No wonder the police love prohibition - they share the assets with criminals

A story in today's Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'The untouchables: crime fighters let gangsters take the money and run' exposes the dirty underside of prohibition.

In countries which encourage confiscation of assets suspected of having been illegally earned, the thirst for the assets tends to overshadow justice. It seems The NSW Crime Commission is no exception.

The story begins:

THE state's most secretive law enforcement agency has been sharing the proceeds of crime with organised crime figures, cutting deals that allow them to walk away with millions of dollars.

As one of the main earners for organised crime is prohibited drugs, this pattern is closely linked to prohibition. Another salient quote:

But critics say such deals do not make a dent in the amount of drugs sold in Sydney and, as they are struck in private, do little to deter crime.

Increasingly, prohibition is being exposed as an ineffective racket feeding bloated law enforcement interests.

When the Coalition wins power in March, beware their privatisation creed: their ultra-conservative christian prohibitionist faction, led by MLC David Clarke, will no doubt push for tougher prohibition while their money men are likely to support privatised prisons, no doubt with contracts that guarantee profits profits -- read 'guaranteed human input' -- for the lucky financiers.

It's an ugly scenario.

Ludicrous priorities: As the law collapses, the War on Drugs continues

A nice article in The Guardian illustrates in a nutshell the stupidity of the War on Drugs and the unthinking mindset of those who believe in it.

Camden, New Jersey has a failing administration. It's a deprived, crime-ridden neighbourhood that is so broke is has just laid off nearly half its police force and raised taxes by 23%, according to The Guardian.

While readers of this blog will understand how drug prohibition both creates crime and doesn't work, the local police don't understand this and they name fighting drugs as one of the top priorities for the remains of their police force.

We are coming up to the 40th anniversary of President Nixon's declaration of the War on Drugs. While the US has spent over a trillion dollars on this war, drugs are just as plentiful, much more varied and relatively cheaper than they were back in the 1970s. over half the arrests over that time have been for cannabis, a drug that has never caused a single death.

While an obscenely rich country might be able to gloss over this colossal waste of money, times are tougher now and enclaves like Camden show just how wasteful, profligate and ineffective prohibition is. It's time for a new way of thinking, but that seems to be one of the most difficult challenges for the human mind.

Greens warn of new era of terror for NSW

According to the NSW Greens, "There’s a real chance that after the March election, a conservative coalition of the Liberals, the Nationals, the Shooters and Fishers Party, Family First and Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats could control the NSW parliament."

Apart from anything else, this would give far-right Christian extremists like Liberal powerbroker David Clarke a big say in the NSW drug laws. Picture an intolerant police-like state with people in many minority cultures being persecuted and jailed under the banner of 'drug prevention'. They are all 'sinners', after all.

The Greens have produced a pretty good 1m:33sec zombie-flick about the prospects, obviously targeting the youth audience and hoping it will go viral. Check it out!




Such a conservative coalition would want to cut back or kill harm minimisation programs that are proved to work. They would like to close down the Kings Cross Medically Supervised Injecting Centre and they hate Methadone replacement programs for addicts. Already-scarce Rehab places would likely dry up and be replaced by compulsory and coercive cold-turkey style abstinence programs (which DON'T work) and ever-expanding jails (privately run for profit, of course).

Around the world now there is a trend for conservative governments to gain power on such issues as immigration and when they get power they crack down on 'illicit' drugs. That's why the Dutch coffee shops are being closed or regulated into insolvency. It would be a real backward step if it happened here.

New 'potaganda' ignites the naysayers

Among my circles it's said that if Miranda Devine opposes you, you must be on a good track. Trouble is, she writes superficially plausible 'sound-bites' very well, so her latest attack on drug law reform will convince some people who don't really know the facts.

Again Ms Devine is fuelled by a report from the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre (NCPIC), a body generously funded by our cash-strapped health department to demonise cannabis under the guise of science.

