Mick Palmer: Second letter to Daily Telegraph

In Mick Palmer to Editor, Daily Telegraph we published the full text of a letter submitted to the editor of The Daily Telegraph on 11 February 2014, in response to an article by Miranda Devine, published in the Telegraph on 8 February, and a link to the edited version of the letter published on 14 February.

Below is the text of a follow-up letter sent by Mr Palmer today to Associate Editor Sarrah Le Marquand.

Begins

Dear Sarrah.

Thank you for your recent advice concerning my response to Miranda Devine’s opinion piece on  8 February 2014 on ending the drug culture and  for running an edited version of my reply in last Friday’s edition of the Daily Telegraph.

I must admit, however, to being disappointed on two counts.

Firstly, that your newspaper would publish an edited version of a response on such an important topic without making any public acknowledgement that the published response had been edited.

Secondly, that the editing appeared to be aimed at weakening the impact of my response and minimising any criticism of Ms Devine.

In particularly, I draw your attention to the following excerpts from my original letter which were omitted from the published version:

The Howard government launched its “Tough on Drugs Strategy” in 1997. Yet behind the scenes the Howard government was the first Commonwealth Government to help fund the needle and syringe programmes run by the states and territories. The Howard government also allocated a lot of funding to help move drug offenders from the criminal justice system to drug treatment… In my opinion these were all excellent policies but they were all harm reduction rather than simply ‘Tough on Drugs’.

And,

I was saddened by Ms Devine’s attack upon Dr Alex Wodak for his advocacy of drug law reform. Dr Wodak is well able to defend and speak for himself but, in my view, attacking the man rather than the ball is not only poor form but generally is a sign of fundamental weaknesses in the argument of the alleger.

Having regard to the fundamental importance, particularly in the current media environment, of transparency and integrity in reporting, I found these omissions surprising and regretful.

I respectfully request that you publish this letter to correct the record and more accurately reflect the intent and meaning of my initial response.

Yours sincerely

Mick Palmer

Ends

Mick Palmer to Editor, Daily Telegraph

Following is the text of a letter sent to the editor of the Daily Telegraph on 11 February 2014, in response to an article by Miranda Devine, published in the Telegraph on 8 February. An edited text of the letter was published by as a news item by the Telegraph on 14 February (see Fighting drugs a complex issue).

Begins

Letter to the Editor,

Daily Telegraph.

11 February 2014

As a 33 year career police officer. I am neither a promoter of illicit drug use nor an apologist for illicit drug users.

The fervent nature of Miranda Devine’s article (It’s high time to end drug culture, Daily Telegraph, 8 February 2014), however, prompted me into comment.

The issue of illicit drugs is difficult and complex but it really is high time we started discussing the question of illicit drugs unemotionally and realistically and that informed people began really trying to make a difference.

Ms Devine is right to say that Hollywood glamorises illicit drugs and shouldn’t, but, equally, wider society demonises and criminalises illicit drug users when the very vast majority of such users are simply victims.

 Hollywood glamorised tobacco smoking for decades. And still glamorises alcohol. Every death matters. But we have to remember that the number of deaths from legal drugs in Australia is 15-20 times the number of deaths from illegal drugs. Even among young Australians there are more deaths from alcohol than there are from illegal drugs. And most of the people who die from a tobacco-related illness in their sixties started smoking in their late teens or early twenties.

Without, in any way wishing to minimise the illicit drug use problem, my experience tells me that  Ms Devine is on  shaky ground when claiming that the rises and falls in drug use in Australia are due to cycles of tough and laissez faire governments.

Firstly, government drug policy behind the scenes is much more complicated than the slogans and political posturing might suggest. The Howard government launched its ‘Tough on Drugs Strategy’ in 1997. Yet behind the scenes the Howard government was the first Commonwealth government to help fund the needle and syringe programmes run by the states and territories. The Howard government also allocated a lot of funding to help move drug offenders from the criminal justice system to drug treatment. And Minister Downer in the Howard government made sure that Australia gave generously to Asian harm reduction programmes to slow the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs. In my opinion, these were all excellent policies but they were all harm reduction rather than simply ‘Tough on Drugs’.

Secondly, it is important that we focus on the harms from drugs rather than on estimates of drug use. For most parents and most members of the community, deaths, disease and crime are even more important than the number of people estimated to be using drugs. Although there is a close connection between the consumption of legal drugs by individuals or communities and the risk of harm, the connection between the consumption of illegal drugs by individuals or communities and the risk of harm is not as clear.

