Push back on radical bid to decriminalise illicit drugs

Illicit drugs could be decriminalised in Victoria under a radical push to curb deaths. However, Treasurer Tim Pallas has said the government would not vote in favour of the move.

Fiona Patten is calling for drugs to be decriminalised in Victoria.

Reason Party leader Fiona Patten’s bold new bid to decriminalise illegal drugs in Victoria appears to be dead in the water.

Treasurer Tim Pallas on Friday morning said the state government would not vote in favour of Ms Patten’s push.

Mr Pallas said alternative pathways - which followed a harm prevention model - were already in place.

“The government has no plans, at the moment, to change the approach that we have,” he said.

“I think the fundamental proposition coming out of the proposition that Ms Patten is advocating for is that you have alternative pathways other than pathways through the criminal system.

“Our view is that those alternative pathways are already available but it is important that the state have a capacity to effectively be able to recognise - and not send confusing messages to the community - that the use of illegal drugs is injurious to not only the individuals but the whole community.

Treasurer, Tim Pallas states thegovernment would not vote in favour of the new bid to decriminalise illegal drugs. Picture: David Crosling

“It creates an economy for criminal activity and certainly from the government’s point of view, we have no plans to change the existing system.”

Mr Pallas said current diversion programs weren’t designed to push people into the criminal system “for the purpose of records”.

“It’s about making sure they don’t get on the vicious cycle of addiction and greater harm,” he added.

It comes as Planning Minister Richard Wynne also noted it still had plans to build a second safe injecting room in the CBD.

While former police commissioner Ken Lay is yet to hand down his report, Mr Wynne said work was continuing.

Illicit drugs would be decriminalised in Victoria under a Bill set to go before parliament next week.

Under the radical proposal, people believed to have used or possessed a drug of dependence would be issued a mandatory notice by Victoria Police and referred to drug education or treatment.

Compliance with a notice would lead to no finding of guilt or recorded criminal outcome.

The Bill will be introduced by Reason Party leader Fiona Patten, a longtime advocate of evidence-based drug policy ­reform.

She said the push to overhaul the state’s drug laws was about saving lives and reducing harm caused by drugs.

Fiona Patten’s Bill is set to go before parliament next week. Picture: David Crosling

“Current drug law is killing innocent people and causing untold other harm, wasting billions of taxpayers’ dollars, fuelling organised crime, and squandering scarce health and law-enforcement resources, and the members of the Victorian parliament know it,” Ms Patten said.

“That’s not an assertion, it’s a fact proved by domestic and international experience.

“Failure to make this change would be wilfully ­ignorant to the point of negligent, because so many lives ­depend on it, and the quality of life of so many people and communities and families can so readily be improved through harm reduction.”

Ms Patten said compelling evidence – backed by bodies including the World Health Organisation, the UN, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians – had shown the decades-old war on drugs to be one of the most disastrous public policy failures in modern history.

Since entering parliament in 2014, Ms Patten has been ­instrumental in the introduction of significant social ­reforms including drug injecting rooms.

She has also called on the state government to introduce more of the injecting rooms across Melbourne in an effort to curb deaths and reduce ­ambulance call-outs.

In August a parliamentary inquiry called on the Victorian government to investigate the impact of legalising cannabis for recreational use.

It was one of 17 recommendations from the inquiry into the use of cannabis in Victoria by the Legislative Council’s legal and social issues committee, chaired by Ms Patten.

It also recommended a ­review of the existing drug ­diversion program eligibility, and called for the program to be expanded, particularly in rural and regional areas.

The government is due to respond to the legal and social issues committee’s report this month.