Their work to date has been, on the whole, almost laughable, one study attempting to link cannabis and violence through a dodgy analysis of patients at St Vincents Hospital Emergency. Never mind that one doctor who worked there said he had never once seen a patient present because of cannabis problems.

Matthew Chesher ecstasy bust spreads enlightenment

Happy new year, dear reader. I'm back from a research trip/holiday into the wilds of regional Australia. What can I say about it? For one thing it's not so damn humid as Sydney, he said, dripping with sweat even with the fan on full.

While I was away education minister Verity Firth's husband,  Matthew Chesher, was arrested for allegedly buying one tablet of 'ecstasy'. What he actually bought we may never know because prohibition means drug supply is unregulated and provided, by definition, by criminals.

The stupidity of this arrest and the predictable outcry of horror from hypocritical politicians and journalists made me roll my eyes. Don't forget that true ecstasy (MDMA) carries less risk than peanuts according to New Scientist.

At least this farce, and waste of public money, has spawned a number of enlightened articles, notably this one by Alex Wodak, in which he describes how this incident would have been a complete non-event in countries like Portugal where drug use is treated as a personal health matter and remedial intervention occurs only when the user is dysfunctional.

But one popular blogger, Jack Marx, really nailed it with an acerbic piece that neatly compares the damage and mayhem caused by this arrest with the alternative had it not occurred -- that a bloke probably would have had a great evening.

Jury stages revolt in marihuana case

So many potential jurors in a cannabis case in Missoula County Idaho refused to serve that the trial failed, according to reports.

A man was charged with possessing about 2 grams after neighbours dobbed him in for 'dealing'.

"District Judge Dusty Deschamps took a quick poll as to who might agree. Of the 27 potential jurors before him, maybe five raised their hands. A couple of others had already been excused because of their philosophical objections," says The Missoulian newspaper.

"Is it fair, Deschamps wondered, in such cases to insist upon impaneling a jury of “hardliners” who object to all drug use, including marijuana?

“I think that poses a real challenge in proceeding,” he said. “Are we really seating a jury of their peers if we just leave people on who are militant on the subject?”

Interesting times indeed. Just how long can democracies continue to prosecute something that so much of the population does not agree is a crime?

It would be wonderful to see such healthy scofflaw attitudes burgeoning in Australia. Don't hold your breath.

The charged man was separately convicted on a stealing-related charge. I'm not saying he was a saint. The point is, prohibition is absurd and more people are realising it.

Letter of the week: Clover Moore = Alan Jones?

The widening cultural gap between regulators and the rest of us was beautifully expressed in a Sydney Morning Herald letter today. The sad thing is, the Law and Order class will never understand.

The zombie-like security process at the Jack Johnson concert occurs often enough, but rarely on this delicious scale. That is, the middle-aged leisure classes who bray for ''law and order'' and curbs on those outside their own lifestyle are finally subjected to their own rules. To sinfully paraphrase William Makepeace Thackeray: it is one thing to hoot in agreement with Alan Jones and Clover Moore from a snug armchair at home. It is another to experience the reality first-hand.

William Cattell Sydney

What's most interesting is the comparison of Clover Moore and Alan Jones, who are usually cast as mortal enemies. But they share this in common: Raising a moral panic and then demanding heavy-handed regulation to solve the 'problem'.

Yesterday the state government revoked Clover's Late Night Trading Development Control Plan, a surprise move that has Clover spitting chips, accusing the government of caving in to the AHA and the alcohol industry. While this may be true, I'm cheering because it's a great outcome for youth culture, youth employment and my right to live in a global city with a 24-hour entertainment precinct.

And after Clover used her casting vote "with great pleasure" to order the demolition of the caretaker's cottage and ending Rory Miles' hopes of continuing to run the adjacent Rushcutters Bay Tennis courts, I am truly over Clover. Rarely have I seen such a ruthless trampling of clear community desires.

