Greens' MP calls for Victorian drug policy reform
- May 7, 2017
- 2 min read
With rates of illicit drug-related crime, usage, fatalities and possession rising annually over the last ten years and the state in the grips of an ice epidemic, the efficiency of Victoria’s war on illicit drugs is once again coming under question.
Greens’ MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt threw his support behind the introduction of drug decriminalisation and supervised injecting facilities which would greatly reduce overdoses and drug-related crime at a drug policy reform Q&A seminar held at RMIT University on Wednesday night.
“Currently, we’ve got unsafe injecting rooms in Richmond. We saw 34 heroin overdoses in 2015 in Melbourne… it’s arguable that all those deaths were preventable,” declared Bandt, who in 2010 became the first member of the Australian Greens to be elected to the House of Representatives in a general election.
Bandt cited the success of supervised injecting facilities in Sydney’s notoriously drug-riddled Kings’ Cross since their introduction in 2001 as a case that proved the possible reduction of overdoses and drug-related crimes.
“There have been 4,000 recorded overdoses [within the facilities] since they opened, but there have been zero fatalities,” says Bandt.
“We will continue to argue that individual use should not fall within the criminal framework.”
The seminar featured a panel of speakers including Steph Tzanetis from the harm-reduction program DanceWize, Greens’ Member of the Victorian Legislative Committee and Pill Testing Advocate Colleen Hartland and RMIT Legal & Justice Academic Peta Malins.
Hartland became involved in the push for supervised injecting facilities while living in Footscray during the height of the street-use heroin period in the late 1980s.
“It’s about keeping people safe. It’s about harm minimalisation and treating this as a health issue not a criminal issue.
“If people wake up one morning and say, ‘I want to do something about where I’m going’, they need to be able to go there and then to seek assistance. It’s no good if they have to be put on a two-week waiting list,” says Hartland, calling on the Federal Government to allow for greater funding towards treatment in next Tuesday’s budget release.
Medicinal cannabis was legalised in a landmark decision in Victoria in February, with Premier Dan Andrews allowing approved patients to be treated with the previously-illicit substance.
Following the completion of the Q&A session among the 50-strong crowd, among which were representatives from the Victorian Young Greens and RMIT Students for Sensible Drug Policy, President of the RMIT Greens Patrick Hooton said that “a new conversation” needs to be held around the issue of illicit drug usage in Victoria.
“What we’ve seen since the beginning of the war on drugs, and we’re talking at the beginning of the 20th century, is that it has not worked. It has not reduced usage, it has only resulted in a more and more draconian set of laws against offenders.
“Mainly, you’ve got to start with baby steps. I think the main goals for the foreseeable future would be more support and rehabilitation mechanisms like an injecting room in Richmond. As for broader dug policy, the next big fight would be in the introduction of pill-testing at festivals and one day at the night club scene.”
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