Opinion | Fiona Patten MP
A flood of fresh evidence shows drug law reform is more urgent than ever, including the need for a medically supervised injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD to buttress the life-saving work of the centre in North Richmond.
There are reasonable concerns about discarded needles, but that is a manageable sanitation issue and is swamped by the proven benefits of what the Kiwis have rightly also started calling overdose prevention centres.
The people who cite syringe statistics might also look at mortality and recovery figures when substance misuse is treated as a health issue, not a criminal one, and authorities regulate markets.
Such drug law reform is happening the world over, minimising harm from addiction and misuse. The longer we hesitate, the more people will die needlessly.
The Victorian coroner has just reported heroin overdose deaths are down by 60 per cent in the area around the North Richmond medically supervised injecting room, compared with a 15-20 per cent fall in the rest of the state.
Last week, on International Overdose Awareness Day, respected independent medical research body the Burnet Institute called for decriminalisation.
This comes amid news of the discovery of a shipment of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid many times more potent than heroin causing an epidemic of overdose deaths around the world, at the Port of Melbourne.
It would be naive to think more is not arriving. Drug testing, particularly pill testing at music festivals, should be introduced.
On these pages in recent days, the secretary of the Police Association, Wayne Gatt, expressed concerns about the planned second medically supervised injecting room. Mr Gatt said he and his members did not oppose the concept of a safe injecting room for users of currently illicit substances, and he was impressed by his visit to the safe injecting room operating in inner Sydney for decades.
I invite him and his members to visit the North Richmond centre with me. Three in four people who use it take the path to recovery, because they are put in contact there and then with health services.
Mr Gatt, his members and I ought to agree that addiction is a health issue. Prohibition is the most catastrophic policy failure in modern political history.
It just causes widespread death and suffering, wastes billions of taxpayers’ dollars each year, and creates a massive black market dominated by organised criminals.
FIONA PATTEN MLC IS LEADER OF THE REASON PARTY
Herald Sun Page 23
