I believe we need to take a leaf out of Portugal's book. Simply because they and their paradigm has proven vastly more successfully than our unending and growing war on drugs!

A war that has been going on for around 80 years with no possible victory in sight, ever just ever increasing cost and human toll! With no conceivable end in sight or a diminution in offenders,or the veritable tide of addicts!

Time for a new and vastly more rational approach that brings the overwhelming bulk of the community back onside.

That said, ice addiction can't be tolerated ever and the addicted need to be humanely incarcerated by law whether or not they are willing to comply, then treated as if their addiction was a health related matter.

The folks we need to go after, with every tool at our disposal, are the Mr bigs of the underworld, and one does that by following the money trail, rather than interrupting it, leaving these monsters to invent another way to remain a couple of steps ahead of self congratulating law enforcement and endlessly reoffend!

Law enforcement have, to be fair, done a good job stopping a single shipment this time!

And so the endless, pointless, war continues as does the ever increasing carnage, lost lives and property; and the monumental law enforcement bill!

And money far better directed at dealing with endemic and or post code poverty, if only to remove any economic incentive to earn an illicit income, as small time dealers/pushers, out of economic necessity?
Alan B.

Hi ALAN B...

I've been a copper for over 32 years ('til my retirement) more than half of that, as a detective sergeant. Most of what you say in your Post is correct. The one thing I have learned is; 'you can't arrest yourself out of this insidious problem'. It requires corroboration and co-operation from all the stake-holders, starting from government, the judiciary all the way down to the young 10 year old on the street.

In my humble opinion the first and one of the most serious 'logjams' in this war on drugs, would have to be the judiciary itself. All the way from the local Magistracy, up to and including the Supreme Court' for their continual failure to support police interdiction of drug legislation per se.

Hi Alan & O Sung Wu,

Frankly, I'm terrified about when Ice gets into Indigenous communities, i.e. remote communities, rural towns and outer suburbs, in a big way: that bust last week amounted to nearly two million hits - the entire lot could be carried by a truck into community after community under boxes of lettuce. A kilo - i.e. a million dollars' worth - could be carried in tucked in a small carry bag. Fifty thousand dollars' worth could be carried in a tobacco packet in someone's pocket.

I don't know what the effects of Ice, combined with alcohol, might be, but it can't be good news for women and kids in Indigenous communities. I have a brother who works in a psych ward and most of his most violent patients are on Ice. He's had numerous bones broken and tells me of horrific violence wrought on other staff too. Maybe they could all be dosed up with pot, just to calm them down: with a bit of luck, if it was provided free, they could become addicted to that instead, and just sit around giggling, instead of smashing all the furniture and anyone in the neighbourhood. Just kidding.

Cheers,

Joe

Perhaps if we stopped reviving those who had overdosed and just left them to die, their mates might get the message.

David

Hi David,

Yes, it was mentioned on TV a week or so ago that Emergency Wards seldom if ever get to treat anybody who has overdosed on marijuana. Would it be unethical if some prison or mental health authorities provided it free, and in quantities, to all inmates who had committed offences while on Ice, for the duration of their sentences ?

I suppose one problem would be that there would be so much of it in the air that the staff would be permanently half-stoned. But wouldn't everybody be happy ?

Cheers,

Joe

We need to make it harder for the middlemen, once convicted, a long drop on a short rope.

For goodness sake! There are no "Mr Bigs" but there are many many Mr Mediums that come and go. Absolute waste of time and we are attacking the wrong end of the problem.
Let's supply drugs to those that want them which would cost one thousandth of what we spend on the current system.
Addicts would have to be prevented from having kids and they can be buzzing or in a stupour for all I care. You lose your driving licence of course and if imprisoned it would only be stupefying drugs allowed.
I watched an Ice addict in the Melbourne Magistrates court give continuing employment to one Magistrate, one social worker,two lawyers and about four coppers! Wow wouldn't it be so much easier to give him what he wants and help him on his destructive path? As well as ensuring he could not keep the whole mess going with his kids.

J BOWYER...

There's quite a bit of legitimacy in what you've said - decriminalize most drugs, and provide meaningful treatment for those individuals who're hopelessly caught-up in the culture and use of illegal drugs per se. Gaol should only be mandated for the pusher and supplier - with life, without parole for the supplier. The pusher receives 25 years no parole, with a second offence attracting the same penalty as the supplier. Interestingly if you kill the head, the body will surely perish. Punishing the user alone gets you nowhere, other then entrenched resentment.

Ho hum...ice is way down the list of most pressing addictions. Alcohol leads the field of addictive damage by a country mile.
Statistics can lie of course, but here is one statistic for hospital treatments of addicts:

40 percent ....Alcohol
24 percent.....Cannabis
17 percent.....Methamphetamines (includes ice).
7 percent.......Heroin

As opposed to a common view, cannabis is quite problematic.
And most amusingly (on these pages), alcohol remains the darling drug of the masses!

