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Echo Issue Outline: copyright Echo Education Services
First published in The Echo news digest and newspaper sources index.

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Issue outline by J M McInerney

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Should marijuana use be decriminalised?
The Victorian Parliament will formally debate the recommendations of the Premier's Drug Advisory Council on May 31.
The Premier has indicated that once this debate is completed the Government is likely to finalise any resulting drug reform legislation within the following two weeks.
Currently it seems possible that at least one of the Drug Advisory Council's recommendations, that the use of marijuana be decriminalised, may become law.
This possibility has generated widespread debate within the Victorian community.

Background
The Premier's Drug Advisory Council was established over six months ago in response to a popular perception that there is a growing drug problem in Victoria.
The Council was headed by former Melbourne University Vice Chancellor, Professor David Penington.
The Council was charged with investigating the nature of the illicit or illegal drug problem in Victoria and with suggesting ways of overcoming this problem.
Though marijuana use fell within its brief, the popular concern which led to the establishment of the Council largely centred around heroin.
The Drug Advisory Council's recommendations that have received the most media and community attention are those relating to marijuana use.
The Council recommended:
* The use and possession of a small quantity of marijuana (no more than 25g) should not be an offence;
* The cultivation of up to 5 cannabis plants per household, for personal use, should not be an offence;
* The sale of marijuana should remain an offence, however, sale by adults to adults should incur only a police caution for a first offence and an adjourned bond for a second;
* The consumption of marijuana in public places should be controlled by local government;
* Previous convictions for possession and use of small quantities of marijuana should be struck out;
* Learner or provisional permit drivers found guilty of careless, reckless or dangerous driving under the influence of marijuana should be disqualified for an extended period and required to take part in education programs;
* Research should be funded to develop roadside tests to detect cannabis use.
The Council also made a number of key recommendations on hard drugs, such as heroin.
Included in these recommendations were the following:
* Adult first offenders using or in the possession of heroin, cocaine or amphetamines should be cautioned and referred to a treatment service;
* Magistrates of the Children's Court should be given the power to require offenders to attend treatment or education programs;
* Sentences for drug trafficking should be reviewed to see if they are appropriate;
* An Agency for Drug Dependency should be developed to improve drug treatment services;
* A Youth Substance Abuse Service should be established;
* Urgent steps should be taken to increase methadone services for heroin withdrawal;
* Prison support services should be upgraded;
* An information and education strategy should be established in schools.

