BY JOSEPH KIM
MELBOURNE — Riding a tram in Bourke Street recently, I caught sight of a middle-aged man in an expensive suit with his chin resting upon his chest, his head intermittently jerking to "attention" as his body instinctively prevented him from collapsing in a heap. The unusual sight reminded me of how broadly society is affected by heroin-use.
However, in stark contrast to the treatment of young Asian-Australian injecting drug users, who are incorrectly perceived to predominate in the street heroin scene in Melbourne, this Anglo-Australian male was not being "patted down" by police officers, or herded into the rear of a "divvy" van with handcuffs digging painfully into his wrists.
For many young Asian Australians who use heroin, and who must sell some drugs to support their own habit, being on the destructive butt-end of the "necessary" drug war is an all too common experience.
As racists within the political, legal and media establishment continue to scapegoat migrants, the increasingly apparent heroin situation is forcing many people to question the validity of the "zero tolerance" drug policy.
Heroin prohibition
The use of opium was first introduced to Australia in the 1850s when Chinese miners arrived, bringing with them the implements needed to smoke the drug. European miners preferred alcohol to sedate their weary bodies. The invention of heroin, an opium derivative, was to come in the early 20th century.
Racist sentiment was beginning to influence government policy at the time. As part of the "white Australia policy", the federal government in 1905 passed the Commonwealth Opium Smoking Prohibition Act, which banned the importation of opium that was "suitable for smoking" but allowed opium in any other form to freely enter the country. This discriminatory policy was reinforced by media images of innocent white girls being lured into Chinese opium dens.
In 1909, the United States government convened the first international anti-drugs conference in Shanghai, China, but this did not result in any significant agreement between nations. At a 1912 Hague conference, 46 countries agreed to oppose the international opium trade, with opium for "medical and legitimate purposes" excluded. However, laudanum (an alcohol tincture of opium) and opium-containing patent medicines were still freely available from pharmacies throughout Australia, with many doctors widely prescribing heroin for pain relief.
The free sale of opiates continued in Australia despite the 1925 Geneva convention that strengthened international commitment to the war against opiates.
It was only in May 1953, due to pressure from the United Nations, that the Australian government advised state governments to prohibit the importation of heroin. The NSW director of general health disagreed: "Heroin is quite effectively controlled in this state and I see no justification to enforce absolute prohibition." This stance was supported by the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
In June 1953, the federal government introduced legislation that imposed prohibition on heroin.
Despite international prohibition, the global production of illicit opium continues to rise (it increased 33% from 1998 to 1999, to a record level of 6000 US tonnes). Australian law enforcement agencies estimate that little more than 10% of the illegal drugs entering the country are intercepted.
Victorian situation
In November, the Victorian government established the Drug Policy Expert Committee (DPEC), headed by Professor David Penington, to advise on the implementation of an effective drug policy. In May, the DPEC released its stage-one report.
The DPEC found that the price of heroin on the street in Melbourne has dropped from $450 a gram in 1997 to around $300 in 1999. Heroin purity has increased from around 55% to almost 70% in the same period.
Surveys show that the proportion of those who first used heroin when they were under the age of 16 increased from 1% in 1993 to 7% in 1995. This trend has continued to rise. A more recent survey of injecting drug users found that 97% of respondents had used six different drugs in the previous six months. Overdose deaths in Victoria have risen from 49 in 1991 to 359 in 1999, and are predicted to reach 496 by 2005.
The DPEC report makes three key recommendations, based upon four themes of "prevention, saving lives, enhancing treatment and effective law enforcement":
that the Victorian government provide support for communities, particularly those "affected by heavy street drug dealing and use";
that the Victorian government introduce "additional support services and research initiatives designed to enhance prevention and treatment capacity"; and
that the Victorian government "proceed with its policy to trial injecting facilities over a period of 18 months".
The third recommendation has sparked a major discussion among drug policy groups.
Chris Hardy, manager of the Melbourne Inner-City AIDS Prevention Centre, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly: "The overdose rate is nearing the road toll. We are dealing with a crisis here!" Asked about the future of the injecting facilities trial, Hardy said that "the government has relegated the issue to the spring session of parliament, so nothing will happen until then. The Benalla by-election has influenced the Labor government. They are worried about upsetting voters in the traditional National Party seat. Meanwhile, people are dying."