I scoff

Clearly there are Mr Bigs and they should be handed to the Philippine or Indonesian Authorities, replete with a large sample of their illicit wares, for their more permanent remedy.

Some incredibly asinine folk think that all drugs are equal, when plainly they're not! Ice reducing the addicts to mindless, extremely violent, knuckle dragging netherendals!

Ask any Nurse in any psyche ward, or Ambo or ER Doctor!

Alcohol can lead to lifetime dependency and some serious health problems, violence and ultimate penury!

Heroin, on the other hand, only becomes a health risk when it is overused, or used in shared needles, but if keep in manageable (recreational) doses seems to impair little? Least of all cognitive ability?

And is very rarely accompanied by downward mood swings or violence? And who are (often high ranking, well-to-do) users from all walks of life, may surprise!

It's is mostly overdoses that kill? Party drugs not completely safe nor are magic mushrooms!

Marijuana may cause an acceleration in some psychosis/paranoia, but other than that comes with the same risks, it would seem, as also smoked addictive tobacco.

Medical cannabis seems, at first glance, to be useful as a medication for a number of conditions?

While I've sympathy for the decriminalization of most drugs, that can't ever include ice!

There are no happy ending nor benign results in it use! Just endless addiction and horribly altered dehumanized personalities!

We must get on top of this scourge and eliminate it at source!

And Mr Bigs, all of them, need a long drop on a short rope, or a swan dive from a chopper mid Pacific, minus the mae west! Elliot Ness, where are you? And but were there no Mr Bigs! Just shark bait!

Preferably before the courts and big money allow them back on the streets infecting our kids with their noxious poison!

Big money being more persuasive in poorer countries, with patently corrupt law enforcement and or jurisprudence than here!?
Alan B.

DIVER DAN I couldn't agree with you more! Alcohol has a far more injurious impact upon all demographics within society, than any other drug of dependency has. Purely because of it's availability, and this notion held by many of our young people, to become inebriated as cheaply and quickly as possible, thus removing any and all inhibitions one might have, as a consequence of their convoluted and impenetrable lifestyles. The additional benefit of being 'pissed' utterly out of your head, is an enormous release of both physical and emotional tension brought about, by their very busy lives.

Still DIVER DAN, though I completely agree with you, I think the thread was more precisely directed to the scourge of 'ICE' and other mind altering drugs. Drugs that seemingly have escaped all attempts, by the coppers and other authorities, from significantly curbing it's chemical constituents from being successfully imported into Oz? Your point nevertheless, is totally correct.

I sung wu..
Addictions are interesting phenomenas. There are heavy drinkers who are not addicts for example: and light drinkers who are addicted, that's also a phenomena of the drinking set.
I think alcohol may be losing out to new age drugs of addiction; a bit like the demise of the corner pub.

Of course the other sad addition to modern life, is its insistence on retaining our youths in a permanent cycle of education and training. It really appears to be an end in itself. There was once a thing called a job with a prospect: All pretty futureless and unfulfilling.
On the other hand, a high predominance of ice addicts appear among blue collar workers: Those with a future, one would think. Thus, Western Australia blips large on the ice radar.

What this drug epidemic, (and I include all drugs), signifies to me, is the end of the traditional Australian culture. This country has been re-engineered towards foreigners. Interestingly, the cohort taking the greatest advantage of the cultural shift in Australia, are the Chinese.
Paradoxically though, it's is the Chinese featuring as the main importers of the drug ice.

Seems to this little black duck, the Chinese are hedging their bets by hastening the end of any White oppositional culture.

Hi Dan,

The problem with Ice and some other drugs (maybe all of them) is that taking them are not victim-less crimes: Ice especially seems to pose a direct threat to bystanders, women and kids especially, on a scale much worse than grog usually does alone. Its use seems to be worse, and with more consequence, in areas where policing is difficult or non-existent, such as rural towns, and remote communities.

Of course, even kava, which it seems make you a bit dopey, day after day, would have terrible effects on mothers if it meant they couldn't care for their babies and young children properly, putting them in serious danger of malnutrition. I wonder what the Indigenous infant mortality rate is in communities where kava is common, and whether there has been a rise in mortality of young children from 'malnutrition', 'marasmus', 'failure to thrive' or some other euphemism for 'not feeding your kids', in step with the rise in kava consumption over the last thirty years.

So perhaps, where drugs are concerned, including grog, there are no victim-less rugs.

Cheers,

Joe

Personally I know alcohol is a scourge but we certainly allow it to be used. ICE is of course horrible but the real problem is that people want to take their drug of choice. We can mobilise the law, the police and the social workers but the real problem is that people WANT to take drugs.
Lets just let them. Jail the ones who are anti-social and then they can avail themselves of stupefying drugs and hopefully change to that drug when released. Then they sleep the lives away with less harm all round.
Have you not thought this destructive behaviour is more against them than others? We have wasted trillions of dollars (Literally) on trying to prevent what gets worse and worse and it has not worked.
A further thought give the drugs free but include a birth control component as well which should fix a lot of the continuing problems.