MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:54:30): Although we have made headway into drug law reform in Victoria, we are still far behind most civilised jurisdictions. This I heard when I attended the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association’s excellent conference. They brought out the outstanding Professor David Nutt, who was the inaugural chair of the UK advisory council on drugs policy, which I think is a body we should replicate here, as well as Professor Fiona Measham, probably the world expert on drug safety testing services. Both spoke about evidence showing the effectiveness of harm reduction in not only saving lives but also in saving money. As Mick Palmer said on the ABC on Monday night as he lamented state governments’ refusal to give a trial to pill testing: We went to Iraq on less evidence than what we’ve got about pill testing. Back at the conference, the medically supervised injecting centre was used as a case study for harm reduction. The nurses at the coalface spoke about the changes the centre was making to people’s lives. It is not a silver bullet, but it is saving lives, and it is successful in moving our most difficult cohort of people into health treatment, including hepatitis C treatments. We also heard from some of our excellent committee staff from the Parliament, Yuki Simmonds and Raylene D’Cruz, who presented on the drug law reform report that was presented last year. I would like to thank all of the excellent alcohol and drug workers in our community. I will try and provide them with the tools they need to effectively deal with what is a health issue rather than a criminal one.
