Wodak: Young drug addicts worried about climate, jobs and housing
Climate change and the housing affordability crisis are fuelling drug addiction and the demand won’t drop until young people feel “more upbeat about society,” a leading Sydney doctor has told an inquiry into the drug ice.
NSW
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Climate change and the housing affordability crisis are fuelling youth drug addiction, a leading Sydney doctor has told an inquiry into the drug ice.
Dr Alex Wodak said young people needed to feel more upbeat about society to overcome addiction.
“Unless and until young Australians feel optimistic about their future, demand for drugs will remain strong,” Dr Wodak said.
“Young people understandably want more certainty about their future prospects including climate, education, jobs, and housing affordability.”
Mr Wodak was addressing a “decriminalisation roundtable” held in Sydney yesterday as part of the state’s Special Commissioner of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice’.
He called for the scrapping of all penalties for drug use and possession and wanted “as much of the drug market as possible” to be regulated.
“How can drugs be kept out of Kings Cross when they cannot be kept out of maximum security prisons,” Dr Wodak, the head of drug and alcohol service at St Vincent’s Hospital, said.
“How can law enforcement succeed in reducing supply when drug traffickers area much better resourced and equipped than they are.
The group met to discuss whether removing penalties and criminal convictions for drug use and possession would encourage more users to get treatment and go straight or backfire and increase drug use.
Former NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said it was “time for change” but warned against decriminalising ice at state level while it was still illegal to have under Commonwealth laws.
He used the example of a passenger landing in Sydney and being caught with methamphetamine in the arrivals terminal.
“The cops are going to say ‘where has the offence been committed? Are we on state property or Commonwealth property’. It’s that kind of confusion you do not want in a police force,” Mr Scipione said.
“If you did manage to go down the path of decriminalisation for ice but still had cannabis criminalised it would be laughable.”
University of NSW professor Alison Ritter said “NSW is a laggard state” when it came to removing penalties and convictions for drug users.
“No other state in Australia, bar Queensland, has the kind of oppressive approach to personal drug use as NSW. Every other state bar Queensland has … depenalisation for crystal methamphetamine and for ecstasy so we are a long way behind.”
University of Sydney Law School adjunct professor Dr Don Weatherburn said he favoured a “caution rather than convict” approach to drug use and possession and did not support jail terms for those offences either.
But he said he was still opposed to completely decriminalising the use of the drug.
“I’m still very nervous about the potential consequences of decriminalisation,” he said.