Arguments against the decriminalisation of marijuana
There are a number of grounds on which the decriminalisation of marijuana has been opposed.
The first of these appears to be that it is not appropriate to decriminalise a form of behaviour merely because it is difficult to eradicate.
Those who hold this point of view maintain that using the degree of violation (that is, how often a law is broken) as grounds for abolishing a law is an attack on the total rule of law.
Professor Glenn Bowes and Dr John Toumbourou have argued, `All laws are disobeyed to some degree ... Using extent of disobedience as a criteria for reform is inconsistent with legal precedent in other areas relevant to health.'
According to this line of argument if a behaviour is deemed harmful it should remain illegal, even if its prohibition creates law enforcement difficulties.
This is the position put by the head of the American Drug Enforcement Administration, Mr Thomas Constantine, who has stated, `Drugs are not dangerous because they are illegal; drugs are illegal because they are dangerous.'
The second line of argument emphasises the supposed physical and other dangers associated with marijuana use.
On a physiological level it has been claimed that marijuana use impairs short-term memory, concentration and physical co-ordination. It is also claimed that it may result in confused and delusional thinking.
It has further been claimed that marijuana is destructive to the lungs, and is known to be carcinogenic. Marijuana is said to be a probable cause of cancer of the upper respiratory and digestive tracts, the head and the neck.
Marijuana is also said to lead to impairment of the immune system and to be a possible cause of Emphysema.
Marijuana use has also been implicated as a possible cause of reduced fertility in both men and women; foetal damage during pregnancy; suppression of sex hormones and interference with growth, sexual maturation and menstruation.
It has also been suggested that long-term use of marijuana may result in impotence and loss of normal sex drive.
It is also claimed that those with a predisposition toward schizophrenia may have the condition brought on by using marijuana.
In addition to the physiological damage which it is claimed marijuana causes, those opposed to the drug's decriminalisation are also concerned about the effect it might have on drivers' performances.
The exact effect that marijuana might have on driver performance is apparently not known, however, there are those who believe that as the drug can interfere with concentration and physical co-ordination, it is highly likely that it will reduce driving performance.
In addition there is concern that any attempt by the police to limit driving under the influence of marijuana will prove difficult as currently there is no roadside test that will indicate quickly and easily that drivers have been smoking marijuana and the degree to which they have been effected.
The recently retired director of the National Crime Authority, Mr Tom Sherman, has highlighted the absence of such roadside tests and has urged policy makers to be cautious about any change to drug legislation they introduce.
A spokesperson for the Transport Accident Commission, Mr Ian Forsyth, has stated, `As far as I am aware there is no random way of breath testing for drug levels ... You would need to take a blood or urine sample and have it analysed and that is not a random test.'
Mr Forsyth has also noted a further factor making the interpretation of any possible test results difficult. As marijuana can remain in a person's bloodstream for weeks (and some authorities claim years) after use, test results could indicate the presence of the drug, yet the actual effect of the drug at the time of detection could be difficult to estimate.
It has further been claimed that were marijuana to be decriminalised its use would increase.
This is the particular fear of senior members of Victoria Police who have voiced their opposition to the decriminalisation of marijuana.
The Victoria Police have also expressed concern about the possible impact of increased marijuana use on attempts to reduce the road toll.
Those who hold this view point to the South Australian experience.
South Australia softened its laws prohibiting marijuana use in 1987, such that fines, rather than a conviction, became the penalty for possession, cultivation or use of a small amount.
Subsequent studies of drug use in South Australia have suggested that the number of South Australian marijuana-users aged between 14 and 19 increased by 50 per cent in the five years after the law was changed.
A 1994 report by Queensland's criminal Justice Commission has also claimed that within five years the number of South Australians aged between 20 and 39 who had used marijuana rose by 31 per cent.
These figures are said to indicate a greater increase in usage than that experienced by any other Australian state in the same period.
Relatedly, there has been concern expressed about the role law plays in educating society, that is, the role the law plays in shaping people's values and behaviour.
According to this line of argument, one of the major functions of law is as a statement of those behaviours a society does not approve.
It has been claimed that for most people in a society, the fact that a particular action is illegal is enough to either prevent them doing it or restrict the extent to which they do.
Concern has been voiced that were marijuana use no longer clearly illegal, than many more people, including young people, might believe it was no longer seen as harmful and so would feel free to use it.
This point has been made by some parents. Kathleen Allen, in a letter to the editor of The Age, has written, `I have endeavour to impress upon my five children the known physical and mental dangers of marijuana use. Now a Government committee recommends that they be allowed to possess 25 grams for personal use. They could even grow one plant each in our backyard. Talk about mixed messages.'
It has further been claimed that were marijuana decriminalised this would not necessarily stop the involvement of the criminal community in its production and distribution.
Again the South Australian situation has been used by critics of decriminalisation to suggest what some of the dangers might be.
It has been claimed that in South Australia organised crime remains involved in major plantations.
The acting head of the Victorian drug squad, Detective Inspector David Reid, has claimed that `Much of our (Victoria's) marijuana is supplied from South Australia.'
According to this line of argument, as long as there are any Australian states (or, by implication other countries) in which marijuana is illegal, it will be supplied illegally from one state to another, irrespective of whether its cultivation for private use is legal in the supplying state.
It has also been claimed that decriminalising marijuana will not necessarily prevent people progressing to hard drugs and may in fact encourage them to do so more rapidly.
According to this line of argument, one of the key reasons why adolescents, in particular, try drugs is as an act of rebellion.
It has been claimed that once marijuana is decriminalised many potential users might prefer to begin by using heroin or might move to its use more quickly.
The argument offered here is that some users might come to prefer heroin as a more dramatic way of violating societal taboos.

