Govt Faces New Battle Front On Drugs

[Oz]

Federal Justice and Customs Minister Chris Ellison says the latest illicit drug data report shows that amphetamines have become the latest front in the war on drugs.

 

Senator Ellison released the Australian Crime Commission report for 2002 and 2003 at a drugs conference in Alice Springs.

 

He says although there has been a fall in the number of seizures of cannabis, heroin and cocaine possession has increased.

 

But Senator Ellison says the most alarming figures were for amphetamines.

 

"We also have an increase in amphetamines, increase in domestic manufacture of amphetamines and use of amphetamines and an increase in attempts to try and bring amphetamine-type stimulants into Australia," he said.

 

"That is the new challenge to us in relation to illicit drugs and it's a war that we've just got to continue to fight."

 

He also says the harmful effects of cannabis in remote areas should not be forgotten in the war on drugs.

 

He says moves to ease cannabis laws in South Australia and Western Australia will encourage a boutique cannabis industry and organised crime at a local level.

 

"It certainly seems to be an issue in Indigenous Australia and that's something that concerns me," he said.

 

"The statistics that alarm me from the Australian Crime Commission report are the... increased demand for amphetamine-type stimulants, but cannabis is an issue and the Federal Government is of a view that the steps taken by the Western Australian Government and South Australian Government are inappropriate."

 

By Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Date: 07/05/04

Source: ABC Online

Copyright: ABC 2004

[Luke Skywalker]

Wow, who woulda thought that when you disrupt supply of one drug of addiction, another has an explosion in supply to compensate?

 

These people are either very very stupid, or the most evil kind of bastards imaginable, the kind who would sell your children if it made a profit.

[jonbrown]

what a load of shit... Federal Justice and Customs Minister Chris Ellison = idiot.

War on drugs = joke.

 

Use the money on decent shit ya wankers, like education, hospitals and transport n roads n shit,

 

What's so fuckin new abt comercial amphetamine producers and supplyers? hasnt that kind of thing been going on for like decades now? bikers have been doing that stuff for yrs. wow...