Canada is now the second country in the world (after Uruguay) to legalise and regulate cannabis use. With one in five Americans living in states where marijuana is legal or in the process of legalisation, why are Australian policymakers still so apprehensive about decriminalisation?
Australia has a relatively high rate of drug use, with 57 per cent of Australians having consumed an illicit drug in their life and one in six doing so on a regular basis. We are renowned as the ‘bong capital’ of the world, with 36 per cent of cannabis users smoking on a regular basis.
A lot of it is fairly innocuous pleasure seeking behaviour by users who moderate their drug consumption as others do with alcohol. But there’s no doubt that we also see the shattering consequences of substance abuse, which tend to be concentrated in rural and disadvantaged communities.
Despite this, policy makers continue to ignore the benefits of decriminalising drug possession for personal use such as fewer overdoses and deaths from drug use and less pressure on justice systems. Meaningful debate about drug reform has stalled for years and the idea of legalising and regulating recreational marijuana in Australia is still treated as controversial.
Meanwhile, drug law enforcement continues to be the modus operandi of dealing with drug use despite it’s consistent failure to cut the supply of drugs, reduce their use and address problems related to substance abuse in disadvantaged communities.
Former Victorian police commissioner Ken Lay, head of the federal government’s former Ice Taskforce, conceded that “you can’t arrest your way out of the problem”, while Mick Palmer, former AFP Commissioner, has said that “drug law enforcement has had little impact on the Australian drug market.”
Based on outcomes in other countries, decriminalisation of drugs has not increased use and can substantially reduce harm. Tax revenue in US states where marijuana has been legalised is helping to fund black-market enforcement as well as health, harm reduction and rehabilitation efforts.
The three states where adult use has been legal for the longest period of time – Colorado, Washington and Oregon – have generated a combined total of US$1.3 billion in tax. Legalisation has not lead to an increase in use, something many opponents were worried about. In Colorado, legalisation has led to a sharp drop of use by adolescents.
Meanwhile in Australia, we see high rates of drug use by adolescents and we continue to allow a black market worth anywhere between AU$7 billion to AU$17 billion control the production and distribution of widely used substances. Unregulated production means users can never be sure about what’s in their drugs or how potent they are, meaning the risk of adverse reactions, overdose and death is higher than in a regulated market.
The number of people suffering from mental health issues is rising, with depression now the leading cause of ill health and disability, having risen more than 18 per cent worldwide since 2005. And according to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2016, the rate at which people are persistently using illicit drugs to improve their mood or curb feelings of unhappiness, anxiety and depression is also rising. This is leaving us with a higher chance that people are engaging in potentially harmful attempts at self-medication.
This ties back in to the point about drug related problems affecting disadvantaged Australians. For example, while overall use of illegal drugs has declined in Australia, drug use is disproportionately highamong young people, unemployed people, LGBT people and rural Australians.
The current response to this is vilifying users and giving them criminal records for possessing drugs for personal use. This can only initiate or worsen the pre-conditions for substance abuse and exacerbate mental health issues by denying them employment opportunities and stigmatising them. With 26,000 criminal incidents of cannabis possession a year in NSW alone, it’s a problem worth focusing on.
Photo credit: Katheirne Hitt.
There are some inklings of drug reform in the country. A Victorian parliamentary report has called for additional research into legalising recreational cannabis use. It’s one of 50 recommendations being considered by the Andrews government and is the biggest ever state review of drug laws.
Proponents of legislation (including me) view this as a welcoming step in the right direction. However, any state efforts to legalise cannabis must be done with care. While legalisation in some US states is curbing black markets within the states where it is legal, it is fueling black markets in other US states where the drug remains illegal. A pound of marijuana might sell for US$2,000 legally in Colorado but can sell for three times as much in a large east coast city on the black market.
If recreational use is legalised in Victoria or another state, it might similarly fuel black markets in states where drug use remains illegal. This suggests that consistent legislation across the country will be needed to meaningfully undermine the black market, something that’s far harder to achieve. The chances of that happening look especially slim with the recent news that the new South Australian government wants to quadruple cannabis possession fines and introduce prison sentences – a stunning reversal in a state where cannabis possession has been decriminalised since 1987.
Finding an appropriate future direction for drug policy is challenging, especially when the issue is so politicised. But one thing is clear, the current approach of blanket criminalisation is untenable. Legalising the recreational use of marijuana and decriminalising the use of all other drugs is an important step towards addressing substance abuse issues in a way that doesn’t tie up the justice system or unreasonably penalise users, some of whom are already among the most vulnerable members of our society.
Daniel Huigsloot is a copywriter from Melbourne and a regular contributor to Centrethought. Find out more about him here, and follow him on Twitter @DanielHuigsloot.