Miranda Devine: If naming and shaming drug users saves lives, it’s worth it

If The Daily Telegraph has persuaded one young person not to play the deadly game of Russian roulette at this weekend’s festivals, then publishing the names and faces of five women convicted of drug possession was worth it, writes Miranda Devine.

• Revealed: NSW’s festival drug crisis laid bare
• Magistrate slams drug users: ‘People are dying’

As we head toward a bumper dance festival weekend after five ecstasy deaths at similar events this summer, surely the focus of everyone should be on preventing more tragedies.

Yet the usual suspects are out on social media smashing up The Daily Telegraph for recording on our front page and online the names and faces of five young women who were convicted of drug possession last week in Gosford Local Court (and one who pleaded guilty) after being arrested at December’s Lost Paradise music festival.

Josh Tam, 22, died at that festival after taking ecstasy.

The front page of The Daily Telegraph, Thursday 24th January.

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We don’t want more vibrant young Australian dying the same horrible way.

These drugs are illegal for a reason. Illegal means there are penalties for breaking the law. Or there should be.

Too often misguided magistrates have not even applied a slap on the wrist, leading to de facto decriminalisation. Such an irresponsible attitude by those entrusted to uphold the law just makes the law a laughing stock and encourages hazardous drug use.

Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine. Picture: Jonathan Ng

But not magistrate Alex Mijovich. Last week he did the job he is there to do.

“We’re asked not to give a conviction for young people (on a first offence),” he said to one 19-year-old who had sticky-taped 12 ecstasy pills to a tampon and secreted it inside her.

“But we have people dying.”

We applauded Magistrate Mijovich, who wanted the convictions to act as a deterrent for other young people. That’s why The Daily Telegraph put the story on our front page and online.

The cases were heard in an open court, the women are adults and, in the interests of open justice, we are entitled to report names, ages and details of the case.

Criticism of The Daily Telegraph urges complicity with the nudge-nudge wink-wink permissive drug culture which has led to the situation where music festivals have become synonymous with death,

In any case, if you’re worried about the impact on future career prospects a conviction on your record is more serious than a front-page story.

These women are much the same age as 19-year-old Alexandra Ross-King, who died two weeks ago at the FOMO festival in western Sydney. They are lucky it wasn’t them.

If The Daily Telegraph persuades one young person not to play this deadly game of Russian roulette at this weekend’s festivals or has encouraged one family to have a difficult conversation about so-called recreational drug use, it’s worth it.

And let’s hope the effect is even more far-reaching so we can avoid more needless tragedy this weekend.