Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, May 1, 2002.


DRUGS WAR A FUTILE FARCE


IN MY solitary year of studying Applied Chemistry in 1970, it dawned on me that lysergic acid diethylamide was almost easier to make than to say - that's LSD to you and me, baby, the chemical of psychedelic dreams. Our lecturer never actually taught us how to make LSD but its chemical formula was plain to see and, even for a plodding first year student like me, the production process could be deduced quite easily. Yet I never made LSD for much the same reason that I never tried it either, or heroin, or cocaine or any of the so-called designer drugs such as amphetamines or Ecstasy. Cowardice. No promise of chemically-induced pleasure could overcome my fear of taking something that had been blended in someone's back shed and adulterated with whatever else happened to be handy. My job eventually brought me into contact with the real life narcotics industry - I use the word ``industry'' quite deliberately - and I met people who were later to die of drug overdoses, including a cousin whose death broke everyone's heart and crushed the fun out of her parents. One time, my place was broken into by a heroin addict and his prostitute girlfriend who stole my laptop and VCR to fund their habits, and he died of an overdose not long afterwards. So it goes. For all that, I have reached the stage now where I think all drugs should be legalised. All drugs. I must be out of my mind suggesting such a thing but to my way of thinking, the minute a drug is made illegal, the black market booms and the drug-crime cycle begins. And then the rest of the ``drug industry'' clunks into gear - police, health and welfare workers, lawyers and politicians, judges and jailers - all at a national cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. A ship of fools. Not only is the ``war on drugs'' ineffective, it is a futile waste of money, scandalously so given the way the ``war'' is used for self-serving ends by our politicians. Even the head of the National Crime Authority has admitted the drug war is lost, which rather begs the question: Why we are persisting with a policy that is such an expensive failure? Makes no sense to me. Anyone who suggests that cracking down harder on drugs is the answer must be suffering delusions of denial. The drug producers and smugglers love prohibition because it increases their profit margins without much increasing their risks of capture. Some people will try drugs, some won't, but very few, say no more than 2 per cent, will become problem addicts. Decriminalising hard drugs will make no difference to the addiction rate. The addicts need to be treated as if they have a medical condition not a criminal one, in clean, supervised heroin injecting rooms, if needs be. Premier Mike Rann has promised to hold a drug summit in June, which is all well and good. But, as I understand it, heroin injecting rooms will not be on the agenda. Why not, Mike?