15th November 2023
Having read the account of retiring Liberal member Matt Bach’s last speech, as reported in the Age, it is evident that people in authority are ignorant of the Drug Scene and that we are not prepared for the drug tsunami of epic proportions headed our way.
The most sensible comment attributed was that Drugs should be kept away from children, but children are not idiots, and they will always find out if their parents or associates are using drugs.
All children aspire to adulthood and consequently see drugs as an adult activity and, therefore, something to aspire to.
Equally, children whose parents use drugs are being desensitised to the drug scene and more likely to imbibe at the earliest opportunity.
Most of the pundits spruiking legalisation to decriminalise illicit drugs come from a cloistered affluent existence (and those pretending to be) far removed from the everyday reality of the pain and degradation caused by the Drug scene.
Legalising illicit drugs would be a major social error with astronomically bad consequences – if you think the Drug issue is bad now, see what other jurisdictions have experienced taking the legalisation path.
And don’t be fooled by ‘It’s only grass (marijuana) that we want legalised for personal use’. This is but the second step on the legislative path; the first was the Medically Supervised Injecting Room(MSIR) facility.
The drug problem we have in Victoria, replicated around the world, is fundamentally caused by decisions being made by people who are wilfully blind to reality and too insulated from the effects of illicit drug use to offer a meaningful solution.
Before reading on, it is important to view at least one of these videos to give perspective from jurisdictions that have legalised drugs.
A window to our future.
These jurisdictions started with the MSIR approach and then Legalising Marijuana, and now look at what they are dealing with.
https://youtu.be/Qwcp2mcOH0Y or https://youtu.be/_RaWzJUeT0o
Dealing first with the perception –what drug apologists would have you believe.
- Illicit Drugs are harmless –
- A person using drugs socially hurts nobody.
- Why can’t adults decide what they want to use?
- Putting drug users in jail only exacerbates the problem.
- Most people who use drugs are not dependent on them.
- Drug users with Mental health issues are worsened in the criminal justice system.
- The legalisation is Evidence-Based.
This apologist propaganda is usually peddled by people from a professional background living in the bubble of apartments earning over $ 150k P/A, aged mid 20’s to 40’s, and who use drugs ‘Socially’.
They are also in denial of any risk of addiction.
The reality of drugs is poles away.
- Drug addicts are consummate liars.
- Rarely will an addict confront their addiction, with most in denial.
- Their personal hygiene is atrocious.
- Every dealer’s role is to increase their customers’ addiction and their own profit to ensure their own drug supply first.
- Fentanyl, a super addictive drug, is used to spike drugs to increase the addiction of users and dealers’ profits.
- Drug users generally only associate with like-minded people.
- By the time they have lost their job (somebody else’s fault) they are entrenched in the criminal sphere.
- They are as addicted to the lifestyle as much as the drugs – no cares or responsibilities.
- No drug addict can be rehabilitated unless they want to be, but if it garners them favour will readily claim they are willing to rehabilitate.
- Users’ behaviour is unpredictable and can be dangerous. Severe violence is just under the surface and within the industry, usually hidden.
- Most crime, particularly violent crime, has its genesis in the drug scene.
- Mental Health issues are generally caused and aggravated by drug use, reducing the effectiveness of treatment.
- Drug users are rarely if ever, jailed for just using an illicit substance.
- Criminals, including Outlaw Bikies, are the beneficiaries of huge amounts of cash through their drug enterprises, established by violence and maintained by intimidation.
- ‘Evidence-based’, used in this context to give some authority to claims, is nonsense. Everything that supports legalisation is claimed to be ‘Evidence-Based’ until the evidence no longer suits, and then it must be ignored.
This poses the question of what to do.
Should the State adopt a Health approach, as occurred in the attached examples, or should it be a Law and Order, Police approach?
The answer is very clear to those who view the issue through clear eyes.
Both is the answer.
It is not an either-or proposition, as that inevitably ends with catastrophic failure.
Policy for Health and the Law and Order must be driven by an Illicit Drug management panel with appropriate authority, skills, and resources to tackle the problem holistically.
In an environment of fiscal challenges, this is one area that cannot be ignored, as effective management of the issue will reduce the costs to the community by reducing crime, welfare costs and health expenses and improving the lot of the addicts.
The current approach is akin to using a ‘band-aid’ to stem the flow of blood from a serious wound.
The CAA has previously published a clear blueprint for a better way to reduce the use of illicit drugs while dealing with the health issues of addicts.
See https://caainc.org.au/drugs-and-alcohol-abuse-a-management-solution/