March 10, 1998

From The Age

By Rachel Gibson and Gareth Boreham

letters@theage.fairfax.com.au

http://www.theage.com.au

 

DRUGS EXPERT BACKS COMRIE

The man who headed the State Government’s drug taskforce, Professor David Penington, has backed plans by Victoria’s police commissioner to soften the police stand against marijuana use.

Professor Penington yesterday praised remarks by Mr Neil Comrie, who said at the weekend that he was likely to order that people caught with small amounts of marijuana be cautioned. Professor Penington, who headed the Premier’s Drugs Advisory Council, said the taskforce believed there was a need to educate people about the dangers of excessive use of marijuana.

But in the meantime, young people "regard it as somewhat hypocritical when they are declared criminals for using marijuana when we know that alcohol abuse causes far more deaths".

Mr Comrie’s remarks about cautioning marijuana users followed a seven-month trial of the policy in Broadmeadows.

He also said he maintained an open mind about extending the policy to users of harder drugs, including heroin. In South Australia, first-time heroin users can avoid conviction if they agree to enter a rehabilitation program. South Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT have also decriminalised the possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use.

According to a report on illicit drugs by the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, 81 per cent of drug arrests last financial year were related to cannabis use and possession. This amounted to 69,136 arrests - almost 10 times the number for the more serious offences related to heroin use and possession.

It is estimated that a third of Australian adults have tried cannabis, which can be bought on the street for as little as $15 a gram.

Professor Penington said Mr Comrie’s proposal was a step in the right direction. "A war on drugs, which is in effect a war on drug users, can never succeed, as the traffickers just have too many ways in which they can bring the drugs into the country or manufacture them here," he said.

The director of the Turning Point drug and alcohol centre, Associate Professor Margaret Hamilton, agreed it was time to consider legalisation, as long as there were treatment options for people with cannabis-related problems and the drug’s effect on driving were understood.

The State Opposition Leader, Mr John Brumby, said Mr Comrie’s comments showed that the Premier, Mr Jeff Kennett, had failed in providing leadership on the drug issue.

Mr Brumby said the State Government had failed to respond adequately to the recommendations of the 1996 drug taskforce.

"It is an abject failure of leadership on Premier Kennett’s behalf that we have to have the chief commissioner of police in this state making that decision because the Premier lacked the courage to do it."

But a spokeswoman for the Attorney-General, Mrs Jan Wade, said the Government had enabled courts to allow first-time offenders with small amounts of drugs to undergo education programs.

After a long parliamentary debate in 1996, the Government accepted some of the recommendations of the Penington report but baulked at decriminalising the use and possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Mrs Wade’s spokeswoman said the Government had no plans to decriminalise cannabis, but that did not mean it would not be considered later.

March 10, 1998

From the Australian Associated Press

COMRIE WINS SUPPORT FOR DRUG CAUTIONS

VICTORIA police Chief Commissioner Neil Comrie today won strong support for a system of cautions to illegal drug users, after conceding that the hardline approach had not worked.

Mr Comrie said he was very likely to order police to caution rather than charge people found with small amounts of marijuana in a move to concentrate resources where they were most needed.

He also said he was not totally opposed to extending the plan to harder drugs.

Mr Comrie told The Age newspaper the usual hardline police approach had not worked and new ways had to be found to deal with the problem.

His proposal drew praise from the State Opposition and from the Australian Drug Foundation.

Mr Comrie said they would decide within the next two months whether to implement the caution plan, which has been tried out successfully in north-west suburban Broadmeadows.

"We will then start turning our minds to whether or not we ought to include other drugs in that program," Mr Comrie said.

"My position on that is that I have a totally open mind on it."

He said police were trying to direct resources "into areas of most concern where they will have the most impact".

Under the trial, people can receive no more than two cautions, must have no convictions for drug offences, must admit the offence and agree to being cautioned.

A state government spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the issue was a police matter under Mr Comrie’s discretionary powers.

Last year, the government amended the Sentencing Act so first-offenders coming before the courts charged with possession of small amounts of the five most commonly used drugs would be given an adjourned bond or an education and treatment order.

Australian Drug Foundation chief executive officer Bill Stronach welcomed the proposals, saying nothing was achieved by jailing drug users.

Mr Stronach also backed the possibility of extending the caution plan to harder drugs such as heroin.

"I think it’s very sound because it’s just a choice of drugs," Mr Stronach said.

"Why would you do it for people using marijuana, which is also illegal, and not for heroin or cocaine?"

Mr Stronach said the community would not like such a move, but he believed they would consider it a step forward in fighting the drug war.

The 1996 report by the Premiers’ Drug Advisory Council recommended police caution first-time offenders found in possession of heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, ectasy and marijuana, and refer them to a drug treatment service.

Second offenders should get an adjourned bond, the council said.

Opposition police spokesman Andre Haermeyer applauded Mr Comrie for his plan, saying the one dimensional, hard line law enforcement approach had failed.

"More police, more police powers and tougher sentences will, of themselves, not arrest the increase in illicit drug use," he said in a statement.

March 9, 1998

From The Age

By Lindsay Murdoch

letters@theage.fairfax.com.au

http://www.theage.com.au

 

THE TRAIL OF DRUGS THAT AFFECTS US ALL

When Neil Comrie took an interstate telephone call a few weeks ago he was expecting a friendly chat with a long-time friend.

Instead, the chief commissioner of the Victoria Police was devastated.

The friend’s 22-year-old son had come to Melbourne with his girlfriend for the weekend. The young man wasn’t a regular drug user and according to Mr Comrie was brought up in a decent family.

But during that weekend the man was offered some of the high-purity and cheap heroin that is easily available on the streets of Melbourne. He injected and died.

"We were given the job of conveying the message to his father that he wouldn’t be coming home," Mr Comrie says.

The chief commissioner says that during two decades working as a police officer he has been locked into a hard-line approach to drug users.

But he now admits the approach has not worked and "I have in recent years changed my mind quite considerably".

I ask Mr Comrie about people’s anger towards drug addicts who steal to feed their habits and how hard it would be to convince the public that offenders should get warnings.

"The real problem with that attitude is that it is families like them which are losing their children to drug abuse," he says.

"I know, for example, a number of very decent families who have done everything they can to provide a balanced and good upbringing for their children only to find that because of idiosyncrasies in that individual’s make-up they get involved in the drug scene and the next thing they are found dead somewhere," Mr Comrie says.

"I don’t really think that society can abandon anyone who tries drugs," he says. "There is an obligation on society to try to minimise the damage that they do but also the need to minimise the damage they do to themselves."

Mr Comrie says that with the benefit of hindsight "we would probably do everything differently" from the time the drugs problem started to escalate in Australia in the early 1970s.

"Previously we all looked in amazement at what was happening in the United States and the United Kingdom," Mr Comrie says. "Well it is now upon us and we really haven’t used our time wisely in dealing with this problem." (Ed. note: They might look with greater amazement at what is happening – and not happening in Holland.)