The Daily Telegraph editorial: Magistrate Alex Mijovich convicts six festival drug users

All too often users of hard drugs are met by softness, but not in Gosford Local Court, where Magistrate Alex Mijovich repeatedly took a hard line, convicting six Lost Paradise festival drug users. We need more magistrates of his calibre.

• Two more fatal ODs may be added to festival death inquest
• How Alice’s ‘wonderland’ rave turned into an MDMA nightmare

Hard drug use requires a hard response.

But all too often the ruin, despair and death caused by hard drugs is met by softness.

Even following the recent drug-related deaths of five people at music festivals, talk turned to how drug use should be viewed as a relatively mild and manageable problem.

Perhaps, many commenters have suggested, the government could assist young drug users by providing drug testing. This would see the government effectively regulating the use of drugs that it also lists as illegal.

Meg Christensen leaves Gosford Local Court. Picture: AAP

Meg’s sister Lili Christensen. Picture: Facebook

NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann even wrote fondly of her own drug use.

“I remember vividly the first time I took MDMA,” Faehrmann wrote.

“We danced all night to house music, talked nonsense with strangers, deep and meaningfully with each other.

“A month or so later we did it again. And again.”

MORE EDITORIALS

Sydney’s homeless crisis needs to be solved

To know him is to dread him

It’s the best of times for first-homebuyers

Plenty of motorists could claim they were never injured by driving at double the speed limit, but that doesn’t mean such behaviour should be endorsed or celebrated.

A sensible voice has now entered the drug debate, thankfully, and this particular voice brings significant consequences.

Magistrate Alex Mijovich is not one for a soft approach. Dealing with six people charged with drug offences following dozens of arrests at December’s Lost Paradise music festival,

Magistrate Mijovich repeatedly took a hard line.

Kia Mee Ra Soper. Picture: AAP

Amelia Violet Fordsmith. Picture: AAP

“We’re asked not to give a conviction for young people (on a first offence),” the magistrate said, before adding: “But we have people dying.”

And then came the convictions, one after another.

Magistrate Mijovich noted that failing to record a conviction sent the wrong message. It was a message, in the Magistrate’s words, that “all you’ll get is a slap on the wrist”.

“I’m not prepared to do that,” he said.

Olivia Dominish. Picture: AAP

Tia Rose Mills. Picture: Facebook

Hearing that one defendant’s travel plans might be compromised by a drug record, Magistrate Mijovich did not budge.

“Everybody wants to travel,” he observed, notching up another conviction.

Magistrate Mijovich made more sense at Gosford Local Court than every pro-testing argument combined.

We need less, much less, MDMA and many more magistrates of this man’s calibre.

OZ OPEN’S COMEBACK QUEEN

Down 5-1 in the third set of her Australian Open quarter-final, Karolina Pliskova then survived four match points.

Karolina Pliskova reacts after a point against Serena Williams. Picture: AFP

Surely Pliskova could not last much longer. Especially against Serena Williams, arguably history’s greatest female tennis player and now chasing the all-time Grand Slam record.

But the talented 26-year-old Czech somehow prevailed in one of the Open’s finest comebacks. It was truly a victory for the ages.

Williams was graceful in defeat. “I don’t think she gave up at all,” the champ said. “Giving up was not an option for her.”

Well played, Karolina Pliskova. And well said, Serena Williams.

ONLINE AND ALL JUNKED UP

It’s junk food on junk media.

While there are legal limits to how much fast food advertising in the mainstream press is exposed to children, various fast food companies are using social media to sneak around the rules.

There are concerns junk-food companies are marketing to children via social media.

“For the most part, social media is an unregulated space which is almost impossible to monitor — and the food industry is taking full advantage,” Obesity Policy Coalition director Jane Martin explains.

“These companies claim that they don’t market to children, and yet they’re using filters, interactive games and likes to recruit a new generation of junk food customers.”

Given the attraction of children to social media, the incorporation of fast food promotions is an obvious move.

And an unhealthy one.

Social media — published by internet businesses that largely claim not to be publishers — is already a source of understandable concern for parents. Cyber bullying is just one among a number of serious issues.

Throw in some burgers and fried chicken and we suddenly have major obesity problems to worry about as well.

The Daily Telegraph, printed and published by the proprietor, Nationwide News Pty Ltd A.C.N. 008438828 of 2 Holt St, Surry Hills NSW 2010, at 26-52 Hume Highway, Chullora. Responsibility for election comment is taken by the Editor, Ben English.