Let’s just think about our use of cars in Australia and deaths from road crashes. Compared to 30 or 40 years ago, these days more Australians own cars, we travel longer distances each year in our cars and there are many more of us. Yet road crash deaths are a small fraction of deaths in the 1970s thanks to things like seat belts, safer vehicles and random breath tests. Harm reduction initiatives which have made a real difference.

I have spent decades of my life in law enforcement and was  the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police for a period of 7 years, including during then PM Howard’s   Tough on Drugs period. As part of my responsibilities I was accountable for working closely with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in oversighting and implementing many aspects of the policy.

As I have said publicly before, Australian police are now better trained, generally better equipped and resourced and more operationally effective that at any time in our history. But, on any objective assessment policing of the illicit drug market has had only marginal impact on the profitability of the drug trade or the availability of illicit drugs.

I am not alone in this view. Many serving and retired senior police have the same opinion. The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, former US Secretary of State George Shultz, former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volker, the former Presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Switzerland, and Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, accept that the War on Drugs has been an expensive and complete failure. My personal experience convinces me that these assessments are correct and that we must seek another path.

In this regard I was saddened by Ms Devine’s attack upon Dr Alex Wodak for his advocacy of drug law reform.  Dr Wodak is well able to defend and speak for himself but, in my view, attacking the man rather than the ball is not only poor form but generally is a sign of fundamental weaknesses in the arguments of the alleger. 

Where does this leave us?  I agree with the commentators who argue that the health, social and economic costs of alcohol consumption in Australia are too high. Like most Australians I have been angered and sickened by the continuing spate of alcohol related violence and cowardly and unprovoked conduct that has underpinned much of it.  I am ashamed and angry that so many Aboriginal Australians still die far too young from the effects of alcohol and tobacco and from glue and petrol sniffing.  These are critically serious problems and there is much that is wrong and much more that needs to be done.

But I also believe we must to do better with illicit drugs in Australia.  This will require a calm, sensible and respectful discussion based on real evidence and a focus on reducing the harms from illicit drugs. Reducing the consumption of drugs is one way of reducing the harm from drugs but the HIV epidemic showed us that being smart about drugs is much more effective than simply being tough.    

Mick Palmer

Former Commissioner of Australian Federal Police.

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Is youth based policy enough to re-engage young voters?

Is youth based policy enough to re-engage  young voters?  Kathryn  Hedger is completing post graduate studies in the Criminology and Criminal Justice field. She says: "I decided to volunteer with Australia 21 in order to contribute to society by furthering the organisation's research surrounding social justice issues."      When we asked some of Australia21's  young volunteers to comment on the  2013 election agenda, Kathryn submitted this piece.   From listening to reports of the election campaign, it seems that our politicians think that the young voter has become disinterested in politics; so now we have Kevin Rudd attempting to re-engage the youth vote. But will an increased emphasis on youth-based policy be enough to re-engage the youth vote?  From listening to Triple J’s ‘Hack’ program and my peers as well, it seems quite clear to me that this re-engagement (if in fact we  actually have ever been engaged rather than bored) will not suffice. Why? Because, and I quote; “they’re both clowns, there’s nothing separating them from each other”. So with this thought in mind, what do I, as a young voter, think should matter and why? Firstly, I would like to hear one of the major parties (excluding The Greens) say very loudly, and very clearly, that seeking asylum, by boat or plane, is not illegal. The moral panic that has been created by the media has, as usual, sunk into general perceptions and made its way into the 2013 Election. I find it deeply concerning that neither of the major parties has made a significant attempt to clarify misperception around asylum seekers coming to Australia. Secondly, I would like to see policy discussion of de-criminalisation and regulation of illicit substances on the agenda. The ‘War on Drugs’ and ‘Tough on Drugs’ policy has been ongoing since its inception in the United States in the early 1970s. However, illicit substances remain widely available in the community until this day, costing our health care and criminal justice systems millions of dollars annually. Prohibition is very expensive. The new call for the de-criminalisation and regulation of illicit substances has gone global. It is about time that it entered the Australian political scene more broadly. These are just two items on my agenda. I just hope that we begin to see  proper discussion of issues like this on the 2013 Election Agenda.

