Spending down on harm reduction for illicit drugs: repot

[qualia]

Australian governments are spending more on law enforcement against illicit drugs than treatment and prevention, according to a report released today by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

The report, presented at a symposium in Canberra today, compared state and federal government expenditure between 2002/3 and 2009/10.

While overall spending on illicit drug policy has increased to $1.7 billion in 2009/10 (up from $1.13 billion in 2002/3), it decreased for harm reduction measures such as needle exchange programs, the report found.

“That’s of real concern because Australia has led the way in terms of harm reduction from the mid 1980s and it seems that spending has decreased in that area despite known effectiveness of those programs,” said Alison Ritter, lead study author and specialist in drug policy at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of NSW.

Spending was highest on law enforcement (66%), then treatment (21%), prevention (9%) and harm reduction (2%).

http://theconversation.com/spending-down-on-harm-reduction-for-illicit-drugs-report-15346

[Mycot]

We're talking huge amounts of public money being wasted. Billions.

Law enforcement gets the major slice even though its been conclusively shown that this approach is ineffective in having any positive effect..