meaningful life—has to be the destination.”
What About ‘Abstinence?’
Professor John Toumbourou, immediate past professor in health psychology at Deakin University, told The Epoch Times that when he started working in the field in the 1990s, there was strong consensus that you could never get kids off all drugs.
“That turned out to be absolutely false,” he said.
“The other good news is if children don’t use alcohol and get intoxicated through the school age period, they’re much less interested in any intoxication later on,” he said.
“And now we have massive populations of young people who are not interested in using any drugs.
“So if you don’t use tobacco through the school age period, if you’ve never smoked, we have a very high probability that you won’t do that through the rest of your life,” he said, adding that this is applicable to other drugs.
Where to From Here?
Meanwhile, Kronberg said she believes the best approach is education during the school years, including “bipartisan long-term investment over decades in anti-illicit drug messages.”
“The horrors brought about by the legalisation of illicit drugs, in many states in the USA and now Canada, with some areas of cities verging on dystopia, are proof positive of the inherent dangers that await this nation if it is ever so foolish to follow those examples,” she said.
“The siren song of those who are advocating for decriminalisation and/or legislation of illicit drugs must be resisted at every front.”
Dr. Tanveer said parents can play a role helping kids understanding uncomfortable feelings and emotions.
“Sometimes the most important thing a parent can say is that, ‘You don’t have to feel good all the time, you can feel bad and still be okay,’” he said, adding that schools, sports, community, friendships, and meaningful responsibilities are important pillars for parents and children.
For young people, “delayed gratification” needs to be taught and appreciated so that drugs are not used as “reward technologies,” he said.
For adults with established addiction, treatment needs to be accompanied by incentives and consequences, Dr. Ahmed added.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing said that the federal government recognises abstinence as a “legitimate treatment and recovery goal for some people, particularly those experiencing dependence,” saying that different people may require different forms of support at different stages of their lives.
The spokesperson added that the federal government continues to invest in a range of prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction initiatives, including opioid dependence treatment and the Take Home Naloxone Program, to reduce alcohol and other drug-related harms and prevent overdose deaths. The Department did not say whether harm reduction has reduced drug-related harms and deaths over the past decade.
The Department has started to work with states and territories on the next National Drug Strategy.
