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The Forum > Article Comments > Off our tree on drugs > Comments

Off our tree on drugs : Comments

By Nick Xenophon, published 11/11/2005

Nick Xenophon argues the Swedes are showing us the way forward in dealing with drug abuse.

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Thank you, Nick Xenophon, for your informative and timely article.

For thirty years, young people in western societies have been bombarded by pro illegal drug propaganda in movies, magazines and pop songs which reinforced the message. "Do drugs, everybody does it."

This propaganda reached it's height during the 1990's when a host of youth oriented movies like Pulp Fiction, Clueless, and Trainspotting presented to the young and impessionable, that taking illegal drugs was for the cool and hip. The result of allowing our media to be the promoters of illegal drug abuse is now manifest in our rising suicide and lethal overdose rates.

If we as a society can understand that allowing cigarette companies to advertise their wares will lead to significant increases in the number of mainly adolescents from taking a dangerous and addictive drug like nicotine. How is it that we can not make the same connection when pop stars, (who are presented as the leaders of the young generation) openly endorse drug abuse to their young audiences?
Posted by redneck, Friday, 11 November 2005 9:00:16 PM
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Yes,but we should be talking about prevention rather then cures.

I find this whole rap sleazy culture of criminality and drugs disgusting,with it's protestations of social and ethic oppression as an excuse for all manner of degrading language,and reasons not to improve their intellect/attitudes.

Rap should have died an natural death years ago,but we have just played to the lowest common denominator,no talent,creativity,courage or real passion.
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 11 November 2005 10:24:55 PM
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Couldn't agree more with the two previous posts. The glamourisation of drug taking began with 60's pop culture which is a blight on a section of the baby boomer generation.

Civil libertarians are an ancient left-over of the "personal rights before community wellbeing" attitiude of the seventies and clearly,with the Bob Browns of this world, support the supposed "right" to be exposed to and use drugs. Anyone who supports the "sensible use" of drugs is subscribing to a nonsense. Its like the sensible use of explosives. Its bound to get out of hand.

And "Safe Injecting Rooms"? There is no such thing. How can you inject yourself with drugs "safely" ?

The only people who could use drugs sensibly are those who don't need them in the first place.

Any wonder Iran, Afghanistan and other anti-western nations are big suppliers.?
Posted by Atman, Saturday, 12 November 2005 8:04:02 PM
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The truth about using cannabis. I have been smoking cannabis for the last thirty years and on a nearly daily basis for the last twenty. I don't have any mental disorders and worked at mostly labouring jobs in that period.Because it naturally grows better quality in each new generation, I use a fraction of the amount I used to use to reach the same high. My habit costs me about $2 a day. I haven't used any other drugs because cannabis always allows me respite from the worries of the world, for a few hours anyway.Like alcohol, its effects only lasts a few hours. Unlike alcohol it can be detected in the blood for months. From experience I found that having more than one "session" a day is useless as it takes more to get the same high with each session in a day. I believe it is at this point where the unwary or impatient get caught in an ever increasing spiral of drug abuse. I have talked to many people while 'under the influence', including police,a judge and polititians and very few knew unless I told them. People who have known me for years know that my habit hasn't changed me one iota...........Perry
Posted by aspro, Monday, 14 November 2005 7:03:40 AM
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It is a rare occasion you here this amount of rubbish spew forth from one person's mouth.

FACT (further FACTS can be found here http://www.hepatitisc.org.au/resources/hepcreview.html):

"More than 800 needle services operate in NSW. Research demonstrates that they do not encourage drug use or act as “honey pots”. Nor do they interfere with the work of police, who support the program. Needle programs operate alongside, and not in opposition to, drug treatment services. Last year in NSW, about 6,000 drug users were referred to drug treatment programs and other health services by the program. Needle programs benefit the whole community. By preventing the spread of HIV among drug users, they also protect their non-drug-using sexual partners and children from becoming infected." http://www.hepatitisc.org.au/resources/documents/50_1.pdf
Posted by strayan, Monday, 14 November 2005 12:55:05 PM
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Atman: Blaming the "glamourisation" of drug taking doesn't make sense - it implies that anyone who found it glamorous is going to try it / use it / get addicted to it, which isn't the case. And the reason they're called "safe injecting rooms" is because there's no chance of contaminating others with the needles and it's in a controlled environment. It would be irresponsible not to have safe injecting rooms. Compulsory use of the safe injecting rooms would achieve more than zero tolerance because prohibition doesn't work.

Re the article: It's trying to say that drug taking is directly proportional to availability. I'm sure there's many other contributing factors, eg, age, welfare, education, rural v's urban, etc.

I'd like to see more information on how a direct comparison of drug use can be made between two countries that have two different welfare systems, different culture, different climates, different demographics, different geography
Posted by lisamaree, Monday, 14 November 2005 2:40:02 PM
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Sweden took a liberal "harm minimisation" approach to drugs in the mid 60's but it was not sucessful and in the 70's it switched to its current approach. It is one of the few western countries that have truely rejected harm minimisation, which probably accounts for its very low levels of illicit drug use. Whilst social and cultural factors must play some part in this sucess, you only need to compare Sweden to its near neighbour the Netherlands to see the results of a liberal drug policy.

Many people claim that prohibition doesn't work, and no doubt 1930's American style prohibition doesn't, but present day Sweden is proof that when properly implemented prohibition can be far more sucessful than harm reduction.

