Blog Post 2 – April 15

For this reflection, I am going to discuss some of the tasks I have undertaken for Drug Policy Australia (DPA) which have led me to a broader learning outcome which I had otherwise not foreseen. I was drafting an email to be sent to the general membership of DPA regarding recent policy changes around the world relating to illicit drugs. Particularly, the email was focusing on the wave of drug decriminalisation policy platforms that had been mandated by voters at the most recent US election. As a side note, this research that I was conducting was also going to be utilized by DPA to put information about various models of decriminalisation that are currently operational on their website and also to inform campaigns and policy recommendations in future submissions to both state and federal governments. Oregon, Washington State and Vermont have all passed substantive legislation to decriminalise illicit drugs. These substantive legislative reforms are of a global significance and have implications beyond the stated jurisdictions. In the US, these reforms serve as an entry point for the global paradigm of prohibition – which is mandated by both the federal government and through international institutions – to be undermined. It also serves as an example for other international jurisdictions to redefine their drug policy frameworks. For instance, Norway is the most recent national jurisdiction to decriminalise illicit substances. For the last few weeks, I have spent most of my time at DPA exploring various recent legislative reforms in a number of jurisdictions and comparing these to proposed legislative reforms in Australia. For instance, in Canberra a comparatively ‘watered down’ decriminalisation policy has been introduced to the parliament.

I have also been looking into recent inquiries, coronial inquests and reports by independent review bodies into the policing, disciplinary and regulatory responses to issues relating to the consumption of drugs. Specifically, I have read and compiled the arguments, statistical evidence and recommendations of the Queensland Productivity Commission’s ‘Inquiry into imprisonment and recidivism,’ Victorian Coronial findings into the deaths of five people who consumed what was supposedly MDMA, the NSW Coronial Findings from the Deaths of 6, the Victorian Government’s ‘Inquiry into Drug Law Reform,’ and the NSW ‘Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice.’ The findings and recommendations of all the aforementioned reports strongly, and often explicitly stated that the evidence supported major reforms in the drug policy space. Specifically, the implementation of drug checking services at music festivals and the wholescale decriminalisation of illicit drugs were the most prominently featured recommendations. What is abundantly clear is that despite the findings and recommendations of a series independently conducted research, state governments are either ideologically opposed to drug law reform, or do not consider drug law reform to be a politically prudent course of action. However, recent census data and data from the ‘Nation Drug Strategy Household Survey’ indicate that more Australians are both using drugs and are supportive of drug law reform polices such as drug checking services and drug decriminalisation.

In my undergraduate degree I studied Australian Politics. Subsequently I have an interest in both the theoretical and practical application of representative democratic models. I was discussing the above-mentioned discordance between research, reporting and general popular understandings of how to address ‘the drug problem,’ and the co-relatable government responses with a friend at a house party. He works with Victorian Productivity Commission, and he said that a lot of the time a report or inquiry will be submitted to the government and very little policy will reflect the evidence-based findings of these reports. Often the Government will not act on these findings until the political climate is rife for these types of reforms, which can be upward of ten years. What this indicates is that there is a democratic deficiency. Where the will of the people, expressed through the instrument of government, is not articulated in the legislation produced by the parliament, it is arguable that the democracy is not functioning in accordance with its theoretical intended purpose. I would need to do more research into this to validate this claim, however it was certainly a point of inquiry which is worth considering. I have not quite got to the broader learning which I intended to discuss at the outset of this reflection, and considering that this reflection is starting to get quite long, I will upload a second instalment for this reflection.