Drug use in Australia
History
Prior to Australian Federation, there was little policy response to the use of illicit substances. [4] Opium was mostly regulated via colonial trade laws, with most government interventions taking the form of warning labels, designed to prevent death through overdose. According to the Victorian Premier's Drug Advisory Council in 1899, there were three main "classes" of opium users. The first class of opium users were middle-class, middle-aged women who took the drug for menstrual pain or to alleviate the symptoms of depression. The second class of opium users included doctors, nurses and other health professionals, who used the drug as a strategy for coping with the stress of their work. The third class were Chinese immigrants, amongst whom the drug was primarily used as a recreational substance. [4]
Many of the initial attempts to control opium were motivated by racism, with Anglo-Celtic Australians citing opium use by Chinese Australians as a danger to health and morality. [4] As Australia approached Federation, an increasing number of bills were passed in state parliaments to restrict the use of opium. By 1905, there were many laws in place which prohibited the import and use of smoking grade opium; however, by the 1930s, Australia had the developed world's highest per capita rate of heroin consumption. [5]
With the introduction of laws and policies which prohibited the import and use of opium, taxation income the government had previously been earning from opium imports was redundant. A customs report in 1908 noted that "it is very doubtful if such a prohibition has lessened to any great extent the amount bought into Australia." [4]
Desmond Manderson, an expert on the history of Australian drug policy, has asserted that from this time forward, Australia's drug policies have been more dictated by international relations and a political need for moral panic than any concern for health and welfare (Manderson, 1993). [4]
Following World War I, the Hague Conference and The Treaty of Versailles began to set international agreements on drug laws (Berridge, 1999). Britain signed the treaties on behalf of Australia, and from this point on, Australia's State and Territory governments have created their own laws and policies relating to illicit drug use. [4] In the 1920s and 1930s, there was an increasingly internationalist approach to drug policy, overseen by the League of Nations, with Australia enacting a series of increasingly strict drug laws (Mandelson, 1987), [4] despite the low incidence of illicit drug use in Australia during this period. Although Australia was initially influenced by the strict illicit drug controls and penalties promoted by the League of Nations, and subsequently the United Nations; following the end of the World War 2, Australia's illicit drug policies became increasingly influenced by the United States, due to the United States' increasingly pro-active participation in United Nations policy making and large financial contribution to United Nations budgets. Hence, the strong British influence on Australia's drug policies waned, and Australia's illicit drug policies shifted from a health and social focus to an increased focus on law enforcement and criminal justice. [6]
Illicit drug use in Australia was popularised in Australia in the 1960s. The shifting of social and cultural norms in the 1960s counterculture, which explicitly involved a sense of revolution, created a youth culture which was enthusiastic about exploring altered states of consciousness and were keen to experiment with drugs. In 1960's Sydney, the most high-profile use of illicit drugs was focused around the Kings Cross area, whose reputation as a "red light district" attracted members of various international armed forces on leave from the Indochina Wars.
American troops stationed in major Australian cities such as Sydney provided access to drugs like heroin. [4] [7] Heroin became immensely popular during the Vietnam War-era, and was smuggled into the country from South East Asia through crime syndicates in collaboration with members of the Nugan Hand Bank and the C.I.A. [8] Subsequently, drug use increased in the 1960s and 1970s, as did laws prohibiting illicit drug use and police powers. Since this period, Kings Cross has retained its reputation for vice and has remained a popular destination for tourists. Drug literature, later defined as a part of the grunge lit canon, shone a light on drug taking in Australian's urban areas: Monkey Grip (1977) by Helen Garner charts the fraught relationship between a single-mother in her thirties, and a twenty-something heroin addict living in Fitzroy in Melbourne, while Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction (1998) Luke Davies details a young couple addicted to heroin in 1980s Sydney.
