Judge’s call: make drugs legal
A former ACT Supreme Court judge has called for the legalisation and regulation of drugs in Australia.
Ken Crispin QC makes the call in his new book The Quest For Justice.
“It was an evolution over a long period of time,” Crispin told Sydney Star Observer. “I began thinking that the present approach of prohibition was the right one, but I gradually came to see through being constantly confronted by court cases that it wasn’t working.
“I began to feel the appropriate response was to concentrate on dealers and to try to keep as many users out of prison as we possibly could.
“I came to realise that the present approach was simply failing. As much as we would all like to see the flood of drugs halted, it isn’t being halted, and increasingly I was hearing senior police officers talking candidly about the fact that we were not stopping the flood of drugs into Australia.
“Every now and again we’d catch somebody who would be trumpeted as a big fish, but was usually really somebody way down the hierarchy. Every now and again we’d intercept a big haul of drugs and we’d think that was a great achievement but in the overall scheme of things it was a tiny percentage of the drugs reaching Australia.
“And increasingly I became aware of the fact that you just can’t keep them out. We have 30,000 kilometres of coastline in this country — you can’t station police officers every 100 metres in the hope of catching them coming ashore.”
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Crispin now believes the law and order response to drugs has magnified the global drug problem.
“Illegality also tends to keep people away from seeking rehabilitation. But in Portugal when they decriminalised the use of drugs, the first consequence was to increase the number of people in rehabilitation from something like 6000 a year to 15,000 a year.
“When they interviewed those people, they explained quite openly that they’d stayed away before for fear of prosecution and conviction.”
Crispin said regulating and taxing drugs would also generate resources badly needed for rehabilitating drug users.
“In NSW it costs over $75,000 a year to keep somebody in prison. But we’re very reluctant to spend money on drug minimisation programs or rehabilitation programs.”
Crispin said if we failed to change our approach to drugs we would not only see a more dangerous Australia but a more dangerous world.
“The problem has now spread to the point where criminal gangs have linked up with terrorists, and terrorism is increasingly being funded by drugs,” he said.
“Every year, the commission charged by the Taliban on drugs grown in Afghanistan is a $100 million and that goes straight into funding terrorist activities and buying weapons. That’s a frightening situation and it’s not only the Taliban that’s doing that.”
info: The Quest For Justice will be launched at Gleebooks on June 24.
if we make drugs legal and regulate manufacture
1. takes criminal organizations and corruption out of it
2. create taxes and employment
3. cleaner drugs (as it’s not so much the pure drug that
causes the problem but what they cut it with. overdose
is caused by different strengths of drugs being used with
regulation you would be able to make a mix by mg of purity
not by packet size. I use speed and have had the same
effect from 2points as 6points.)
4. the more they clamp down on drugs and chemicals used to
make them the more lower grade (deadlier) drugs and
chemicals will be used i.e. poisons.
5. the part the gov will have to do properly is how much
to tax because if they go to high then illegal markets
will still run the trade for affordability.
Regulation is the only way to minimise harm, not prohibition. Case in point (one of many, in the early 90s Nikov vodka and orange pre-mix drink (sold per 4 litre) was removed from the marketplace in Australia because it contained harmful aldehydes, which basically makes your brain turn to mush with limited use. This “harm minimisation” took place due to having a regulated industry. On the other hand, somewhere in Australia, same decade, a ruthless drug dealer decided to add weight to a bag of cocaine by crushing fluorescent light bulbs. This made the recipient of that bag of drugs bleed from the lungs until they died…… No harm minimisation. I think this example speaks for itself. Better to regulate than leave fate in the hands of people who care not for the well being of others.
John:-
You made some factual errors.
The Victorian Government (Premier Brumby – John Cain was 20 years ago) announced the formation of an independent Corruption agency…similar to what has been around for 20 years in NSW, Qld and WA (ever heard of ICAC?).
Secondly, here in NSW there is also the Police Integrity Commission. Watch Underbelly to see how it was born.
Finally, the USA did decimate opium poppy growning in Afghanistan. It’s one of the reasons why they are so unpopular and why the Taliban staged a comeback. There is a lot more money for poor Afghani farmers in poppy growing than wheat.