IN January 2020, noted medico-legal expert Professor Dan Howard handed a landmark four-volume report to the NSW government that recommended the decriminalisation of personal drug use and recognised the harms associated with sending drug users to jail.
Professor Howard had been commissioned to investigate the use of the amphetamine drug "ice", which former premier Gladys Berejeklian had rightly described as a destructive drug ruining lives wherever it went.
But while the NSW government "welcomed" the Howard inquiry and its 109 recommendations, the three-page statement it issued soon after as an interim response made it clear that attitudes on the key issues would "not change".
Two years on, Attorney General Mark Speakman told a budget estimates committee this week he had failed to convince his cabinet colleagues to back the Howard reforms, which he supported as being "founded on extensive research and evidence".
Law reform, by its nature, is often difficult to achieve, and drug reform all the more so, because our "old school" drug laws are built from a moralistic belief that drug use is "bad", and must be stopped.
Even if this was accepted as true, it can be argued that criminalising drug possession is a failed response, given the inquiry's estimate that Australians are spending some $7.3 billion a year on ice alone - not to mention other drugs.
Under Professor Howard's approach, decriminalisation would be at the heart of a "harm reduction" model across all "alcohol and other drug" (AOD) policies.
The policies would also - to quote the Howard review - "recognise the harms associated with punitive responses" to drug use.
The police have a legitimate role to play in working to counter the drug trade.
That is not disputed, but the global drug business is so big, and so well-entrenched, that even those police who believe in the merit of their law-enforcement tactics know they are only scratching the surface.
In a piece today by reporter Damon Cronshaw, Newcastle police say they are targeting "drug suppliers at all levels".
But among the Hunter's high levels of amphetamine offenders will be users who stand a better chance of breaking their drug habits with medical help, rather than jail time.
If we are to follow the views of the experts, it is time to accept that jailing users will do nothing, in the long run, to counter the drug trade, beyond punishing its victims.
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