Prior to this time, drugs had been synonymous with Kings Cross and the neighboring suburb of Darlinghurst. In the 1920s and 1930s, local Razor Gangs achieved such a level of notoriety through their violent attempts to control the local cocaine trade, [9] that Darlinghurst became colloquially known as "Razorhurst". [10] In 1932, Phil Jeffs established one of the area's most notorious nightclubs, the Fifty-Fifty club, in which gambling, sex work, "sly-grog" (illicit alcohol) and cocaine were freely available. Jeffs avoided police attention by bribing high-profile police officers to refrain from raiding the club. [11]
Drug use increased exponentially by the mid-1980s. With the emergence of HIV/AIDS, transmission of the virus was identified as a serious public health risk for injecting drug users and media attention focusing on illicit drug use increased dramatically. A series of public health campaigns, known as the "Grim Reaper campaign" were televised in 1987, designed to increase awareness of the risk of transmission of virus; [12] however, due to the "shock tactics" used in the advertisements, the campaign was criticised as further marginalizing groups at high risk of HIV/AIDS. [13] In 1985, Australia's Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, revealed in a nationally televised interview that his daughter, Rosslyn, was a heroin user. [14] Following Hawke's admission, a new drug initiative, the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NCADA), was launched. [15] Roundtable discussions instigated by the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse produced a National Drug Strategy that has continued to provide a foundation for Australia's illicit drug policy approach.
Australia's first National Drug Strategy (1985), focused on demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction. [16] However, studies have identified that this policy, which continues today, [17] has failed as government funds are primarily focused on law enforcement, rather than prevention and treatment. [18]
The death of Sydney teenager Anna Wood from ecstasy in 1995 prompted strong media coverage and moral outrage over concerns relating to teenage drug use in Australia and attacks on rave dance parties, where Wood consumed the drug and later became ill. [19] Wood's parents later vehemently campaigned the "Just Say No" policy across the country to prevent the tragedy from re-occurring. [20] However, despite state and federal governments investing millions of dollars [21] in anti-drug campaigns, [22] ecstasy use has increased amongst Australians, including young people. [23]
Drug use by the age group 15 years to 20 years old has been classified as an issue that requires intervention. Medical and public health professionals have attempted to deal with the issue with the same approach that was made through trying to decrease drunk driving rates. The approach places more emphasis on the fact that someone has lower self-esteem and struggles socially and how that affects their decision-making within the prevalence of substance use. David Moore proposed that drug use within group settings offers many benefits and that drug use is shared amongst various human societies. Psychologists have become more open to the notion of "social context" [24] when using their models on substance abuse. Moore considers social context to be based on the circumstance of use and how the cultural beliefs and social aspect illuminates and brings meaning to the circumstance of use. Because drug use is social, adequate methodologies for defining the social features of usage are crucial. A significant flaw in studies on the use of drugs among youth is the failure to interpret the social context in which drug use happens adequately. The blurring of lines between problematic use and any use of drugs due to the reliance on amount/prevalence measures, the equating of all illicit drug use with abuse, and, perhaps, ignorance of the social aspect of use, which provides alternative criteria for the definitions of problematic use as well as a means of trying to understand the symbolic aspects of use.[ citation needed ]
21st century
During the 1990s, Australia experienced a heroin "epidemic", [25] in which high quality, low priced heroin, imported from South East Asia, was readily available in many metropolitan, suburban and rural areas. [26] However, since 2001, Australia has been experiencing what is being referred to as a "heroin drought", [27] with high grade heroin being much more difficult to access. [28] [29]
As a result of this, many other illicit drugs have risen and fallen in popularity to fill this void, with prescription temazepam, morphine, oxycodone, methamphetamine and cocaine all being used as a substitute. [30] 2008 has seen a reversal of this trend, with the arrival of Afghan heroin being seen in Sydney for the first time ever. [31] Although anecdotal evidence from illicit drug users reject the claim, some researchers assert that the potency of heroin has since been on the rise, and is nearly comparable to the purity of heroin prior to 2000. [32]
In 2001, the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre opened in Kings Cross. It was opened on the recommendation of the Wood Royal Commission. Prior to this, several venues such as strip clubs or brothels in Kings Cross rented out rooms to injecting drug users so that they could have a private and safe place to inject. This practice went on with unofficial approval by the police, as it kept injecting drug use off the streets and in the one area. This further allowed criminal activity to profit off illicit drug use, as many venue owners would sell rooms and drugs. The Wood Royal Commission identified that while there were benefits to these illegal shooting galleries, allowing police to cooperate with illegal activities could encourage corruption, it suggested an independent medical facility to continue providing safety for the users, and safety for the public by lessening the impact of drug use on the streets, such as discarded needles or drug related deaths. [33]
