Strider on Top FM – New Humpty Doo police station

Jim: Welcome back listeners just a reminder the territory poll for the day should fireworks be banned in the Northern Territory 1800808588 you can phone in and have your say any time you like.

Jim: Now I’m joined by Strider who is a spokesperson for the Network Against Prohibition and I think he’s got something to say about the turning of the sod for the new police and fire and emergency services station down at Humpty Doo. Good morning Strider how are you?

Strider: Good morning Mr Manzie I am well thankyou.

Jim: Hey this is Mr Davidson here, this is Jim

Strider: Oh, Mr Davidson, okay.

Jim: Just please call me Jim, but I’m keeping the seat warn for Darryl

Strider: Okay.

Jim: Now what’s the issue that you’ve got Strider?

Strider: Well I was just saying that bringing a new police station to Humpty Doo is all very well in its way of course but it would be a more welcome development if the prohibition of drugs was not a factor you know because basically the respect for law enforcement has been diminished by police involvement in this war on drugs over the years, you know and I mean, I suppose there are no more people in Humpty Doo that use illicit drugs than there are in Darwin but if it’s not a majority of the population it’s certainly a very large minority.

Jim: Well Strider it’s interesting that you bring that up this week because as you know, or as you probably know it’s Drug Action week from the 21st to the 25th June and we’ve had a couple of people on line this morning talking to us about some of the issues that relate to the harmful effects of particularly alcohol in this case but also other, the impact of drugs and other substance abuses on family life and there’s been a fairly strong theme flowing through that about the need to tighten and control access to these things. Your actually advocating quite the reverse aren’t you?

Strider: Well I think what I’m doing is observing the fact that the prohibition is an evil in its self I mean in the United Stated they had an experiment with the prohibition of alcohol didn’t they and amongst other things they created a lot of criminality its generally acknowledged amongst people who are deeply interested in the subject that prohibition itself is a source of a great deal of harm and one of the things I wanted to do yesterday by actually approaching the police officers who were at the “sod turning ceremony” was draw their attention to the existence of an organisation called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition which is an international non-profit education organisation created to give a voice to current and former members of law enforcement who believe the war on drugs has failed and who support alternative policies of drug regulation and control and will save lives and reduce disease, lower addiction rates, lessen crime and conserve tax dollars by ending drug prohibition I mean when Australia was federated in 1901 there were no, no drugs were prohibited in 1901, it’s all a development of the twentieth century, to talk about whether one should decriminalise or legalise drugs is really a bit besides the point, what we really should do is re-legalise drugs. There wasn’t any major problem when they were legal, the problem’s are largely related to the prohibition itself.

Jim: Do you sense that you have wide community support, say in the Humpty Doo area or in the rural area for your position on this?

Strider: I’d say so, I think, Arthur Miller the American playwright, he was married to Marilyn Monroe for a while he penned a few words once he said “few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense, the thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing innocent people is intolerable and so the evidence has to be internally denied,” that’s what he said, I’d just suggest to you there’s lost of people who use drugs, for them it’s harder to internally deny the evidence, it accumulates and finally the penny drops, were is people who don’t use drugs can go on unaware of things, the downside of prohibition forever, so were in a divide and rule situation you know, and It’s most unfortunate. The people who are a wake-up to the absurdity of the drug prohibition are the people who use drugs and there’s plenty of them at Humpty Doo.

Jim: I guess moving back to more specific things and talking about the proposal, not the proposal but the reality of having a police station at Humpty Doo, the impression I get from the locals down there is that everybodies very kean to see this happen and that they see that in any number of ways its going to be of benefit to the local community are you saying that there should be none at all, there should be no police and fire and emergency station down there or it its activities should be limited?

Strider: Well I’m sure the fire station is universally welcomed, it’s the police part of it about which no doubt some people have some reservations I mean the sort of promo for the police station largely came from shop-keepers who are being broken into on a regular basis, of course the police stations going to be a nine to five operation it’s probably not going to do much after hours for them in the short term but I mean the sort of this clambering for a police station has largely come from a section of the population not the whole population.

Jim: We’ll be talking to Paul Henderson the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services later in the program and one of the things I’ll raise with him is the proposal to police the area after hours so we can pick up on what he’s got to say about that later on. Strider are there any other things you want to raise about things happening out at the Humpty Doo area?”

Strider: No, Not really.

Jim: Alright well thankyou very much.

Note: Jim Davidson is the Australian Labor Party candidate for the federal seat of Solomon, which encompasses Darwin. He was standing in for Daryl Manzie, who normally does the show. Daryl is an ex-policeman and an ex member of the Northern Territory parliament. At one time he was the police minister.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: 22 June 2004
Source: Australia: Transcript: Top Fm 104.1
Presenter: Jim Davidson