Australia foreign minister calls for decriminalisation of low-level drug use

His stance followed the report by think tank Australia21 released on Tuesday
that said the war on drugs had failed and Australia should consider
legalising some substances such as cannabis.

The report was compiled by a high-profile group of Australians, including
former state premiers, health ministers, a former police commissioner and a
director of public prosecutions.

It called for a fundamental rethink of current policies to tackle the drug
trade that it said had driven the scourge underground and allowed organised
crime to flourish.

Every year some 400 Australians die from illicit drug use. The victims
included the 64-year-old Carr’s younger brother Greg back in the 1980s.

“The key message is that we have 40 years of experience of a law and
order approach to drugs and it has failed,” said Michael Wooldridge, a
former national health minister in conservative leader John Howard’s
government.

The report did not propose a specific set of reforms, but said its purpose was
to reignite serious debate on the problem.

“It is time to reactivate Australian debate on this matter, drawing
attention to the accountability of governments for allowing an unacceptable
situation to persist, and the fact that the community has allowed this to
happen,” it said.

But Gillard said decriminalisation was not the answer, insisting the focus
instead should be on tough policing and providing treatment options for
users.

“I’m not in favour of decriminalisation of any of our drug laws,”
she told reporters.

“Drugs kill people, they rip families apart, they destroy lives and we
want to see less harm done by drug usage.

“So we want to make sure we are supporting people to get treatment
options and we are getting our police to do what they rightly should be
doing which is policing our laws on drugs.”

Attorney General Nicola Roxon earlier said the government was open to
discussing new ways of tackling illegal drug use but warned there was a high
threshold of community resistance to relaxing existing laws.

“As a government we’re always interested and happy to engage in debate,”
she said.

“But there’s a pretty high threshold that they’re going to have to get
over to convince, not just the government but the community, that this would
be a positive step.”

Source: AFP

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