Have we surrendered in the war on drugs?

[qualia]

IN his school photo, Nick Mitchell looks like a typical skateboard-mad Central Coast 15-year-old: a cheeky grin, twinkling blue eyes and tousled hair. He could be anyone’s son.

But the Gosford High Year 9 student died after taking a drug believed to be LSD, at a time when drug use among young people is on the rise after more than a decade of decline.

Toxicology reports were still not complete on the exact composition of the tablets Nick and his unnamed friend took on that sweltering Saturday evening of December 1, Inspector Glenn Trayhurn said.

“We’re assuming from the facts known that it was possibly LSD,” he said.

“We don’t know how much he has ingested but it was more than his body could take.”

What is known is that a healthy 15-year-old boy died that night from suspected respiratory and heart complications, not long after ingesting the drug.

Insp Trayhurn says police have not yet been able to track down the dealer but he is exasperated at lax attitudes towards drug-taking.

“There’s no such thing as a recreational drug,” he said. “They’re illegal.”

He exhorts parents to educate children about the dangers of drugs: “It’s not just police, the whole community needs to get behind this and tell kids what the consequences are. In this case, they were catastrophic.”

Unfortunately the community is not backing up police. Instead, we are sending children an ambivalent message about drugs. We have Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital lending its reputation to the drug liberalising crusade of Dr Alex Wodak, who wants cannabis sold in little packets at the post office.

We have establishment figures like Foreign Minister Bob Carr endorsing the Australia21 group’s policy of drug decriminalisation.

Meanwhile, alcohol is the chief preoccupation of policymakers, who are intent on making it so expensive and difficult to obtain that illegal drugs are a logical, cheap alternative for cash-strapped young people. The inevitable result of slackening attitudes towards drugs is there for all to see in the statistics.

According to last year’s National Drug Strategy household survey, the number of people over 14 who used drugs in the previous year rose by 20 per cent between 2007 and 2010.

The use of hallucinogens more than doubled. The good news story on cannabis has also reversed after a decade’s steep decline.

Between 2007 and 2010 its use rose from 9.1 per cent to 10.3 per cent, despite mounting evidence of associated mental health harms, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and even reduced IQ.

Despite warnings that the “war on drugs” was doomed to failure, drug use plummeted after the Howard government’s $500 million Tough on Drugs strategy was launched in 1997.

What the clampdown did was curtail the number of young people experimenting with drugs, delay the age of experimentation and reduce the number of people who used drugs on a regular basis.

But attitudes are changing, drug legalisers feel empowered, the Australian Federal Police are too busy with people smugglers and children are again receiving mixed messages.

While our vigilance wanes, drugs are becoming easier to obtain. Websites described as the “eBay of drugs” are springing up and authorities seem powerless to deal with them. In an extraordinary story by Conor Duffy from ABC’s 7.30 two weeks ago, convicted 20-year-old internet drug dealer Ryan West boasted about the easy money he made selling ecstasy, as much as $2500 a day, with profits of 800 per cent.

“I was extravagant,” he told Duffy. “I didn’t really care if I got caught. I wasn’t covering my trails at all.”

When West was eventually caught and convicted of four charges, including intent to supply a prohibited drug, the punishment he received was an intensive supervision order. What kind of deterrent is that for future drug dealers?

One indication of the consequences of our revitalised drug industry comes from the latest annual report of drug and alcohol rehabilitation service Odyssey House. The incidence of diagnosed mental illness among Odyssey clients leapt to 56 per cent, an increase of one-third over the previous year and a staggering five times higher than 13 years ago.

Chief executive James Pitt says the increasing prevalence of amphetamines, such as ice and speed, is the culprit.

“With amphetamine use (there are) hallucinations, auditory and visual,” he told the ABC yesterday. “People suffer from high levels of aggressiveness. They exhibit a lot more direct mental health problems than a lot of the other people.”

Back on the Central Coast, police have been doing their best to “stamp out” drug use, as Insp Trayhurn puts it. His command has increased drug detections in the past year by 2.5 per cent by targeting suspected dealers.

He is one of the good guys, but even he feels he has to make excuses for focusing on drug use, tying it to other crimes such as break and enter.

It is terrible to imagine the night of fear and madness Nick and his mate experienced three weeks ago. Nick’s friend suffered what police describe as a psychotic episode, stripped off his clothes and ran outside into traffic where he was hit by a car, suffering minor injuries.

Nick was found in a coma by his 11-year-old brother in his bedroom, which police said was in disarray. Now his devastated family is left to face Christmas without him.

Teenagers inevitably will take risks but sending them the amber light on drugs will only result in more tragedy.

 

blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/have_we_surrendered_in_the_war_on_drugs/

if only alcohol were cheaper and more readily available would our kids be safe.

[naja naja]

Fucking Oath, when was the last time u ever heard of an alcohol related teen death? Man it just doesn't happen. Lucky for us, they will prob make home beer brewing a compulsory class in high school.

assfucks.

[MikeyMagic]

Manipulation of facts results in mental illness.

Funny thing is, if look at one those "Smoker death statistics" bar graphs you see on cigarett packets sometimes, alcohol related death massively trumps the deaths from "all other illicit substances combined"!!!

Edited January 9, 2013 by MikeyMagic

[ayjay101]

We’re assuming from the facts known that it was possibly LSD

lol what a pathetically weak statement

[IndianDreaming]

I personally think that posting these retarded news articles on SAB gives them more airtime on google than they deserve. SAB comes up high in google searches - having these tainted articles appear attached to this site does it and us no justice... let the articles fall by the wayside and pay no attention to them.

[Alice]

His command has increased drug detections in the past year by 2.5 per cent by targeting suspected dealers

A whole 2.5%! Well that's something to boast about lol

I wonder how much of my hard-earner tax-paying dollar was wasted achieving that monumental improvement.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Alice

[goneski]

2.5% sounds completely statistically insignificant.

EDIT: Oh, also complete BS that it was LSD. Isn't the estimated LD50 for LSD around 12,000 micrograms.. But it's only an estimate?

Edited January 10, 2013 by SYNeR