Uruguay poised to adopt regulatory approach to marijuana

On Wednesday 31 July the Drug Policy Alliance issued a media release announcing that he Uruguayan House of Representatives approved a bill to legally regulate marijuana. Passing with 50 out of 96 votes, the bill now goes to the Senate. If approved by the Senate, Uruguay will become the first country in the world to legally regulate the production, distribution and sale of marijuana.

Commenting on the move, Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance said

“Uruguay’s bold move does more than follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington. It provides a model for legally regulating marijuana that other countries, and U.S. states, will want to consider – and a precedent that will embolden others to follow in their footsteps.”

Read the full media release here.

Coffee Shops and Compromise: Separated Illicit Drug Markets in the Netherlands.

The second Australia21 report on drug policy in 2012, Alternatives to Prohibition. Illicit Drugs: How Can we Stop Killing and Criminalising Young Australians?, examined the drug policy of four European countries. The Netherlands, Switzerland and Portugal were contrasted with Sweden. The first group of countries, at different times, became dissatisfied with the results of conventional drug policies and adopted a more pragmatic approach. Sweden has for decades followed a similar harsh drug policy to the United States. In the early 1970s, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to break with the international drug control system by placing much more emphasis on pragmatic health and social interventions rather than relying heavily on drug law enforcement. Switzerland followed a similar path from the early 1990s. In 2001, Portugal also began re-defining illicit drugs as primarily a health and social problem. While the Australia21 report applauded some positive aspects of Sweden's drug policy, the emphasis on punishment has remained and some of the results of this policy have been concerning. Drug overdose deaths in Sweden have been higher than most other European countries and have also been rising.

The recent report from the Open Society Foundation Coffee Shops and Compromise. Separated Illicit Drug Markets in the Netherlands examines the results of decades of experience with the Dutch cannabis coffee shops. There is now considerable support in academic publications for this policy. The Open Society Foundation report is consistent with the conclusions of the Australia21 report.

In the Netherlands there are many fewer arrests for cannabis than in the United States. In 2005 there were 269 marijuana possession arrests for every 100,000 citizens in the United States, 206 in the United Kingdom, 225 in France, and 19 in the Netherlands. Consistent with several other studies (but perhaps counter-intuitively), less emphasis on drug law enforcement in the Netherlands did not lead to increased consumption. About 25.7% of Dutch citizens report having used cannabis at least once. This is about average for Europe. The United Kingdom and the United States have a much more punitive approach than the Netherlands but 30.2% (UK) and 41.9% (USA) report having used cannabis at least once. The cannabis coffee shops in the Netherlands were originally introduced to protect cannabis users from exposure to more dangerous drugs (such as heroin and cocaine). This notion is known as the “separation of markets.” The markets are much more separated in the Netherlands than in the United Kingdom and the United States. In Sweden, 52 % of people who use cannabis report that other drugs are available from their usual cannabis source. In the Netherlands, only 14 % of marijuana users can get other drugs from their cannabis source, according to European drug monitors. This is largely because the vast majority of cannabis users buy from coffee shops.

In addition, the Netherlands has virtually eliminated injecting drug use as a source of cases of new HIV infection. The Netherlands has the lowest rate of problem drug use in Europe.

However, as any other country, the Dutch approach is vulnerable to politics. In a policy area always at the mercy of populism, political squabbling can end up with regressive drug policy approaches. From time to time, as in other countries Dutch politicians have used drug policy as a wedge issue.

Supporters of the international drug control system claim that movement toward more conventional drug policy is an admission of failure regarding pragmatic approaches on the part of Dutch lawmakers. But Dutch drug policy has never failed. In some cases reforms were introduced as a means of dealing with local difficulties. In other cases, coffee shops represented an easy political target. Despite the variation in Dutch drug policy from time to time, the achievements of Dutch drug policy and their broad public support cannot be denied.

Do Australia and the international community have the political will to learn from the lessons of the Netherlands and carry them even further?

World opinion on drug policy is now changing. Two decades ago harm reduction, the notion that reducing harm should be the primary aim of drug policy rather than reducing consumption regardless of the consequences, was seen as radical. Harm reduction supporters were marginalised while supporters of drug prohibition were the mainstream. That situation has now reversed. Harm reduction and drug law reformers are increasingly regarded as the mainstream and supporters of drug prohibition are now increasingly marginalised.