The action casts Clover as an old, out-of-touch dictator rather than the resident-friendly progressive pollie she likes to portray. She has destroyed a community for the sake of her old-maidish Tidy Towns obsession. As one older man said from the gallery at the Council meeting after her vote: "Shame, Clover - you're a disgrace to Australia".

Defining addiction

The term 'cannabis addiction' is now bandied about as if it is an established fact. It seems that the addiction industry has redefined the term to suit, as discussed in a Time article.

Having known people who used many types of drugs, I always agreed that cannabis could be psychologically addictive -- but then, so can golf, good chardonnay or even blogging.

Compared to the "shaking, puking heroin junkie who can't quit because the withdrawal sickness is impossible to bear", giving up cannabis is a breeze as far as I have observed -- people just do it naturally when their life changes or they reach a certain age (As I have previously described in 'Confessions of a cannabis addict').

But the addiction industry argues that mental addiction is harder to break than the physical, and it is well known that junkies or tobacco smokers who give up find it difficult to fill the social vacuum left in their lives.

So if both kinds of addiction are simply addiction, and therefore treated similarly under the law or in medicine, isn't someone having a lend of themselves? Is weaning a serious injecting drug user off their habit the same as advising a newly pregnant woman to stop smoking pot while they are pregnant, or a final year student to give up while studying for their final exam?

As the Time article says, you can die from alcohol withdrawal but not from cannabis withdrawal. The seriousness of an addiction must be considered in relation to the harm caused. One woman became addicted to carrots, for instance.

And given that cannabis is the least harmful of drugs, legal or not, (notwithstanding the moral panic generated by the anti-cannabis industry), all this po-faced concern about cannabis addiction needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

But the biggest injustice is that nicotine addicts are treated as having a health problem and help is provided to wean them, which along with other measures results in steadily declining rates of use. But cannabis 'addicts' are punished by law. Why? Who would tolerate a government that punished smokers, drinkers (or golfers) with fines and jail? Interesting.

Top cop living in the dark ages

It seems Victorian Deputy Police Commissioner Sir Ken Jones was misquoted in the press and did NOT advocate drug law reform as per a previous post.

It seems, rather, that this university-educated cop is a died-in-the-wool prohibitionist willing to make entirely unsupported statements about law and drugs that do not stand up to even the most cursory analysis.

Blogger Terry Wright nailed it in his Heroin Diaries, quoting Sir Ken who said:

I think you have to look at it (drug courts), case by case because people who are absolutely addicted beyond help, they should and will be punished but they also need treatment and help as well.
-- Deputy Police Commissioner Sir Ken Jones

Terry comments:

This is breathtaking. “… people who are absolutely addicted beyond help, they should and will be punished …”. Is Sir Ken really suggesting that addiction itself is a crime and should be punished? It’s this mindset, where addiction is not considered a medical condition but a law & order issue, that is so repugnant. I can’t help but feel repulsed at this attitude. Can anyone imagine someone in his position calling for alcoholics or cigarette smokers to be “punished” because they are addicted?

This type of obdurate behaviour as seen in many anti-drug zealots, will often involve mass exaggeration and a reliance on popular myths. Assumptions like all drug use will lead to addiction or the debunked ‘Gateway Theory’ should have ceased years ago but reliable research seems to have no place in the drug debate when Sir Ken and co. have their say.

It's worth having a read of Terry's detailed post in which he critiques this top cop's beliefs. The sad thing is, the new Liberal government in Victoria ran the usual law-and-order campaign and Commissioner Jones' erroneous views will probably be inflicted more harshly on the people of Victoria.

Strategies to end the War on Drugs

An interesting post on the ACDA's Drugtalk email list broached questions about the best strategy to change public perceptions about drugs, and eventually to move beyond prohibition:

I think it’s time we admitted that using reasoning from facts is not a very good advocacy tool. So how should we advocate for better drug policy?