The Australian Crime Commission's illicit drug data report for 2011–2012 was released in western Sydney on 20 May 2013 and revealed that the seizures of illegal substances during the reporting period were the largest in a decade due to record interceptions of amphetamines, cocaine and steroids. The report also stated that average strength of crystal methamphetamine doubled in most jurisdictions within a 12-month period and the majority of laboratory closures involved small "addict-based" operations. [34]
The Melbourne inner-city suburbs of Richmond and Abbotsford are locations in which the use and dealing of heroin has been concentrated for a protracted time period. Research organisation the Burnet Institute completed the 2013 'North Richmond Public Injecting Impact Study' in collaboration with the Yarra Drug and Health Forum, City of Yarra and North Richmond Community Health Centre and recommended 24-hour access to sterile injecting equipment due to the ongoing "widespread, frequent and highly visible" nature of illicit drug use in the areas. During the period between 2010 and 2012 a four-fold increase in the levels of needles and syringes collected from disposal units and street-sweep operations was documented for the two suburbs. In the local government area the City of Yarra, of which Richmond and Abbotsford are parts, 1550 syringes were collected each month from public syringe disposal bins in 2012. Furthermore, ambulance callouts for heroin overdoses were 1.5 times higher than for other Melbourne areas in the period between 2011 and 2012 (a total of 336 overdoses), and drug-related arrests in North Richmond were also three times higher than the state average. The Burnet Institute's researchers interviewed health workers, residents and local traders, in addition to observing the drug scene in the most frequented North Richmond public injecting locations. [35]
On 28 May 2013, the Burnet Institute stated in the media that it recommends 24-hour access to sterile injecting equipment in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray after the area's drug culture continues to grow after more than ten years of intense law enforcement efforts. The institute's research concluded that public injecting behaviour is frequent in the area and inappropriately discarding injecting paraphernalia has been found in carparks, parks, footpaths and drives. Furthermore, people who inject drugs have broken open syringe disposal bins to reuse discarded injecting equipment. [36]
A study (part of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 published in The Lancet), led by Professor Louisa Degenhardt from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, reported in late August 2013 that Australia has one of the world's most serious drug problems, caused by amphetamines, cocaine, cannabis and opioids. Co-author Professor Harvey Whiteford, from the University of Queensland, stated: "There is no doubt Australia has a culture, especially among our young people, which does not see the taking of illicit substances or binge drinking as particularly detrimental to the health. Our study suggests otherwise." [37]
In mid-September 2013, research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics valued the contribution of the illicit drugs market to the Australian economy at A$6 billion, while tax avoidance is responsible for an additional A$20 billion. The same research also recorded a fall of 19 per cent between 2008 and 2013 due to a reduction in the sales of heroin and cannabis. [38]
An Australian study released on 16 September 2013 showed that ambulance callouts for meth and amphetamine-related issues rose from 445 to 880 cases in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria—this rise is attributed mainly to crystal methamphetamine, as attendance figures rose from 136 to 592 cases. The list of reasons for the callouts included anxiety, paranoia, palpitations, gastrointestinal symptoms, and self-harm. [39]
Figures obtained by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on drug overdose were released in August 2014. The data revealed that the 1,427 overdose deaths recorded nationally in 2012 by the ABS outnumbered the road toll for the second year in a row, as well as a 65-per cent increase in accidental overdose deaths among females over the previous decade. Many of the recorded deaths were the result of prescription drug use. [40]
2012 United Nations World Drug Report
The 2012 United Nations World Drug Report published data that indicated that Australia has one of the highest global prevalence of cannabis use. The report also stated that cocaine use had increased over the four years leading up to 2012. The use of 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA), more commonly known as "Ecstasy", declined from 3.7 per cent to 3.0 percent between 2007 and 2010; however, the highest number of manufacturing laboratory interceptions occurred in Australia during this period. [41] [42]
Policy response
The Australian government enacted numerous policies in response to illicit drug use. During the 1980s, it was one of the first countries to enact the policy of "harm minimisation", which consists of three pillars: "demand reduction", "supply reduction" and "harm reduction". This policy is still in effect as of 2012 and the following outlines are contained in The National Drug Strategy: Australia's integrated framework document:
- Supply reduction strategies to disrupt the production and supply of illicit drugs, and the control and regulation of licit substances. [43] It involves border security, Customs and prosecuting people involved in the trafficking of illicit substances.