Arguments in favour of the decriminalisation of marijuana.
The Penington committee has offered a number of arguments in support of its recommendation that marijuana be decriminalised.
The first of these is that legal prohibitions have failed to prevent the use of the drug.
Dr Penington has given statistics suggesting that 12 per cent of Victorians have used marijuana in the past 12 months and some 50 per cent of young men and 40 per cent of young women have probably used or experimented with marijuana.
Kenneth Davidson, commenting on the issue in The Age, has observed that about 15,000 Victorian youths each year acquire a criminal conviction through their use of marijuana.
Dr Penington has claimed that when a law is broken on such a scale it indicates a significant and concerning gap between legislation and the actual world in which this legislation is meant to operate.
`The law,' Professor Penington has claimed, `is out of step with reality; to have laws so widely ignored is not good.'
According to this line of argument a number of harmful consequences follow when the law is disregarded as generally as this.
One of these undesirable consequences is that police resources are being used in areas where little or no progress is being made. There are those who see this as a waste of such resources.
It is also claimed that another damaging consequence of having the law in this area so generally disregarded is that it brings the law itself into contempt and damages attempts to educate young people about the dangers of drug use.
Professor Penington has stated, `About one in 10 regular smokers of marijuana gets into difficulties, and latent schizophrenia may be aggravated in a much smaller number. We have to be able to talk to young people about these issues. They are far less likely to discuss their problems with parents or to seek help and advice if doing so is to admit to criminal activity.'
Relatedly, Professor Penington has observed, `Many young people will always explore dangerous activities. If told "marijuana will blow your mind" and they find it doesn't - they disbelieve all they are taught. While any use is criminal, there is no possibility of convincing them about the danger signs for which they must watch.'
The second major argument is one frequently but not exclusively put by those who are or have been marijuana-users.
According to this argument, marijuana use is an activity which is no more intrinsically harmful than many which are currently legal, if restricted.
According to this line of argument, if alcohol and tobacco are legally available then marijuana should be similarly so.
This is the position put by the author of a letter to the editor, writing to The Herald Sun who signed himself Steve, `As an adult I find it utterly mind-boggling and insulting that I am permitted to consume alcohol and become an alcoholic, smoke cigarettes and develop cancer and gamble and become a problem gambler. All of which are extremely hazardous to my health and general well-being, and yet perfectly legal. Yet I am not permitted by law to smoke a joint and become relaxed.'
Those who hold this view do not necessarily claim that marijuana is less injurious than alcohol or nicotine. They tend to claim that it is not more so and that it is either not addictive or is far less addictive than the two major recreational drugs already legally available.
From this point of view there is claimed to be a degree of societal hypocrisy in making some recreational drugs legally available and others, apparently no more injurious, not.
Relatedly, the third major argument offered is that marijuana use is not an area where the law genuinely has a place.
The general purpose of the criminal law is said to be to protect citizens from becoming the victims of crime. Marijuana use is said by some to be a non-criminal activity in these terms as the only person directly affected is the user.
According to this line of argument, it is only when prohibition results in the cost of the prohibited drug being increased through its scarcity value and inflated by the criminal element which frequently supplies it that the user may have recourse to theft to meet the cost of supporting his or her habit. Thus, it is argued, if marijuana use were not legally prohibited, there would be no crime associated with it.
The fourth major argument offered is that prohibition may have created a set of problems worse than those that would result were marijuana to be decriminalised.
Apart from the fact that prohibition is claimed to make difficult the education of marijuana users in safe practices, making the drug illegal is said actually to actually the growth of the criminal community's involvement in the drug trade.
According to this line of argument, making it illegal to for small scale users to grow their own supply creates a market for organised crime to supply.
This is claimed to mean that much of the profit derived from the sale of marijuana goes to support the activities of those who also supply heroin and other hard drugs.
It has also been claimed that making the cultivation and use of marijuana illegal brings users into contact with the criminal community which largely supplies them and so makes it easier for marijuana users to make the transition to hard drugs which are frequently also available from the same source.
It has further been claimed that breaking the law in pursuing their habit and dealing with drug dealers in order to do so may break down the inhibitions that otherwise law-abiding people might be expected to have about sampling other drugs supplied from the same source.
Summarising the pro-decriminalisation position, The Age, in its editorial of April 14, stated, `The main effect of prohibition has been to make a mockery of the law, to brand recreational users as criminals ... and to maintain a lucrative blackmarket ready to procure and push any drug for which there is a demand.'
There are also those who argue that not only would decriminalisation make users more receptive to education programs on the potential dangers of marijuana, the money that would be saved from the law enforcement budget, were marijuana to be made legal, could be used to help finance drug education programs.
It has further been suggested by some of that a licence could be imposed on those wishing to grow up to five marijuana plants for their own use and that the proceeds from licence fees could be used to help finance drug education programs.
A more radical suggestion, made in a letter to the editor to the Herald Sun and by Age columnist Kenneth Davidson, is that marijuana could in effect be fully legalised and its cultivation be given over to government regulated commercial companies so that its sale could be controlled and as is the case with tobacco and alcohol taxes could be imposed Part of the money from such taxes could be used for drug education programs and drug rehabilitation programs.
Finally, on the question of marijuana's impact on drivers, those in favour of its decriminalisation tend to argue that a simple and fairly immediate form of roadside test needs to be developed so that those using marijuana and driving can be screened for and detected in the same way as those drinking alcohol and driving currently are.
Dr Penington has claimed that saliva can be used to test for the presence of marijuana and that Victoria needs only to develop and refine such a test.

