The Cannabis Wars: Blitzkrieg in Australia’s remote indigenous communities

The Cannabis Wars have begun and it is the remote indigenous communities in outback Australia that are bunkering down under the weight of the first wave of attacks by anti-cannabis warriors.

In the past few weeks, the communities of Alyangula, Mutitjulu and Ngukurr in Australia’s Northern Territory have been raided by police on a cannabis witch-hunt.

In Alyangula on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, more than two thousand kilometres away from the headquarters of the Cannabis Wars in Sydney and six hundred kilometres from the local general staff in Darwin, two people were arrested for possessing cannabis and liquor. There were also arrests in Mutitjulu and Ngukurr.

Indigenous people bound for home have also been targeted at Darwin Airport. On Friday February 3, police detained four indigenous women for possessing cannabis. One woman was bound for Maningrida and three were bound for Port Keats. The Maningrida woman was summonsed to appear in the Maningrida Magistrates Court while the Port Keats women were issued with cannabis infringement notices. Next time they may not be so lucky.*

The residents of these communities already suffer a significantly high level of disadvantage due to a number of factors including their isolation from the major regional centres, the lack of services in the communities – across the board, the absence of any real paid work and the racism that pervades the NT establishment (and Australia generally).

On top of this disadvantage, residents live with the loss of loved ones for extended periods of time. Nearly nine hundred indigenous Territorians are currently doing time in the NT prison system. These people are the latest ‘stolen generation’.

The introduction of the Substance Abuse Intelligence Desk (SAID) in Central Australia and the Remote Area Drug Desk in the Top End will simply result in higher numbers of indigenous people in the Darwin and Alice Spring’s prisons, resulting in significant social dislocation in the remote indigenous communities that are affected.

The Cannabis Wars will cause a considerable amount of lasting harm to the social fabric of the NT’s indigenous communities, with a parallel impact on the emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being of residents.

* As at February 2006 in the Northern Territory there is a cannabis cautioning system in place. You can be issued with a cannabis infringement notice (roughly $200 fine) for possession of a small amount of cannabis or cultivation of a small number of plants however this is subject to police discretion. The police have the option to send you to court. Anyone found guilty of a second or subsequent offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act is subject to a mandatory 28-day jail term.

** The author is a freelance journalist and an active member of the Northern Territory chapter of the Network Against Prohibition.