I put the question to a panel at a public screening of films organised by Harm Reduction Victoria. The best answer… said we need to focus on people’s compassion – illustrate the harm of current policies with stories to highlight the personal side.

That sounds like a good overarching strategy – what do people think?

I agree that the compassion approach has its place, but it will fall on many deaf ears while a number of false beliefs spread by prohibitionists remain current.

Uninformed people continue to believe  that:

• drug dealing = murder
• there is no safe level of use of illicit drugs
• today's cannabis is a different and more dangerous substance than the low potency weed baby boomers smoked in the 1970s
• regulated legal supply would lead to an explosion of drug use
• prohibition reduces drug use and reduces harms
• drug users commit serious crime to a greater degree than straight people.

It's all very well inviting compassion but that is easily trumped by thoughts such as "but it's for their own good" or “they should have thought of that before they committed the crime".

I like the LEAP billboard that said something like "Drugs are harmful but the War on Drugs is worse"

While I disagree with the unqualified  "drugs are harmful" statement on its own -- clearly many accepted legal activities are more risky -- it harnesses a popular mindset so the main message can penetrate.

As for getting a more truthful multipronged message out (including a realistic assessment of the harms of drugs, as per David Nutt's recent work), I know how to do it but it would be a fulltime job. Budget: around $150,000 a year, maybe $200,000, with the possibility of becoming self-funding over time.

"Using reasoning from facts" is the best policy, but the message has to be polished, sloganised and constantly promoted both directly and through the press -- a 'War on Spin".

I'm looking for another job at the moment. Any rich benefactors out there?

Nick Cowdery repeats call to end War on Drugs

On the same day that Tony Abbott is in the news suggesting that judges be elected (rather than appointed) to enable ever-tougher sentencing, Director of Public prosecutions Nick Cowdery has criticised existing 'get tough on law and order' policies as being too responsive to the 'ranting' of the tabloid media,"  as reported in The Australian.

This divide of conservative and progressive thought occurs against an underlying trend of overall crime actually reducing according to crime statisticians.

Mr Cowdery said the current approach to illicit drugs was "ineffective, wasteful and inconsiderate of the human rights of those concerned".

"I would decriminalise drug possession and use and small-scale trafficking," he said.

Mr Cowdery believes the only area of drug use that should remain a crime should be large-scale commercial enterprises.

Do I look good in the battle at El Alamein?

Mr Gormly ... "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Photo: Helen Nezdropa

Photographers generally hate being photographed -- you know how the picture never matches your self-image.

So it's weird seeing my picture in today's Sydney Morning Herald, in a story about our local campaign against the demolition and redevelopment of Fitzroy Gardens .

Forget the issues -- I look like a sad, sagging old bloke instead of the fit, statuesque Adonis I feel myself to be.

But the story's not bad for a brief summary. Council justifies their intention to remove over 5,000 convict bricks by saying they "appear to have been imported from elsewhere" -- like, perhaps Japan?

No, wherever they came from, they "appear" to have been in situ for 40 years now and, unlike a museum piece or a brass plaque are still functioning as they were intended to - forming useful walls, and totally in the public domain where people can appreciate them and touch part of the earliest white history in Australia.

The story mentions key points like the rally to be held tomorrow and the unsuitability of opening up the entertainment precinct to the residential precinct behind via a new visual boulevarde running past the police station.

Clover Moore's latest pro-redevelopment letter is quoted, saying the ''renewal will respect the park's extensive heritage since 1939."

How does demolishing something respect its heritage? Mind you, the sentence is a finely crafted piece of spin, using their current buzzword "renewal" when the Local Action Plan says "refresh"; and it refers to lost 1939 heritage and ignores the heritage-listed 1971 layer of significance, as per the whole Council justification for their radical plans.

[at 5.16am there were three people reading the SMH story. Hello to those anonymous kindred spirits - or are they Council spin-doctors girding themselves for another day battling the residents they are supposed to represent? Hullo! at 5.18 there were six people reading it! It's the new craze!]