Further implications
The decriminalisation of marijuana is a politically divisive issue.
There is no clear unanimity on the question either within the ruling Victorian Coalition parties, nor within the Labor Opposition.
One Liberal backbencher, Mr Bernie Finn, has decided to conduct a voluntary secret ballot on the question within his electorate of Tullamarine. Mr Finn appears to wish to know the position of his constituents before he determines his own.
Within the Coalition as a whole there is growing concern that the proposal to decriminalise marijuana does not have widely based community support.
If this is the case then the introduction of legislation to decriminalise marijuana would cost the Government significant electoral support.
It has been suggested that the apparent opposition within the general electorate to the decriminalisation of marijuana reflects the view of many within the Liberal Party and even more within the National Party.
The first publicly voiced response from a member of the Coalition government came from Mr Peter McLellan, the member for Frankston East. Mr McLellan has expressed `grave concerns' about the report's recommendation that marijuana be decriminalised, and has called instead for the introduction of harsher penalties for those convicted of dealing in hard drugs.
Mr McLellan's suggested penalties include the revoking of citizenship status and automatic deportation for immigrations found guilty of drug trafficking.
The premier, Mr Kennett, seems to have recognised his party's growing concern at the prospect of decriminalising marijuana and its related worry that such a policy will cost votes.
Mr Kennett has called on the media and the community to turn their attention from the question of marijuana and to consider issues raised by the report, such as drug education and treatment.
If these trends continue it is likely that marijuana will not be decriminalised.
There have been criticisms that the focussing of attention on the marijuana debate has led to the hard drug problem being ignored.
The Drug Advisory Council has defended itself against this charge, claiming that it is the media which has focussed the debate on the marijuana issue and that this distorts the emphasis of the report as only eight of its 73 recommendations relate to marijuana.
On the even larger question of whether heroin use should be decriminalised, Professor David Penington, who headed the Drug Advisory Council has admitted that it deliberately avoided consideration of the issue as it judged that the community was not yet ready to look at such a proposal.
`It is still very highly controversial to propose decriminalising marijuana, so it didn't make sense to go the whole hog in one go,' Professor Penington has stated.
The professor has gone on to suggest, `If we manage to get marijuana usage down then we can look at marijuana and amphetamines in 10 years' time, provided we have good education in place.'
The Council has, however, recommended an extensive education and rehabilitation program to address the drug problem.
Currently Victoria spends less per head on drug education than any other state. It will be interesting to see if the current government has the political will to pledge long-term funding to drug rehabilitation and education programs.
Some critics fear that any monies granted for these programs will be a one-off gesture.
It will also be interesting to note if, in the event of marijuana not being decriminalised, Victoria Police will be given the increased powers to deal with the drug offenders which it has requested.

