The only way to get criminals out the very lucrative illicit drug trade is to decriminalize it! The war on drugs has been raging for the best part of a century with no end in sight and has taken more lives than two world wars.

And overloaded our prison with folk who were not hardened criminals upon entry but most certainly were when they exited! Addiction is a medical problem not a criminal problem and needs to be treated in a medical environment!

We applied commonsense to the sex worker trade and allowed those who chose that to be free to ply their trade. And in the process ended much police corruption and criminal behaviour. Ditto abortion!

The same commonsense behaviour must be applied to illicit drugs! And for similar reasons. Leaving police resources to focus on actual criminal behaviour and real crime!

For laws to operate, they must be enforceable. We didn't criminalize tobacco nor alcohol But, we did criminalize the use of heroin and other opioids, even though they were totally benign and had no long-term health issues. In fact, some cancer patients claimed that pure heroin was far more efficacious than morphine and dramatically extended survival rates!

Taking certain classes of firearms from law abiding gun owners did nothing more than increase the trade in illegal firearms. And did not make gun fearing Pollies or anti-gun activists any safer, arguably, just the opposite!

Extreme right-wing politician have always touted law and order issues and their policy paradigm and have gotten away with it, because joe public was simply too ignorant to understand how hollow those policies were or how unenforceable they were or how much official corruption they engendered!
Alan B.

If drug addiction is to remain a criminal offence, then it must also apply to all addiction, and ought include gambling addiction nicotine addiction and alcohol dependency.

If all dependency/addiction also included large government revenue streams, then that would pay for the medical rehab addicts need to get off their addictions. And the legalization of illicit drugs would take all the reasons drug barons get kids on drug addiction as customers for life.

It would also take much drug related criminal behaviour away, given drug related crime to obtain drug money would no longer prevail.

Nor would family unity be rent asunder and valuable real estate loss be required to pay for rehab or extended addiction! Often resulting in financial ruination and or bankruptcy for folk who did nothing wrong!

Making addiction to some addictive substance and not all is an injustice for those addicted to illicit substances or other addictions that don't include government revenue is massive injustice that cannot continue!
Alan B.

This one is a Ho Ho .

The current approach needs little changing. One positive change would be giving the Police authority to resell confiscated drugs back onto the black market, copying methods used in similar Banana republics: That’s a move with beneficial outcomes to the beleaguered taxpayer.

Thirty percent of the Australian economy is estimated to be illegal and under the radar, of which the illegal trade in drugs adds significantly. There’s plenty of money in them there hills, and the directions of its profits are well established and defended.

Trading in illegal drugs is also the survival method of the poor; r3moving that source of income will only more cripple the poor, with the inevitable consequences falling onto the shoulders of taxpayers in obvious ways.

And poor o’l Al B talking to madness again instead of “of” it, sadly believes decriminalisation of prostitution was a good thing, well sorry Al, no it wasn’t!

Dan.

A non-military National Service would rid the young of their parents' mentality & make them want to give drugs a miss !
People would be surprised how discipline, self-respect etc would hit drug use over the head !

No medical aid for drug abusers would also thin out the moron gene pool !

Drug addiction starts with the very young innocents and gifts of free feel-good C.R.A.P. And once addicted, a customer for life, and even a loyal soldier for the crime lord.

If the criminal element got no return from their illicit trade!? That trade would dry up and there'd be no point getting kids addicted!

Getting innocent and trusting kids addicted, something victim blaming Dan and Satan's servants agree with! And education is the answer as things stand.

Leaving things as they are is not an answer as is any more lives sacrificed on the altar of the illicit drug trade!

Decriminalizing prostitution also resulted in corrupt cops losing their (meal ticket) hold on fallen women and the cash they earned by turning a blind eye or even pimping for "their" girls! But one can only assume, deadbeat Dan and co., wanted this source of illegal income to continue for corrupt cops? Given that was the actual outcome.

Decriminalizing abortion didn't increase the abortion rate but did result in far fewer deaths at the hands of backyard butchers!

Simply put, unenforceable laws tie up police resources and our courts. With no change to the status quo and criminal incomes or fewer addicts!

Devil's advocates need to be sidelined and their mad hatter opinions ignored. Drug users are not the problem, but drug lords are. If this illicit trade was to dry up, Taliban and co., would lose all the income they use to prosecute their wars and fund their terrorist activities.
Alan B.