- Demand reduction strategies to prevent the uptake of harmful drug use, including abstinence orientated strategies and treatment to reduce drug use; [43] This involves programs promoting abstinence or treating existing users.
- Harm reduction strategies to reduce drug-related harm to individuals and communities. [43] It is a policy that is a "safety net" to the preceding two policies. The threefold model accepts that demand prevention and supply prevention will never be completely effective, and if people are involved in risky activities, the damage they cause to themselves and society at large should be minimised. It involves programs like needle and syringe programs and safe injecting sites, which aim to prevent the spread of disease or deaths from overdoses, while providing users with support to reduce or stop using drugs.
In 2007 Bronwyn Bishop headed a federal parliamentary committee reported that the Government's harm reduction policy is not effective enough. It recommended re-evaluating harm reduction and a zero-tolerance approach for drug education in schools. The committee also wanted the law changed so children can be put into mandatory care if parents were found to be using drugs. It suggested "establish[ing] adoption as the 'default' care option for children aged 0–5 years where the child protection notification involved illicit drug use by the parent/s". The report says federal, state and territory governments should only fund treatment services that are trying to make people permanently drug-free and priority should go to those that are more successful. [44] [45]
The report was criticised by a range of organisations such as Family Drug Support, [46] the Australian Democrats [47] and the Australian Drug Foundation [48] for lacking evidence, being ideologically driven and having the potential to do harm to Australia. The Labor Party authors also released a dissenting report. The report and its recommendations have been shelved since the election of the Rudd Government in 2007 (Rudd was prime minister until 2010). [49] [50]
A report authored by Professor Alison Ritter, the director of the drug policy modelling program at the University of NSW (UNSW), was released in June 2013 calculated that the Australian Government continues to spend A$1.7 billion on its annual illicit drug response. Entitled "Government Drug Policy Expenditure in Australia", the report also concluded that the harm reduction arm of the government's policy, with 2.1 per cent of the drugs budget, or A$36 million, devoted to harm reduction in the 2009–10 financial year. During the same time period, A$361 million, or 21 per cent, was directed towards treatment and A$1.1 billion was expended on law enforcement. The report identifies a significant decrease in the proportion of funds allocated to harm reduction over time and Ritter expressed her concern in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper:
It's a shift in policy that hasn't been formally acknowledged. There is absolutely no reason that investment should have decreased. We don't have good evidence that law enforcement works, and we have anecdotal evidence I suppose that it might not work as a policy. We continue to arrest people and drugs keep coming into Australia … and profits continue to be made. [51]