But that story is only a tame introduction to local writer Delia Falconer's opinion piece in the same edition, headlined: "Council's plan to rip out heart of the Cross". [Mind you, only two people were reading it at 5.22am! -- but the day is still young).

More on that on the Save Fitzroy Gardens website!

Wave of support to save Fitzroy Gardens

Beautiful Fitzroy Gardens - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

The City's plan to demolish and redesign Fitzroy Gardens in Kings Cross, site of the El Alamein Fountain, is stirring a growing wave of opposition as locals realise the treasure in their midst. Meetings among all the local business and resident groups, a fast-growing petition and a rally to be held at the Gardens on Saturday 6 November are just some of the roadblocks being erected in front of Council's bulldozers.

Yours truly volunteered to make the website in co-operation with a network of locals and, even if I say so myself, when you see the facts and photos laid out you have to wonder what ignorance prompted Council to launch this project -- which has been on their books at least since 2003, although they are spinning that the community requested it in 2007.

The site is at http://www.savefitzroygardens.com/index.html (not all the pages are finished at the time of writing, but you'll get the idea.

Top cop advocates debate on drug law

Deputy Commissioner Ken Jones
(pic: Herald-Sun)

Another senior police officer has 'broken ranks' with the normal police support of the War on Drugs with a call to educate the public about the on-costs and ineffectiveness of prohibition, and to have an informed debate.

Victoria's Deputy Commissioner Sir Ken Jones is one of the few to name the costs we bear in less obvious areas because of prohibition:

He said the public should be educated about the flow-on costs, from higher insurance premiums to delays in elective surgery as hospitals treated the fallout from drugs and crime...

Who benefits from prohibition?

It's only a month till California votes on Proposition 19, a Bill to legalize and tax cannabis. As the battle lines form, it's interesting to see who opposes the Bill and why. Many are scratching their heads at opposition from drug police, jail supervisors and... the alcohol industry who are, ironically, contributing to an anti-cannabis campaign called Public Safety First. As reported on Alternet, the financial self-interest of these bodies is obvious 

'Shocking numbers' show success of Kings Cross

6,000 people per hour in the Cross -
"Shocking evidence," says Clover

Did you know the WHOLE CAPACITY of Town Hall (2,000 people) goes through the Bayswater Rd intersection in Kings Cross EVERY 20 MINUTES on a big night? That’s 6,000 people between 1am and 2am, while there are 5,500 footfalls on Darlinghurst Road. It’s a “major event”, says Clover Moore.

She’s right. These thronging young crowds comprise the most educated, healthy, well dressed and gorgeous generation in human history. Most people see their weekly gathering as a great party,  a movement, a celebration of the very wealth and freedom we fight wars for. Certainly the tens of thousands in the fun-filled crowds see it that way.

But our ageing Councillors see it as a “shocking problem” that has to be eliminated. Here we see two opposing mindsets across a generational divide, and mindsets are dangerous because they cause people to ignore facts or at least interpret them selectively.

The footfall figures probably come from Council’s new research which is intended to “progress the cumulative impact argument” in the words of Council’s CEO Monica Barone.

But facts can be a double-edged blade. The huge numbers are also proof that any violence is only a very small part of a very big scene. And given those numbers, Clover Moore’s alarmist figure of $3.2 million a year being spent by St Vincent’s Hospital dealing with alcohol related injuries doesn’t look so alarming. In times where billion is the new million, maybe that’s just the price society must pay to deal with its own damaged underbelly.

The knee-jerk response by Council and police to shut the scene down punishes the benign majority to target the thuggish few, ‘throwing the baby out with the Bayswater’.

