BY GARY MEYERHOFF
DARWIN — The Northern Territory's illicit drug users are in for a stormy year. The methadone reduction program remains closed, the Public Order and Anti-Social Conduct Act remains in place and the Labor government is to introduce a raft of "zero-tolerance" measures.
Under the previous Country Liberal Party government, opiate users had access to a three-month methadone reduction program. This program was far from ideal and drug user activists and doctors had called on the government to establish a methadone maintenance program, with a much longer duration. It was also illegal for doctors to treat opiate dependency with opiate-based drugs, except in the methadone reduction program.
A new drug, buprenorphine, has now been made available to the NT government on a trial basis for use in a medium-term maintenance program.
Helen Vandenberg, convenor of the Top End Users Forum, said: "When a person who is opiate dependant decides it is time to kick their habit, it is discriminatory and a further violation of their human rights to deny access to any pharmacotherapy that may be of assistance. There is no magic bullet. What is suitable for one person may not work for another. A range of pharmacotherapies must be available when needed and for as long as necessary."
It was hoped that Labor would quickly move to legislate to allow to allow doctors to treat patients with the full range of therapies available, including a methadone maintenance program.
Instead, the methadone reduction program was closed down, leaving the NT as the only state or territory in Australia without a methadone program.
On the legal front, the Labor government is still promising compulsory treatment for drug users convicted of an offence, and a crackdown on drug production and distribution (a thinly veiled attempt to allow the NT police to declare dwellings as drug houses, similar to the repressive legislation enacted in NSW).
Drug users still face mandatory sentences under the NT Misuse of Drugs Act. For any second or subsequent offence under the act a magistrate must impose a sentence of at least 28 days imprisonment, unless there are extenuating circumstances.
Labor has also promised to double the size of the drug squad, institute a curfew for young people and establish a "Youth Night Patrol".
The Socialist Alliance is to campaign extensively around these and other civil liberties issues. NT Socialist Alliance convenor Ruth Ratcliffe told Green Left Weekly that the "constant criminalisation of drug users is no solution. The NT government should follow the lead of Portugal, which has recently decriminalised illicit drug use."
If you would like to express your concern at the NT's illicit drug policy, email <minister.aagaard@nt.gov.au>.
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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