The victory of the Labor candidate in the Benalla by-election means that the state Labor government only requires the support of one of the three rural independents to pass legislation through the lower house. In the May 15 Melbourne Age, independent MP Susan Davies stated that she would support the injecting facilities proposal but only if "local councils have a say in what happens".
Professor Penington is also only willing to proceed with the support of local councils and communities. Such support is a contentious issue in Melbourne's CBD, as five of Melbourne Cit Council's nine members have rejected the trial proposal. Some councillors have said they would consider the proposal if the facilities were linked to a medical centre or hospital, but the Steve Bracks government has ruled this out.
The Youth Substance Abuse Service (YSAS) had called on the Melbourne council to be responsible and approve the trials. At this stage, with the state budget having set aside $75 million for implementation of the strategy, only time will tell what the final outcome will be.
Safe injecting facilities
The recommendation for injecting facilities is based on previous trials in Europe. Europe's first successful injecting room opened in Bern, Switzerland in 1986. By early 1999, 14 facilities were operating there, and many others in Germany and Holland. Since the opening of the Bern centre, no deaths have occurred in any of the established injecting facilities.
An injecting drug users educator who works with street-based drug users in Melbourne told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that she believes "injecting facilities are important in saving lives, but they will not solve all the problems and it doesn't mean there won't be any overdoses, because the DPEC report found that 80% of users inject at home. The other 20% will be assisted and the wider community won't have to see so much street drug-use.
"While injecting facilities will not solve everything, neither does the current policy, so we should definitely try them out. We need to look at lots of different strategies like expanding the methadone program, expanding trials for alternate pharmacological therapies, trialing diacetylmorphine [heroin] replacement programs and expanding treatment so that people can get rehab beds when they want."
Currently in Victoria, there are more than 8000 people on the methadone program. The DPEC report acknowledges that the "cost of treatment with synthetic opioid is generally less than $6000 per annum, which is in stark contrast to the cost of keeping a person in prison, which is more than $50,000 per annum".
Prime Minister John Howard has been adamant in his imposition of the US-style "zero tolerance" approach to drug use in Australia. In the US, zero tolerance has been a failure. Every 20 seconds, someone in there is arrested for a drug-related offence. In the last 20 years, the US prison population has trebled, with the majority of inmates incarcerated for non-violent crimes (two out of every three prisoners in federal prisons) being there for drug offences.
The US maintains a federal ban on funding needle exchange programs, causing tens of thousands of needless deaths through the sharing of needles. This has led to more than 205,000 documented AIDS cases, making it one of the largest causes of HIV transmission in the US.
Real solutions
The federal government and the DPEC report consider "demand reduction" as the key aspect of their drug strategies. Drawing from my extensive experience with injecting drug users, the best way to reduce demand for drugs would be to attack poverty, unemployment and homelessness, and therefore the depression, alienation, violence and abuse they produce.
The Stegley Foundation, a Victorian-based private research trust, has found, in a study released in October, that between 1993 and 1998, Victorian state expenditure on education decreased 13.9%, spending on health decreased by 11.2% and welfare expenditure decreased by 19.6%. The only area of social expenditure to increase was "law, order and public safety" (by 6.6%).
Such figures indicate that proposals designed to "reduce demand" are mostly rhetoric. It must be recognised that drug-use must be dealt with as a health issue, not as a question of morals or crime. We need to concentrate on reducing drug-related harm, because drug-use will continue to rise.
Marjorie Darling Ward summed it up succinctly in the May 10 issue of the Melbourne Times: "The drug trade will never go away. Governments can only do what was done with alcohol and nicotine and wrest control from the drug barons who grow richer while governments gather up their skirts and cry mouse." We need to control drugs and save lives, not continue with a policy that has proven itself destructive and unjust."
[Joseph Kim is committee of management member and peer educator with the Victorian Drug Users Group, an organisation that is involved in harm-minimisation projects, research and stands up for the rights of drug users.]