Sources

The Age
13/4/96 page 26 editorial, `Opiates for the people?'
14/4/96 page 4 analysis and opinion by John Silvester, `The pot of gold in the garden'
14/4/96 page 16 editorial, `Drug move a step in the right direction'
16/4/96 page 12 editorial, `Penington proposals: a brave new approach to drug law reform'
16/4/96 page 12 comment by Nick Crofts, `A time to step out of the dark ages'
16/4/96 page 12 letters to the editor, `The case for'
16/4/96 page 13 comment by Professor Glenn Bowes and Dr John Toumbourou, `Laws must recognise dangers of marijuana'
16/4/96 page 13 comment by Professor David Penington, `Why prohibition has failed and legal changes are necessary'
16/4/96 page 13 letters to the editor, `the case against'
17/4/96 page 1 news item by Shane Green, `Protest at legal drugs grows'
18/4/96 page 1 news item by Shane Green, `Police "no" to drug laws'
18/4/96 page 17 comment by Kenneth Davidson, `The criminalisation of drug use costs us all'
20/4/96 page 22 analysis by Shane Green, `Drugs issue may already be cut and dried'
21/4/96///page 2 news item by Murray Mottram, `Drug debate has lost the plot: police chief'
24/4/96 page 3 news item by Shane Green, `MP urges tougher penalties for drugs'
26/4/96 page 1 news item by Nicole Brady, `Liberal MP to run his own drug poll'
28/4/96 page 4 news item by Murray Mottram, `Victoria spends the least on drug programs: study'

The Australian
13/4/96 page 23 comment by David Penington, `Why we're losing the drugs war'
18/4/96 page 6 news item by Rachel Hawes, `Police fear drug law reform will open minefield'
24/4/96 page 5 news item by Ewin Hannan, `Kennett seeks to divert debate from marijuana'
27/4/96 page 8 news item by Rachel Hawes, `Ex-addict praises initiative on drugs'
27/4/96 page 8 news item by Kimina Lyall, `Heroin debate lost in haze of dope deliberation'

The Herald Sun
13/4/96 page 9 news item by Greg Thom, `Drivers escape drug testing'
15/4/96 page 19 comment by Andrew Bolt, `Doesn't make it right'
17/4/96 page 9 news item by Lainie Barnes and Damon Johnston, `Tycoon warns on legal dope'
17/4/96 page 9 news item by Cheryl Critchley, `Offenders' families suffer'
17/4/96 page 16 letters to the editor under the heading, `The drug revolution'
19/4/96 page 2 news item by Matthew Pinkney, `Drug-drive test could stall laws'
19/4/96 page 18 editorial, `High aim of drug debate'
19/4/96 page 19 comment by Professor David Penington, `How pot helps police'
28/4/96 page 11 comment, reported by Michael Ryan, `Drugs law campaigner keeps on the grass'
28/4/96 page 45 comment by Michael Barnard, `Discipline set to go up in smoke'

What they said ...
`Drugs are not dangerous because they are illegal; drugs are illegal because they are dangerous'
Mr Thomas Constantine, head of the American Drug Enforcement Administration

`The main effect of prohibition has been to make a mockery of the law, to brand recreational users as criminals ... and to maintain a lucrative blackmarket ready to procure and push any drug for which there is a demand'
The Age, editorial of April 14