In 2015 the Legislative Council of Victoria instructed the Law Reform, Road and Community Safety Committee to inquire into, consider and report, on the effectiveness of laws, procedures and regulations relating to illicit and synthetic drugs and the misuse of prescription medication in minimising drug‑related health, social and economic harm; and the practice of other Australian states and territories and overseas jurisdictions and their approach to drug law reform and how other positive reforms could be adopted into Victorian law. Throughout the inquiry, the committee received 231 submissions from a diverse range of experts and stakeholders working in various areas of drug policy and law reform, in addition to individual members of the community. The Committee held nine days of public hearings and two site visits in Melbourne and Sydney from June to November 2017. In addition, the Committee travelled to Geneva, Lisbon, London, Vancouver, Denver and Sacramento in July 2017, in addition to Wellington in October 2017, to explore how different jurisdictions manage the problems of substance use and impacts on broader communities, and to meet with agencies involved in international drug policy and control. The report recommended that, the Victorian Government explore avenues to distribute naloxone more effectively, the report stated such avenues might include, needle and syringe programs and other community health services where staff are trained to educate others in administering naloxone, making naloxone available to first responders to overdose calls in areas with high concentrations of injecting heroin use, accompanied with appropriate training. The report also made a number of other recommendations including that the Victorian Government develop an emergency action plan to respond to a potential increase in deaths or overdoses as a result of high strength and purity of illicit substances, The Victorian Government commission an independent economic review into drug‑related expenditure and outcomes in Victoria, stating this should include a cost‑benefit analysis of all key initiatives and be made publicly available, The proposed Advisory Council on Drugs Policy investigate international developments in the regulated supply of cannabis for adult use, and advise the Victorian Government on policy outcomes in areas such as prevalence rates, public safety, and reducing the scale and scope of the illicit drug market and that Victoria Police commission an independent evaluation of the use of drug detection dogs at music festivals and other public spaces to determine their effectiveness in deterring the use and trafficking of illicit substances, and any unintended consequences or risk of harms resulting from this strategy. [52]
On 17 October 2018 the Western Australia Legislative Council established the Select Committee into Alternate Approaches to Reducing Illicit Drug Use and its Effects on the Community. The Committee inquired into approaches to reducing harm from illicit drug use in other jurisdictions and compared their effectiveness to the approaches currently used in Western Australia. In November 2019, the committee published a report titled Help, Not Handcuffs: Evidence-based Approaches To Reducing Harm From Illicit Drug Use. The committee made a number of recommendations including that "a health-based response to the use and possession of drugs makes provision for the cultivation of cannabis for personal use", for the introduction of pill testing at music festivals, safe consumption rooms, as well as, in the reports summary for the abolishment of criminal penalties for personal use and possession of drugs. The committee also made a number of findings including, that "the current approach to prohibiting drug use is not having the intended effect of stopping people from taking drugs", "a zero-tolerance approach to drug use is incompatible with harm reduction" and that, "drug use and possession for personal use should be treated primarily as a health issue".
