Words won’t win war on drugs – The West Australian

U2 nailed it back in 1988 when they talked about the scourge drug of that era being the promise in the year of election.

Bono was singing about heroin back then and compared to todays manic methamphetamine menace and the misery it brings, heroin was a cakewalk.

Junkies flaked out after a rush of smack were far more manageable than people pulsating in and out of a meth-induced psychosis while posing a serious threat to anyone around them including those they love.

Unfortunately we cant turn back the clock.

So, in the past few days weve seen what the major political parties plan to do about the ongoing ice epidemic in the year of election.

The simple answer would be to say that Liberal and Labor try to outdo one another to win the tough on drugs, tough on crime trophy.

It could also be argued that what ever they do to fight meth in the community its too little too late and more should have been done a decade ago.

But to establish such a cynical position, you need to travel back with me to 2007, when the then Labor government announced an ice summit because the drug posed a significant problem.

In WA, the use of these drugs, particularly crystalline methamphetamine, or ice as it is more commonly known, is higher than the national average, premier Alan Carpenter said at the time. This puts enormous pressure on the services required to manage the issue, including our police force, hospital emergency departments, child protection agencies and mental health system.

Very true. However, the summit prompted a health, law and order and punishment response that didnt even go close to barricading us against the threat. What followed was the equivalent of parking a Mini Minor in the path of a Mack truck.

Here we are a decade on and WA has been blighted by so much ice-related murder, domestic violence, child neglect and all-round crime and dysfunction.

Given the stranglehold this drug seems to have on those it lures in and the multi-billion dollar organised crime syndicates pulling the levers on supply and demand some might argue its unreasonable to assess whether our governments could have done more in the fight against ice. But if our politicians claim to have waged a war on ice since the 2007 summit, then the suite of new measures announced on Sunday by the Barnett Government suggests victory will be hard to come by.

Anyone deemed to be in possession with intent to sell or supply any amount of ice is going to jail for at least a year as part of the mandatory sentencing package.

Having 200g of the drug will put you behind bars for a minimum of 15 years. No ifs, buts or maybes. WA would have the toughest anti-drug jail sentences in the country. And both Labor and Liberal agree that a new sentence of life in prison should be available to judges dealing with meth traffickers, regardless of who wins the election on March 11.

A reasonable question to ponder is why now rather than 2007, or soon after the ice summit warned of the impending doom?

How come the politicians didnt go as tough then as they are now just weeks away from wanting your vote?

Almost 10 years on from when Labor premier Alan Carpenter spoke before the ice summit about the pressures the drug was putting on hospitals, police and the justice system, the Liberal leader who beat him at the 2008 election said virtually the same thing on the weekend.

Meth, or ice, as its more commonly known, is destroying young lives, tearing families apart, Premier Barnett said.

Its putting enormous pressure on our police resources, our public health system, particularly emergency departments, mental health and care for those addicted.

The mirror image rhetoric is why people have a right to be cynical.

The tough, no-nonsense strategy should have been introduced a decade ago.

People are always cynical about election campaigns, Attorney-General Michael Mischin conceded at the policy launch on Sunday.

This is not simply opportunistic.

This is an evolutionary strategy based on the work weve been doing over the last eight years.

The government has a responsibility to take action in respect of major social issues that are threatening our community.

For many years weve known WA has had an extraordinarily dangerous liaison with this drug, but for too long weve seen lip service and then another election comes along.

Its taken all this time for a government to pull out the really heavy armoury against the drug dealers at any level of the distribution chain.

Youve been dealing out misery to thousands of West Australian families and if re-elected, this Liberal Government will deal out misery to you, Police Minister Liza Harvey said on the weekend.

Those words might win the tough on crime political battle, but they wont win the war against a drug thats been able to advance too far for too long.

Read the original:

Words won't win war on drugs - The West Australian