[snip]

[rest at http://www.altmedia.net.au/my-generation%E2%80%99s-war-on-nightlife-puts-down-a-new-generation/25092]

Herald journalist gets all mixed up

Vanda Carson has been writing in The Sydney Morning Herald about Kings Cross lately. Her story in Saturday's  edition though, shows either terrible confusion or really bad sub-editing. It was a long weekend, after all.

In a story about Council’s War on Kings Cross, Vanda writes:

Residents are also mostly supportive of the plan, with the majority of Kings Cross and Oxford Street residents wanting fewer pubs or a cap on the number of liquor licences, according to a council survey.
The survey also showed 20 per cent of Oxford Street residents and 16 per cent of Kings Cross residents believed either the opening hours or the number of alcohol outlets should be restricted to curtail violence, noise, vomiting and public nuisance issues.

Excuse me, Vanda, how do figures of 16% and 20% justify the phrase "the majority of Kings Cross and Oxford Street residents wanting fewer pubs". They sound like a rather small minority to me, as I have been banging on about.

The only survey Vanda Carson could have been referring to* showed only 16 percent of residents wanted to "Restrict opening hours/alcohol outlets". That's far from a majority. Perhaps Vanda is a bit mathematically challenged and reads what she expects to believe.

Vanda also qualifies Council's recent series of losses in court by describing the victors with terms like "powerful hoteliers", as if Council's bottomless budget and corporate size does not match or exceed that of their opponents. The fact is, Council's evidence simply does not stack up, as I reported on at length in the current City News.

In a series of reports, I show from Hansard records (2 June 2010) how Clover Moore wants to shut everything down at midnight (Off to bed early, Sydney, says Clover);

And how Police and Council are ignoring other measures to improve amenity in Kings Cross (DIY Policing offer ignored).

All the above were tied up in a comment piece (My generation’s War on Nightlife puts down a new generation).


*P 32 (print) or P 38 (pdf pagination) of Late night trading - Community perceptions (June 2008, Urbis)

More on the Don Weathurburn and Wayne Hall opinion piece

A friend defended by email one part of the piece by Don Weatherburn and Wayne Hall (first see post below),  writing the following:

Friend: This, for example, I agree with although I question the way drug law enforcement is enforced and whether certain aspects of the law is workable:

Weathurburn & Hall: "It's a sad fact that many dependent drug users only seek treatment when the personal and financial cost of continued drug use gets too high. The financial cost is attributable in large part to prohibition.

"The personal cost includes trouble with police and the courts, which is one of the most commonly cited reasons for entering treatment.

"Coercing drug-dependent offenders into treatment is known to be effective in reducing drug use and drug-related crime.

"We don't have to choose between treatment and drug law enforcement. We can and should support both."

This is nothing more than Drug War rhetoric. The first sentence would more accurately read "It's a sad fact that VERY FEW dependent drug users seek treatment only when the personal and financial cost of continued drug use gets too high."

The statement projects the Drug War myth that illicit drugs users are typically dysfunctional addicts and that drug use is a scourge on society. The facts, however, do not support this characterisation.

More experts talk nonsense in the media

Researchers Don Weatherburn and Wayne Hall have seriously damaged their professional credibility in an opinion piece in today's SMH.

They attempt to rebut several arguments for drug law reform but contradict themselves and rely on obvious fallacies.

Charges dropped over Elizabeth Bay drug death

On the same day news broke that the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings cross will be legitimised (see post below), the SMH also reports that Manslaughter charges have been dropped over the overdose death of a former Socceroo player in Elizabeth Bay last year:

Prosecutors have withdrawn a manslaughter charge against a woman linked to the drug-related death of former Socceroo Ian Gray.

Mr Gray, 46, was found dead in the lounge room of his apartment in Elizabeth Bay in Sydney's east on February 15.

A court has heard previously that he was found to have a "plethora" of drugs in his system, including heroin.

Sherryn Marie Davis, 22, pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing equipment for the administration of a prohibited drug.

It's just more tragic 'collateral damage' from the failed War on Drugs.