Right: Australia is not the only country troubled by illegal drug trafficking and use. India, for example, has millions of regular users of easy-to-access drugs. Despite Western leanings towards decriminalisation, the official Indian government line is prevention and prosecution, as this poster indicates.
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Arguments against the decriminalisation low-level, personal drug use
1. Drug use is harmful
It has been argued that drug use is harmful on many levels. It can damage the health of individual users, causing great personal suffering for them and their families and friends. Many drugs influence the mood of users, potentially making them less inhibited and more aggressive. Some drugs can also rob users of motivation or precipitate depression. Drugs of dependency typically require the user to take progressively larger quantities to achieve the desired effect and their use in growing amounts over a protracted period can have serious effects on different body organs and systems.
Drug use results in underproduction and lost working days among drug users and often results in their unemployment. It puts enormous strain on community services, including medical services and hospitals. It often damages family units, impeding the progress and wellbeing of the children of drug users. The use of certain types of drug is associated with increased rates of violence and with a greater likelihood of automobile accidents.
Victoria Police deputy commissioner for crime, Graham Ashton, has claimed that calls for drug decriminalisation did not take into account the criminal flow-on effects of drug use, such as family violence, road fatalities and assaults.
Commissioner Ashton has stated, 'Decriminalisation is a simplistic response. It doesn't take into account the community harm that drugs do.'
The belief that drugs are harmful and that the laws against them should remain unaltered by government and should continue to be enforced by police has been expressed by Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Ms Gillard has stated, '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.'
2. Decriminalisation will encourage drug use
It has been argued that decriminalisation is only a short step from full legalisation and that the results of either move would be an increase in consumption. According to this line of argument, decriminalisation would remove the stigma from drug use and would increase ease of access. This, it has been suggested, would be likely to boost consumption.
The Western Australian Police Minister, Rob Johnson, has referred to what occurred when former Western Australian premier, Geoff Gallop decriminalised the smoking of small amounts of marijuana. Mr Johnson has stated, 'We became known as the cannabis capital of Australia and we saw cannabis use grow extensively. Drugs are not good for anybody, and if you start decriminalising it, what you see is an increase in use, you see people going from cannabis to harder drugs. You get people with psychotic problems.'
The Greens currently favour limited decriminalisation but are very wary of full legalisation. Greens senator Richard Di Natale has said the party supports decriminalisation for personal use, but does not want to go down the same road as alcohol. Mr Di Natale has stated, 'We took a product that was illegal and we put it in the hands of big corporations. We promoted it; we marketed it, now we have an enormous problem with alcohol dependence in this country.'
Critics of decriminalisation have pointed to both alcohol and nicotine, where decriminalisation has allowed for the widespread use of these substances with all the attendant ill effects. They ask whether either of these drugs would be made legally available if we were considering the question today.
3. Australia has been successful in reducing the use of illegal drugs
It has been claimed that there are a number of indicators which suggest that Australia's battle against illegal drug use is having positive effects.
A 1999 Australian Institute of Criminology report stated, 'Recent Australian initiatives to reduce the supply of drugs by focusing on the high level drug traffickers have met with success. For example, in Australia, joint investigations by the Australian Federal Police and Customs during the past three years have led to the break up of major international drug trafficking syndicates involved in the importation of large quantities of heroin, cocaine and cannabis resin.'
In 2008, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime issued a report on the effectiveness of drug-control measures in Australia. Among its findings were that though overall drug use increased 69% in the 1988-1998 period, notably between 1995 and 1998; this upward trend was reversed once the Australian Government started implementing its National Illicit Drugs Strategy "Tough on Drugs" (1997) in 1998. Between 1998 and 2007, annual prevalence of drug use - as reflected in household survey results (among the population age 14 and above) - declined by almost 40%. Use of amphetamines fell by 38%, cannabis by 49% and heroin use even fell by 75%. Only ecstasy use continued showing an upward trend, from an annual prevalence rate of 2.4% in 1998 to 3.4% in 2004 and 3.5% in 2007. Cocaine use increased slightly, from 1.4% in 1998 to 1.6% in 2007.
On April 5, 2012, Herald Sun columnist, Andrew Bolt, stated, 'The evidence suggests this "war" - a drugs crackdown initiated by then prime minister John Howard more than a decade ago - has worked.
Drug overdose deaths in Australia peaked at 1116 in 1999, then plummeted as better policing dried up supplies and better medical intervention saved lives. By 2001, opioid-related deaths were down by two-thirds, and there they've roughly stayed.
A change in reporting such deaths in 2006 led to a small uptick, but the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre concluded "we don't have any other indicators to suggest an increase in heroin-related harms/mortality".'
4. The health and social effects of drugs can be addressed without decriminalisation
Studies have demonstrated that drug taking behaviour is likely to be initiated in adolescence and consolidated into adulthood. Australia is working to develop intervention strategies which target primary and later school-aged children as the risk factors that contribute to later drug use are established then.
In 2004 the National Drug Research Institute and the Centre for Adolescent Health issued a report on substance abuse prevention strategies in Australia. The report included the following judgement, 'There is increasing evidence that investment in preventive programs in childhood can help to reduce harmful drug use in later years. In many cases, evaluations have demonstrated positive improvements in child behaviour problems over one to two years. Furthermore, follow-up into adolescence has been completed for an increasing number of studies and links the positive changes achieved through childhood prevention programs to later reductions in harmful drug use and associated behaviour problems. Evaluations have also found that pre-school programs may be important in ensuring a fuller realisation of learning potential.'
It has further been suggested that having drug use illegal, actually assists in addressing the health and social effects drugs pose. In an opinion piece published in The Age on May 24, 2012, Michael Keenan, the Liberal MP for Stirling and shadow minister for justice, customs and border protection stated, 'When you decriminalise drugs you take away the ability of the courts to compel low-risk offenders to attend appropriate drug rehabilitation and counselling services as a cautioning program and alternative to a jail sentence. For many drug offenders this is often the only avenue in which they and their families can seek vital assistance to combat drug addiction.'
5. Decriminalisation would not break the nexus between drugs and crime
It has been claimed that decriminalisation will not break the connection between criminals and drugs.
A report prepared on behalf of the Drug Prevention Network of the Americas has stated, 'Legalisation would not take the profit out of the drug trade as criminals will always find ways of countering legislation. They would continue their dangerous activities including cutting drugs with harmful substances to maximise sales and profits.'
Criminals may seek to undercut government or commercial suppliers by adulterating drugs with cheap and often dangerous fillers. Already other currently legal drugs - alcohol and tobacco - are regularly traded on the black market and are an international smuggling problem; an estimated 600 billion cigarettes are smuggled annually (World Drug report 2009). It has also been suggested that addiction will lead addicts to continue to steal and commit other illegal activities in order to supply themselves with drugs in the quantity and with the regularity they require. Short of governments distributing free drugs, those who commit crime now to obtain them would continue to do so if they became legal.
It has further been suggested that the dangerous side effects of many drugs, such as increased aggression or manic behaviour, will still leave those who take drugs likely to commit illegal acts. Sexual assault is frequently facilitated by substance use - some estimates put the number at over 60 percent. There is also an established connection between drug abuse and physical assault. Drugged driving is a major problem in the United States with 11 million Americans reported as driving under the influence of drugs in 2004. Driving while drugged is also becoming a significant problem in Australia.