WANTED: An end to the hypocrisy on drugs

'If 30,000 people stood up to get arrested at every music festival in Australia, police resources would be the first thing to collapse instead of patrons'

Police patrolling The Grass is Greener music festival at Mackay Botanic Gardens. Picture: Luke Mortimer

WANTED: 30,000 people willing to get busted for drug possession at music festivals. BYO drugs. BYO money for the fine. No experience needed. Training provided. No background checks. This is an equal opportunity opportunity: all ages, ethnicities, religions, sexual preferences and proclivities, education levels, political persuasions and disabilities welcome. Remuneration: social change.

That should do it.

If 30,000 people stood up to get arrested at every music festival in Australia, police resources would be the first thing to collapse instead of patrons.

Sure, the queues for handcuffs would be longer than for the loos at music festivals, but worth it and people would be pissing themselves more with laughter than over-full bladders.

But why should we do this? It is estimated that 70 per cent of patrons take drugs at the gig, that's about 30,000 of the 45,000 the attendees at Splendour recently, yet only 200 were caught with drugs.

Either the police aren't very good at it or kids are really good at avoiding them, so surely there's a better way.

There is.

Let's see, 200 times a $100 fine (is that about right? I've never been fined, or caught) = $20,000, divided by 45,000 festival-goers = $0.44 cents, which could be added to the $400 ticket (big whoop), and $20k donated to the Policeman's Ball, they can have a sleep-in over the long weekend and no frightened festival-goers will gobble their stash and die.

Another couple of dollars and you could have a pill tester too. No queues in the courts AND none in the hospitals.

A win-win-win-win, surely.

Better yet, why not end the stupid façade of being tough on drugs, legalise them and pour the money into health and education?

Alas, that of course is a pipe dream (no pun intended). No politician will ever go "soft" on drugs despite the weight of evidence from academics, the judiciary and the health sector. Politicians know better.

And gosh hasn't that worked well.

Paradoxically the most harmful and costly (to the public purse) drug on the Australian landscape, alcohol, is legal - albeit agreed, the public health campaign is dragging its feet.

Anyone smell tobacco?

Sadly, the hypocrisy of politicians is lost on the voting public, just as it is on politicians themselves.

"Pass me another glass of red would you ScoMo? Splendid."

Originally published as WANTED: An end to the hypocrisy on drugs