Australia ' s drug policy led the world 30 years ago , Now politics holds us back
By Alec Wodak https :// www . theguardian . com / commentisfree / 2015 / apr / 02 / australias-drugs-policy-led-theworld-30-years-ago-now-politics-holds-us-back
On 2 April 1985 , the then prime minister , Bob Hawke , convened a meeting in Canberra with all six state premiers and the chief minister of the Northern Territory . The special premier ’ s conference , usually referred to as the “ drug summit ”, was said to be the first meeting of the prime minister and premiers since the second world war to discuss anything other than finance . Of the eight governments represented , five leaders ( Hawke ; Neville Wran , NSW ; John Cain , Victoria ; John Bannon , SA , Brian Burke , WA ) represented Labor governments while three leaders ( Joh Bjelke-Petersen , Queensland ; Robin Gray , Tasmania ; Ian Tuxworth , NT ) represented National or Liberal party governments .
One of the items raised and approved at the drug summit , along with a raft of other decisions , was a proposal to adopt “ harm minimisation ” as Australia ’ s official national drug policy . This decision was to have far reaching repercussions . Methamphetamine use was the biggest drug problem facing Australian police .
A few years later , the notion that reducing harm was more important than reducing drug consumption gave policy makers the additional flexibility they needed to approve what was then still a very controversial policy – exchanging needles and syringes with people who inject drugs to slow the spread of HIV . There is little doubt that the adoption of harm minimisation helped Australia avoid a catastrophic HIV epidemic .
The drug summit also approved the revolutionary notion that psychoactive drugs were “ all of a piece ”. This meant that in future , legal and illegal drugs were to be considered together . A national campaign against drug abuse was established , regular national surveys were approved , and a ministerial council on drug strategy was established to provide a regular forum for all national health and police ( or justice ) ministers .
In John Howard ’ s “ tough on drugs ” era , harm minimisation was defined for the first time as the combination of supply reduction , demand reduction and harm reduction . Despite the adoption of the “ tough on drugs ” label for his government ’ s drug policy , the Howard government was the first to provide commonwealth funding to the states and territories to support their needle syringe programs , considerably expand the diversion of selected drug users from the expensive criminal justice system to more effective and less expensive drug treatment , and provide generous financial and technical support to slow the spread of HIV among and from people who inject drugs in Asia .
All commonwealth , state and territory governments in Australia since 1985 have adopted a harm minimisation approach to legal and illegal drugs , even though conservative parties have sometimes attacked this approach while in opposition .
When Australia adopted harm minimisation in 1985 , both the term and the concept were novel in other countries and in the UN system . But harm reduction , the preferred term outside Australia , has now become the mainstream global drug policy with all of the major UN organisations responsible for drug policy , as well as international organisations like the Red Cross . While there are still some exceptions to this trend , in countries such as Sweden , Russia and Saudi Arabia , and in a few minor UN organisations with responsibility for drug policy , these are diminishing . And while US officials are still required to avoid using the term “ harm reduction ”, US opposition to harm reduction is also declining .
The 1985 drug summit was very successful . It enabled many advances to occur in what is a difficult field for politicians and policy makers . But gradually Australia has moved from being an international leader to an international follower .
This was exemplified by the federal cabinet decision in August 1997 to terminate a “ heroin trial ” lest such a trial “ send the wrong message ”. No other field of health policy is as politicised as the alcohol and drug field and has to tolerate such political interference in research . That is why most other fields make progress while the alcohol and drug field stumbles from crisis to crisis with each crisis greeted with complete astonishment .
Three decades after the drug summit we can be grateful for what was achieved . But with almost every family in Australia touched by someone with a serious alcohol or drug problem , there is an urgent need to revitalise the national policy making approach . The drinks industry is still powerful enough to be able to overcome almost every attempt to reduce alcohol ’ s national toll . The economics of the illicit drug market ensures steady expansion with new and more dangerous products . Meanwhile the politics of illicit drugs ensures that dysfunctional policies continue , overly focused on law enforcement accompanied by a languishing drug treatments system .