For more information on the Swedish approach see
http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/drugpolicyby/westerneurop/sweden/
Posted by AndrewM, Monday, 14 November 2005 7:08:49 PM
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Aspro has been smoking it for years and has noticed no ill effects,just like the frog simmering in the scientific beaker,his consciousness and clarity of mind will ebb away with each puff,and he will not realised the the reality of any convictions ,let alone the courage to fulfill them.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 14 November 2005 8:37:19 PM
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C'mon Guys, Is that the best you can do ? A couple of character assassinations !The C I A recently stated that there was around 4,000 acres of marijuana growing in Oz. If thats true then the second biggest cash crop,after wheat, in Oz can be grown entirely on one medium sized farm. Has anybody got the figures on how much taxpayers money has been spent on the prohibition world wide in the last fifty years ?
Posted by aspro, Tuesday, 15 November 2005 2:41:55 AM
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While Xenophon's article is an interesting comparison between Australia's experience with illegal drugs and Sweden's approach, I disagree with his conclusions. Despite some superficial similarities, there are some very basic differences between the two societies that impact upon the relative success of their approaches to drugs.

As the classic 'welfare State', Sweden had in place a robust and well-resourced health and community sector that was able to accommodate the prohibitionist reforms introduced in the 1980s. At precisely the same period, Australia's brief flirtation with the welfare State ended with the rise and rise of economic rationalism. Since then, our health and community sectors have steadily been eroded while our our prisons and police are ever better resourced.

Another difference is largely geographical. Although I understand that hydroponically grown marijuana is now popular, one reason that dope smoking was taken up by so many people in Australia is that it's so easy to grow in our climate. Also, our proximity to and increased interaction with Southeast Asia has meant that our illicit drug use patterns are quite different to those in northern Europe.

Despite the calls for more draconian approaches in the current increasingly authoritarian political climate, I think that this genie's well and truly out of the bottle. I also think that the only approach that has any hope of success in our society is that of harm minimisation combined with regulation of currently illegal drugs, in much the same way that we have approached e.g. alcohol and tobacco.

We should legalise, regulate and tax heavily all drugs that are currently illicitly produced, distributed and consumed, while simultaneously providing educational and diversionary programs for those who can't regulate their own drug use. The alternative is more crime, more gaols, overworked and frustrated police and courts, and the criminalisation of thousands of otherwise harmless people.
Posted by mahatma duck, Tuesday, 15 November 2005 7:18:29 AM
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Guess who's back! (very temporarily)

Yeah, drugs are bad. Really damaging to your health and society in general. In particular: alcohol and cigarettes. Any coincidence that they cause more death and illnesses than most of the others combined? And do very little that's positive to our senses? Well, maybe. But they're definately far worse than weed, MDMA or LSD.

Oops! Stated the obvious. Good thing it's those ones that are illegal though. Imagine if it were the other way round! So much less cancer and domestic violence. Instead it'll be all peaceful and open minded, with respect and love and...urgh, don't even want to think about that world. I'm glad we've been told which drugs to take and which ones not too. They obviously know what's best for us.

Hi red! Red, do you drink? If you do, then you're a hypocrite and your as bad as the rest of us. Drugs have been a part of humanity for longer than you would ever care to know.

Um, yeah, hi everyone, just stopped back here on my way out. About to go...you know...break the law, by enjoying my mind, body and soul. Connect emotionally and mentally in ways that most wouldn't realise was possible. Enjoy life to the fullest, without hurting a soul, in other words. You can see why there's laws against people like me.

Peace guys
Posted by spendocrat, Friday, 2 December 2005 7:58:15 PM
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No one has mentioned the causes and precursors of drug use. I do not agree with the Swedish approach. I will declare my interest as a regular [intravenously adminstred] narcotic and amphetamine user.
Posted by Inner-Sydney based transsexual, indigent outcast progeny of merchant family, Monday, 16 January 2006 5:44:24 PM
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I did some checking and found that around a hundred years ago, one could purchase over-the-counter from pharmacies various tinctures of opium, one was called laudanum. Several of these contained 3,6-diacetylmorphine HCl, which is better known as 'heroin'. They were famed for their powers of providing both analgesia and sedation to the infirm, as well as used by others to achieve euphoria and sedation. Subsequently, the Americans introduced the Harrison Act prohibiting the importation of narcotics and other laws relating to their sale and limited importation by pharmacy companies. The United Nations formed the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) which is covertly dominated by the US, as the UN is generally dominated by the US. Foreign aid to Asian countries by the US has been tied to demands by them that they press on with narcotic prohibition.

The proposal by Xenopophon amounts to a measure of social control and social engineering on the same scale that prohibition was. Why is the same measure not proposed against say, alcohol 'abusers'. What is a drug 'abuser', is that any person who uses an illicit substance, or simply a person who is dependent on it. Many persons are dependent on alcohol and consume alcohol in quantities that doctors say are clinicaly hazardous, but we never hear alcohol and 'abuse' in the same sentence as often. I'm concerned that the term 'abuse' is morally a loaded one and lacking in clinical merit.

More people are killed by the use of alcohol or tobacco or its consequences. Most of the social problem of illicit substances is related to their price, a direct byproduct of their prohibition. The FBI found that early 20th century alchol prohibition failed, and it was ended by the government.
Posted by Inner-Sydney based transsexual, indigent outcast progeny of merchant family, Friday, 7 April 2006 1:36:57 PM
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They say cannabis is a 'dangerous'drug. After smoking it for thirty years,I'm yet to discover the dangerous side of cannabis use. Of course, getting arrested for possession is a wealth hazard but other than that I function the same as anybody to this day. Cannabis use did not lead me on to other drugs. There are limits on alcohol sales in aboriginal communities due to alcohol abuse.Maybe that should be extended country wide. If I do happen to smoke too much cannabis in one session, all I want to do is sleep.I have never even experienced this a hangover using cannabis. Where is the danger in cannabis use ? What specifically is cannabis abuse?
Posted by aspro, Saturday, 8 April 2006 8:41:21 AM
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