The Australian Greens are right on illicit drugs

The revised policy is even more mainstream, and would arguably be supported by many if not most drug professionals and researchers, and legal and medical experts. It is not significantly different from the recently released ALP drugs policy which also emphasises the use of harm reduction programs including supervised injecting facilities to tackle the health and social problems caused by drug use.

The major strength of the Greens policy is that it recognises that many young Australians will continue to use illicit drugs for a variety of reasons including relaxation, fun, pleasure, curiosity, and to cope with problems, anxiety or pain.

The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, Statistics on Drug Use in Australia 2006, shows that 34 per cent of Australians have used marijuana in their lifetime and 25 per cent of young Australians aged 18-29 years have used in the last 12 months, while about 10 per cent of those aged 18-29 years had used ecstasy or methamphetamine in the past 12 months. Any policy which ignores this reality is worse than useless.

So why does the Greens policy attract such vilification?

One reason is that many critics hold to a hardline zero tolerance or prohibitionist view which simply defines illicit drug use as immoral and/or criminal behaviour. This viewpoint is currently dominant within the Howard Government - although in principle they still adhere to a harm minimisation perspective - and was influential in the 2003 House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs Road to Recovery report, which signalled a shift from harm minimisation to a prohibitive law enforcement and abstinence-based policy.

This philosophy also seems to have influenced the current House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services inquiry into the impact of illicit drugs on families chaired by hardline Coalition backbencher Bronwyn Bishop.

A related factor is that the Greens heretically question the common assumption that all drug use is bad, and that the harmful outcomes of illicit drug use are caused solely by the drug per se. Instead, they acknowledge that drug use can have positive as well as negative outcomes, and recognise that many deaths and other adverse impacts on health are in fact caused by the illegal status of the drugs, and the lack of reliable information about their potency or impact.

Finally, many of the Greens critics seem to be driven by a broader political agenda to wedge the political Left by associating it with alleged support for illicit drug use. However, this position misrepresents the complexity of the politics of drugs debate.

Not all political progressives support a loosening of illicit drug laws, while a number of political conservatives such as the former Liberal Party MP John Hyde and the former US Secretary of State George Shultz favour drug law reform. Some libertarian conservatives including most famously Dr Thomas Szasz, the recently deceased US economist Milton Friedman and the Cato Institute have even supported the complete legalisation of drugs.