The recommendations were rejected by the McGowan, Labor led state government minutes after the report was publicly released, stating, "We are not going to soften our approach to illicit drug use". [53]
In 2019 an inquest was held in relation to the deaths of six young people, aged 18 to 23, at music festivals in NSW between 2017 and 2019, hearing evidence from a number of health and law enforcement professionals amongst other experts. On the 8 November 2019 NSW deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame released findings from the inquest. [54] In her report Grahame made a number of recommendations including for the introduction of pill testing at music festivals, for the government to pay to establish a permanent drug-checking facility outside the festival context, decriminalisation of drugs and the abolishment of sniffer dogs at music festivals. Grahame stated "Drug checking is simply an evidence-based harm reduction strategy". [55] New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian dismissed the recommendation to introduce pill testing at music festivals in the state, before the official release of the findings. [56]
In 2019 the Queensland government instructed the Queensland Productivity Commission to conduct an enquiry into imprisonment and recidivism in QLD, the final report was sent to the Queensland Government on 1 August 2019 and publicly released on 31 January 2020. The commission found that "After many decades of operation, illicit drugs policy has failed to curb supply or use. The policy costs around $500 million per year to administer and is a key contributor to rising imprisonment rates (32 per cent since 2012). It also results in significant unintended harms, by incentivising the introduction of more harmful drugs and supporting a large criminal market". Evidence suggests moving away from a criminal approach will reduce harm and is unlikely to increase drug use". The committee made a number of recommendations including that the Queensland government enact a staged reform to legalise cannabis, as well as for the decriminalisation of other drugs. [57] [58] The QPC said the system had also fuelled an illegal market, particularly for methamphetamine. Although the Palaszczuk Queensland Labor Party led state government rejected the recommendations of its own commission stating they "have no plans to alter any drug laws". [59]
In 2019 The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and St Vincent Health Australia called on the NSW Government to publicly release the findings of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice, saying there was "no excuse" for the delay. [60] The report was the culmination of months of evidence from health and judicial experts, as well as families and communities affected by amphetamine-type substances across NSW. The report made 109 recommendations aimed to strengthen the NSW Governments response regarding amphetamine-based drugs such as crystal meth or ice. Major recommendations included more supervised drug use rooms, a prison needle and syringe exchange program, state-wide clinically supervised substance testing, including mobile pill testing at festivals, decriminalisation of drugs for personal use, a cease to the use of drug detection dogs at music festivals and to limit the use of strip searches. The report, also called for the NSW Government to adopt a comprehensive Drug and Alcohol policy, with the last drug and Alcohol policy expiring over a decade ago. The reports commissioner said the state's approach to drug use was profoundly flawed and said reform would require "political leadership and courage", "Criminalising use and possession encourages us to stigmatise people who use drugs as the authors of their own misfortune," Mr Howard said current laws "allow us tacit permission to turn a blind eye to the factors driving most problematic drug use" including "trauma, childhood abuse, domestic violence, unemployment, homelessness, dispossession, entrenched social disadvantage, mental illness, loneliness, despair and many other marginalising circumstances that attend the human condition". [61] The NSW government rejected the reports key recommendations, saying it would consider the other remaining recommendations. Director of the Drug Policy Modelling Program (DPMP) at UNSW Sydney's Social Policy Research Centre said the NSW Government has missed an opportunity to reform the state's response to drugs based on evidence. [62] The NSW Government is yet to officially respond to the inquiry as of November 2020, a statement was released from the government citing intention to respond by the end of 2020. [63]
On 7 April 2021, the Coroners Court of Victoria released its findings in relation to the drug-related deaths of five young males, aged between 17 and 32, across Melbourne between July 2016 and January 2017. Coroner Spanos recommended that the Victorian Department of Health urgently implement a public drug checking service where samples are rapidly analysed for content and purity as well as an early warning network to alert the public to contaminated drugs in the community. [64]
On 3 February 2023, it was announced that from July 2023, authorised psychiatrists in Australia will be able to legally prescribe MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. [65]
Policing and other activities
On 19 September 2018 Attorney General of Western Australia, John Quigley instructed former Chief Justice Wayne Martin to conduct a review of the Criminal Property Confiscation Act including to "identify unintended consequences and anomalies in the operation of the Act and examination of whether the Act contains adequate safeguards to avoid undue hardship, unfairness or injustice to respondents and third parties." [66] On the 8th of May 2019 Mr Martin AC QC published a report concluding that "the Act should be repealed and re-written". In the report Mr Martin stated that, "the Act is largely unconcerned with whether confiscation is fair or just" and "has the undeniable potential to inflict injustice, and to operate arbitrarily and unfairly [67] ".
In December 2020 following an investigation, the NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) reported that strip searches conducted by NSW police were routinely unlawful. [68]
In November 2021, Slater and Gordon and Redfern Legal Centre announced a potential class action against NSW Police following a number of unlawful strip searches performed at music festival Splendour in the Grass. [69] In July 2022, Slater and Gordon and Redfern Legal Centre filed the class action lawsuit in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. [70]
