Drugs minus crims gives users chance

[grace]

AUSTRALIAN politicians are responsible for the gross profits in illegal drugs and could remove the profits tomorrow by legalising drugs and end the black market.

 

Of course all drugs are dangerous, but making them illegal makes them more dangerous as the dose and content is in the control of people whose only motive is profit.

 

In 1998, all state health ministers agreed to an ACT trial allowing addicts access to unadulterated drugs at near-to-cost price, or free.

 

But the plan was vetoed by then-prime minister John Howard.

 

Many addicts resort to crime to support their habit. Most property crime is drug-related.

 

The profit margin from grower to street is about 3000 per cent. As long as drugs are illegal the gross profits will guarantee supply and risk-taking, despite any "war on drugs".

 

Australia's bikie wars and Mexico's 7000 deaths in 15 months of drug wars prove that while there is money and demand, drugs will flow. In the past 10 years, drug production has doubled worldwide. The illegal market means unidentified drugs resulting in predictable, preventable overdose deaths. In one year, I had 11 patients die from preventable overdoses.

 

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said the Taliban is funded by Afghanistan opium. We could make a profit by selling Tasmanian opium and bring our troops home. Wars never stop humans seeking relief through drugs.

 

Only one person can stop someone using drugs, and that is the user themself. Politicians who get votes out of "getting tough" are hanging on to power by denying that truth - there are votes in fear.

 

About 80-90 per cent of people in prison have an alcohol or drug problem. Prison is the most expensive, counter-productive way to respond to addiction because addicts don't live in a world of consequences but rather in a world of instant gratification. Hence, a threat of more time in jail or the risk of death doesn't influence them to quit.

 

I have resuscitated an overdosed man in jail in the morning only to see him overdose the same afternoon.

 

While society focuses on external control and punishment and policies of prohibition that, in some countries, result in execution, we end up with individuals pushed into undercover lives. This kills the very honesty that could see individuals ask for help.

 

In Switzerland, a trial involving giving heroin to addicts resulted in a decreased reliance on crime. It allowed the drug recipients to feel valued and to ask for help, and get it.

 

Instead here we criminalise addicts, kill parent-child communication through stigmatising addicts and offer adolescents a vehicle of rebellion.

 

We must get honest if we are to stop the denial that goes with the dependency that creates addiction. I tell my patients: "Relief through honesty or heroin, choose your H."

 

I have witnessed 18 suicides in addicts who felt worthless and hopeless after trying and failing to get off drugs in a world that says you are "cool" if you can handle those drugs but "uncool" if you are under the table or in the gutter.

 

My working definition of an addict is: "An addict is a valuable person who doesn't know it and seeks relief through the short-cut of drugs to a dead end."

 

Non-users wouldn't start using just because drugs were legal. They already value their life and health and that wouldn't change. We need to legalise all drugs and tax them and provide education at the point of sale.

 

We need to use all the millions of dollars of taxes - including the taxes collected from tobacco and alcohol - to help those who have addiction problems and we need to educate about the dangers of all drugs.

 

We need to stop all drug advertising.

 

Currently we have a system is which users use, dealers profit and society pays. I want to see a society in which users use and users pay and only legalising drugs can do that.

 

People who say legalising drugs will make them more available are blind to the fact that now you can get home-delivery, 24 hours a day, sometimes on credit. Free samples are provided from "friends" until users are addicts. That "communion" of non-judgmental drug sharing can contribute to addiction when society rejects you for using.

 

Condoning and condemning are the language of judgment. I don't choose to do either. I'm anti-drugs but pro-life.

 

Dr Wendell Rosevear has worked in addiction recovery and prisons since 1975 and founded the Gay & Lesbian Alcohol and Drug Support Group in 1991.

 

Author: Dr Wendell Rosevear

Date: 3 April 2009

Source: Courier Mail

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...5018883,00.html

[pixiemb]

great article - if only more could see the truth ... prohibition only causes worse issues than those being prohibited

[MrMcDizzle]

The Govt. would make a mint from the taxation of Cannabis alone. No doubt about that.

Personally, I would rather see the profits from the money I spend on drugs go towards funding schools/hospitals/roads ect. as opposed to the possibility of it funding organised crime.

[bufo marinus]

That's the most logical article I can ever recall reading in a news paper from a doctor on this subject, what a pity most logical people here and elsewhere have been saying the same thing for years with no one in mainstream media willing to endorse this view and take up the challenge to the government.

Top marks for laying the blame squarely at the feet of greedy vote grabbing, deceitful, ignorant, parasite politicians

[luciddreaming]

Yes it is sad this never goes mainstream.

Do you think a newspaper like the Age would let me write an article about it?

Maybe people have just never tried?