Drugs And Addiction

[Tom]

It's federal election time this year and I thought I would post the policy of the Australian Greens on drugs as they seem to have the best policy for mj users out of all the federal parties in the arena. It can be viewed with better formatting via the link to the source at the end of the post, you will need to click on the "policies" tab, just under Bob's picture at the top of the page.

 

6. Drugs and Addiction

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT'S ROLE

 

6.1 Principles

The regulation of currently illegal drugs should be moved outside the criminal framework.

 

In a democratic society in which diversity is accepted, each person has the opportunity to achieve personal fulfilment. It is understood that the means and aims of fulfilment may vary between people at different stages of their lives and may, for some people at particular times, involve the use of drugs.

 

Classification and regulation of drugs should be based upon known health effects with community education programmes to make factual information freely available.

 

Regulation should aim to maximise individual health and social safety and well-being.

 

Programmes operating among users of addictive drugs should focus upon harm minimisation and increasing their life options.

 

6.2 Goals

The Australian Greens will work towards:

 

more appropriate classifications for drugs based upon their effects upon health;

wide availability of relevant information about drugs;

decriminalisation of drugs;

making the connections between addictive drug use and wider issues such as suicide, unemployment, homelessness, lack of hope for the future;

solving these problems;

removing the focus on excessive drug use which is a symptom rather than a cause; and

widely available community-based counselling and support services for drug-users without condemnation, including adequate follow-up.

 

6.3 Short term targets

 

6.3.1 Illegal drugs

The Australian Greens believe that softer, less addictive drugs should be more freely available as in the Netherlands model, as research shows that such availability mitigates against the use of hard drugs.

 

The Australian Greens will work to immediately set in process the following:

 

a national approach to drug law and drug law reform;

an examination of the practices of police forces, with the aim of minimising drug-related corruption;

pilot programmes to test the effectiveness of supplying heroin to registered users;

an examination of methadone programmes in all states to assess health effects compared with the use of prescribed heroin, with the aim of reducing current anomalies and opportunities for abuse in existing programmes;

an extension of drug-free rehabilitation programmes;

allowing the regulated supply of cannabis at appropriate venues while disallowing other drugs;

the decriminalisation, leading to eventual legalisation of cannabis cultivation and possession for personal use, while monitoring the effects of this in relation to the health of young people; and

independent research into the effects of short and long term use of cannabis and other illegal drugs, including cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, LSD, ecstasy and other drugs as they appear in youth and other subcultures.

 

6.3.2 Regulated drugs

 

The Australian Greens will work to immediately set in process the following:

 

independent research into the effects and addictive properties of drugs commonly prescribed by doctors for a wide variety of causes from hyperactiveness in children to stress and depression in adults, with a view to greater restriction and regulation of those, such as benzodiazepines, found to have harmful effects;

mandatory labelling and verbal advice by doctors as to the effects and potential for addiction of prescribed drugs; and

continued independent research into food additives to ascertain their health effects, both short and long term, and ensuring the publicising of results.

 

6.3.3 Freely available drugs

The Australian Greens will work to immediately set in process the following:

 

taking all possible steps to reduce the 'cool' image tobacco and alcohol have, especially for young people; this will include banning advertising of tobacco and alcohol products and eliminating opportunities for sponsorship of tobacco products and restricting sponsorship of alcohol products;

ensuring that smoking does not endanger the health of others;

continued application of sales tax to tobacco products;

continued testing of alcohol levels in drivers with strong penalties for driving over the limit;

disallowing the use of drunkenness as an excuse to avoid retribution in crimes of violence and negligence;

continued restriction of sale of alcohol to people under the age of 18; and

treatment of people with drug-related problems.

 

6.3.4 Treatment of people with drug addictions

The Australian Greens will work to immediately set in process the following:

 

freely available treatment programmes with adequate follow-up; and

treatment programmes and facilities which sensitively cater for individuals within different groups, women and men, including older people, parents of children, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the young.

 

Source: The Australian Greens.

[Guest niall]

Also the WA Greens recently just joined up with the Federal Greens, so they're expecting to get a few more seats in the Senate this election.

 

Unfortunately for WA, Christine Sharp MLC is retiring and she's been the WA party's drug policy spokesperson. Drug policy isn't a top priority for the rest of the branch, though it's expected they'll refresh their policies and adopt the national ones at a State level too.

 

Everyone should vote for the Greens this year. Your vote really does count, number every box and put Liberal/National right down the bottom of your ballot and all of your preferences can be used by the Greens to gain that one extra seat or to put in someone sympathetic to our cause instead of an anti-pot prohibitionist Nazi!

[white_cluster]

man, I bought a can of SPAM and geez it tasted like shit, Im gonna write to the SPAM company and complain about the stuff, It reminded me of the SPAM that spurts outta my dick. anyway I learnt the SPAM lesson, I'll never buy SPAM again from now on, SPAM is shit, SPAM light is even worse, I tried making, SPAM burgers, SPAM rolls, SPAM cake, SPAM milkshakes, it was all shit. avoid SPAM. Edited April 13, 2004 by white_cluster

[Chev]

:: :: ::