NSW Police aim at warrant-free drugs crackdown

NSW has proposed an extraordinary Bill that allows Police, without a warrant, to detain and search anyone who had a drug supply conviction in the past ten years.

A two-year trial would target Bankstown, the Hunter Valley, Coffs Harbour and Orana in the west.

This doubling-down on a failed prohibition regime ignores the clear success of decriminalisation in Portugal, and successful legalisations in other places. Where such approaches can bring in solid streams of revenue for governments, the neanderthal NSW approach will cost taxpayers more, even as the state is smashed by Covid-related expenses and revenue reduction.

It is a big step away from the idea of a free democracy. 

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties said the bill would give “extraordinary” powers to police “in circumstances where adequate powers currently exist to search and seize items related to drug activity”.

The "Supply" definition includes people convicted of deemed supply which could include a kid busted at a festival with five or so ecstasy pills.

The Bill is backed by Labor, causing dissent it its ranks, but opposed by the Greens. MP David Shoebridge said “I find it hard to understand how NSW Labor can back this in. It makes you wonder what it would take for them to say no to more money or more power for police.” 

It's not clear whether police will use number-plate scanning to identify targets, as the WA police started doing some years ago. It must be asked, why might this technological intrusion be used against a victimless crime rather than convicted murderers or pedophiles? These prohibitionists are obsessively twisted out of shape.

When will these people learn that prohibition does not stop drug use but only increases violence by handing the supply chain to gangs? They have no recourse in law so they resort to violence. 

It's clear – America's Prohibition era saw Tommy-gun battles in the street between rival gangs, Al Capone style. That stopped when prohibition was repealed. Today we have drive-by shootings and home invasions in south-west Sydney and elsewhere. 

But you don't see rival brewers' trucks running around shooting each other in the streets, do you. They are regulated, provide revenue to the government and have recourse to law to solve disputes, as in a civilised democracy.

This new Bill is a step towards repressive autocracy.