The Federal elections later this year will test all political parties not only on what they do, but how they organise things and how the public sees reality from myth. Parties will review policy in a scramble to win votes.

Drugs harm minimisation could polarise progressives in Sydney trying to weigh what is responsible, and what most people appear to want.

Bob Brown from the Greens has now spoken up backing Rudd's plan to ban drug implements and to criminalise drugs. Such a shift is not comfortable with the Greens.

In Sydney, in the front line of problems like the Crystal Meth epidemic, harm minimisation expert Alex Wodak from Saint Vincent’s Hospital Sydney has affirmed that simply criminalising drugs like Crystal is not working. Sydney Greens are backing harm minimisation experts in a health approach rather than a legal approach to try and remedy the problem. What ever we are doing now, we are failing.

So as Bob Brown announces that the Greens are joining the legal war against drugs and wants to affirm criminalising them, joining forces with Rudd, the Greens from other states are not happy.

There will be an open forum at Wayside Chapel next week at Kings Cross:

DRUGS: WHEN BAD POLICY IS GOOD POLITICS FORUM
Speaking Out At the Wayside
Tuesday April 24 6.30pm until 8.00pm
Speakers Dr Alex Wodak, Lee Rhiannon and Tanya Plibersek.
The evening's objective is to educate and inform the general community of the issues, solutions and the impact of political sensitivities/outcomes on those solutions.

What does this forum think about the Greens policy. Should it change or stay? Would it make a difference in how you vote?

Bit of a shift isn't it? but will it matter?
Greens are not going to do so well in this election, the need to remove Howard will have its impact.
In booths greens did not want preferences to go to Labor in this state election 1 in 3 went straight back to the ALP.
Largely a party of the youth now policy's that bring them on board very much push others away, the party will poll badly in a race Australia knows is very much two party this time.

I intend to read further on the Greens new policies, so I'll reserve comment until then - but I am disappointed if Bob Brown has in fact turned away from their harm minimisation policy as you say. The Greens position has always strongly been that drug addiction is a health and social issue, not a legal one, which I agree with 100%. If you're right, who's this stoner gonna vote for?

The shift is not fait-accomplait yet Spendocrat but I can imagine the pressure is there. Bob Brown is technically not the leader of the Greens per se, he is just the parliamentry Green Senate leader. He needs concensus from the party to back his media releases. With the actual party, he is the "spokesperson" of the party and he but cannot dictate policy change. It is interesting that the party may not necessarily back Bob Brown on this issue.

With the issue of preferences, most Green seats to my knowledge didn't direct preferences away from labor at all. Its just that there were no preferences given to any party and voters decided themselves. You can only guess where Green voters put their preferences.

The federal system is a different system as you know. So minor parties do have to be more upfront about preferences and so do the major parties. There is still a long time before the election and it is too soon to rule out the significance of other parties than the usual 2.

Meanwhile, in this drug debate, a policy that has become the weapon of choice that the Liberals always fire against the Greens, may vanish, or it may stay. If the Greens drug policy vanishes, will the Liberals find yet another issue to frighten away voters in a negative campaign? Of course this is politics, not a nice club for gentlemen. The Liberals behave with less Westminster ettiquette than any other party. The irony is their thuggish behaviour is reactionary in US Presidential style, not conservative in a traditional Westminster style. The days of conservative gentlemen are over. Now we just have mad cowboys.

It could well be that people look again at the harm minimalisation policy and learn that harm minimalisation can only be resolved by health authorities.

I wont hold my breath.

I don’t even know what the ALP policy is – I tried to find their policies on their website and couldn’t find a thing. I wrote to them to find out what their policy was specifically on Medical Marijuana and they haven't got back to me.

I think it would be a dreadful thing if the Greens adopted a prohibitionist approach because it marks a reversal of philosophy and that, dear friends, would be the end of that

Actually, saintfletcher, the relevant quote from Bob Brown's media release stated:

"Mr Rudd's proposal to ban the importation of all drug paraphernalia used to ingest methamphetamines, prohibit the sale of pseudoephedrine to minors and ban the sale of pseudoephedrine over the internet are all strategies which will immediately help this growing problem", Senator Brown said.

Not exactly "Bob Brown from the Greens has now spoken up backing Rudd's plan to ban drug implements and to criminalise drugs." is it, now?

It seems to me that these are all quite sensible measures that don't conflict with existing Greens drugs policies, which of course have long been the most sensible, achievable and humane offered by any Australian political party :)

Check out the thread on Greg Barns' article today on this topic for a broader discussion of rational approaches to drugs policy.

You are right Rob, the ALP doesn't have a clear harm minimisation drugs policy at all. This is what we assume the Greens federal senators are suggesting that the Australian Greens Party adopts. Less is better as it doesn't confuse anyone. The only difference between the Greens and the major parties is that the other parties demonstrate Greens policy without having policies, and the Greens wear the policy on their sleeve. The outcome is similar. Yet the "war on drugs" is a smokescrean to give more police powers and funding. Insurance companies like this, it looks good on paper.

It will be interesting what Tanya Plibersek, MP for Sydney ALP has to say on Saturday at the Wayside Chapel. It is possible that Tanya Plibersek might also back harm minimalisation experts from St Vincents Hospital. In this seat, it would be the popular choice. If so, this could become a cross partisan debate between Sydney representatives and representatives from other parts of Australia.

In this part of Sydney, we are confronted with more drug users than anywhere else in Australia. We have more stakeholders here trying to remedy the problem.

Residents who have to live with failed police tactics. Residents in Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay (2011, 2010) know how bad it is when you can't even trust your own police. When the war on drugs fails, all you have left is a messy war zone.

This is going right out on a limb, but might just appeal to voters:

1. Criminalise drugs but have minimal consequences for all but dealers. (eg, register of drug users based on being caught with them or in your system, police followup check on a random basis to retest and search for drugs - say 5 vists in the following year and 2 the year after)

2. Skip the next tax cut and use the money to offer a bonus to the drug-free. Say $1000/pa if you have never been convicted of using drugs, $500 if have have been but have been clear based on the random checks for 2 years and nothing if not clean.

Not massive amounts of money invidually, but rewards those who do the right thing, and gives incentive to get back on track even if you do slip up. Probably affordable if you limit it to those over 16 (think of those that experiment between 16 and 18) and those under 65 (anyone older is old enough to be responsible for themselves).

Repeat offenders would wholly disqualify themselves if they were caught using say more than 5 times in a lifetime.

If used in conjunction with other measures this could be quite effective, and if it saves money in the health system and eventually in policing and jails, then will go a long way towards paying for itself.

How about just hanging dealers, after a fair trial of course.