NSW ramps up drug detection targets as it flogs the dead horse of prohibition

Good policing or self-fulfilling prophesy?

NSW Police are being given detection targets that demand an increase in drug detections by a massive 86%

Certain suburbs like Kings Cross, Broken Hill, Mt Druitt and South Sydney have far higher targets than the average while North Shore suburbs have among the lowest. Cynics may conclude that the well-off areas where cocaine is the drug of choice are getting a 'Get out of Jail Free' card.

And, despite clear international evidence that decriminalisation and case management is a cheaper and more effective way to address illicit drugs, those targets are the highest of all categories.

Critics say this quota approach will result in bias errors like racial profiling and do nothing to increase community safety – at a time where the incarceration rate of non-white people is stoking widespread protest.

From the SMH article linked above –

Professor Murray Lee, director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology at the University of Sydney, said focusing on... drug supply, could push the offence rates higher over time and risk it becoming a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

"You may well see police going for the low-hanging fruit, whether that's over-policing in particular areas to meet those targets, going after the usual suspects," Professor Lee said.

The target for robbery in Ku-ring-gai has fallen 40 per cent since 2016 to 20 this year, while actual incidents have been increasing in that area, tripling from 10 in 2016 to 30 last year.

How prohibition turned a hippie into a 'terrorist'

George Dickson (pic by Hugh Rimington),

Another example of the toxic chain-reaction sparked by prohibition is reported in the Monthly article 'The Aquarian 'terrorist' (paywall).

Self-described hippie and cannabis legalisation activist George Dickson was arrested in May 2019 for possession in Nimbin, during Mardi Grass, the annual Marihuana Festival.

He ended up being jailed, classified as a terrorist and placed under a full control order, forbidden even from going interstate to his father's funeral and forced to wear an ankle tracker bracelet along with other conditions such as being forbidden to use a computer or phone.

After his initial arrest he was taken 31 kms away from Nimbin to Lismore police station, to be released late on that cold night with no shoes, no money and scant clothes (and, presumably, no pot!). Angered, he smashed the windscreens of two police cars with a rock. Bad and unwise, but it does not make him a terrorist.

This farce happened because of two bad laws, first the law that prohibits cannabis for no rational reason, and second, Australia's then newly minted Terrorism Act. The loose wording of that Act allowed police to draw a link between smashing the windscreens (violence) and Mr Dickson's history of activism in support of cannabis legalisation (a political activity). His activism included things like putting stickers on telegraph poles – hardly the sort of activity the terrorism laws were designed to address.

This apparently resulted in up to 20 police etc at one time being on the case, most reportedly unable to take it seriously.

I'm guessing Mr Dickson takes it pretty seriously.

Black lives matter, especially under prohibition

Police in Kings Cross guide a sniffer dog towards
an indigenous man in one of their daily street trawls.
No drug indication was made.

Following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, mass protests in the western world have all but pushed Covid 19 off the front pages (not that there are too many of those left!). "Black lives matter" is again an anthem.

But the endless discussion around the problem of over-policing people of colour, while exploring the complexities of history and culture, almost always ignores one central driver – the entirely pointless and ineffective War on Drugs. And if you don't agree that 'war' is pointless, you need to explain the success of Portugal's blanket decriminalisation of illicit drugs.

Meanwhile most American states, and Australia where drug sniffer dogs roam the streets, continue to criminalise the use of drugs other than alcohol. In Australia, drug and alcohol "abuse"* is one of the four key risk-factors for involvement in the criminal justice system according to a Parliamentary report.

Available data shows that Indigenous Australians fair (sic) significantly worse than non-Indigenous Australians in regard to these four critical factors which influence involvement in crime.[7] These factors have interrelated detrimental impacts and can be seen as forming a vicious cycle

The Guardian found there had been at least 434 deaths in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ended in 1991 – that's more than one per month.

In 2018–19 Australia recorded 77,074 illicit drug offences, 20% of the total (ABS). It's not simplistic to suggest that the decriminalisation or legalisation of drugs would significantly reduce the criminalisation of Indigenous people – with the stroke of a pen, as it were. Understandable fears by many people that such a move would create a "flood of stoners wandering around the streets", as is often claimed by prohibitionists, simply does not happen for reasons beyond the scope of this article.

So I urge those who campaign in the 'Black lives matter' space to join the dots between racially skewed policing and the War on Drugs. You may see them as separate issues but the dots do join very strongly.

* I place the word "abuse" in quotes here because crime statisticians tend to class any drug use as "abuse" even though the vast, vast majority of such drug use causes no significant problems for the user or others. I see the inaccurate terminology as part of the demonisation of drugs carried out by the forces of prohibition, not least to reinforce their own survival as a well funded industry.

US prison statistics illustrate the huge impact prohibition has on the criminal justice system.

UN slams Philippines' Duterte over mass drug killings

Rodrigo Duterte with his favourite toy.

The ongoing deadly horror of prohibition-gone-mad in the Philippines has been documented in a UN report. 

'The report stated "the drug campaign-related killings appear to have a widespread and systematic character. The most conservative figure, based on government data, suggests that since July 2016, 8663 people have been killed", but it noted the true total of deaths could be three times as high...' says The Sydney Morning Herald.

President Rodrigo Duterte, himself reportedly addicted to Fentanyl, appears unfazed, passing new laws that allow detention without a warrant.

The regime regularly tags political opponents as 'terrorists' or communists by 'red-tagging' them. Journalists are frequent targets. Such people often end up murdered or jailed.

No mention of the underlying absurdity of prohibition is apparent in reports, even though it is used to justify Duterte's mass murder. Any argument supporting this failed 1930s ideology is nullified by Portugal's success with blanket decriminalisation of drugs, most of which in any case are less harmful than legal alcohol. Prohibition is a form of denialism, in this case more deadly than in most countries.