Celebrating a century of illicit drug use in the Northern Territory

Australia’s love affair with illicit drugs will be celebrated in Darwin this September at the Third Darwin International Syringe Festival. The festival will commemorate more than a hundred years of lawbreaking in Australia’s outback.

Racist puritans implemented Australia’s first anti-drug laws in 1895 in South Australia with a law prohibiting the sale of smokeable opium to Chinese and Aboriginal people.

Despite the efforts of thousands of police and customs officials with multi-million dollar budgets, Australia’s resistance against drug prohibition continues. Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show the Northern Territory’s drug users are leading the struggle against repressive and moralistic drug laws.

SyringeFest 2004 Coordinator Fiona Clarke said: “Millions of Australians of all ages continue to ignore the likes of John Howard and George Bush by consuming illicit drugs by the truckload.”

“The syringe festival serves a number of purposes. It highlights the human rights abuses faced by injecting drug users, increases community awareness of the impact of prohibition on our health and wellbeing, allows for the celebration of drug culture and enables people to get involved in the struggle on a number of different levels.”

NAP spokesperson Gary Meyerhoff said “Even Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin, considered one of Australia’s four most powerful women by the authoritative ‘Women’s Weekly’, has failed to stem the flow of illicit drugs in the Northern Territory.”

“Resistance by Northern Territory drug users against the repressive NT ‘drug house’ laws continues to grow.”

Last month on youth radio station Triple J, Chris Moon from the NT Government’s alcohol and other drugs admitted that the government’s drug house laws have failed. He said that drugs are “still easy or very easy to obtain.”

Kicking off on the 5th of September, the Syringe Festival features a family picnic, cabaret dinner, marijuana smoke-in, film and art competition and a public meeting focussing on drug prohibition and the global HIV pandemic.

For more information call the Festival box office on 0415162525 or see: http://www.napnt.org

Footnote:

Four members of the Syringe Festival team face the NT Supreme Court unrepresented on the 30th and 31st August to appeal against their conviction for invading the Northern Territory Parliament on the 14th of May 2002. The group have been sentenced to between fourteen and twenty-one months jail. The activists do not expect a fair trial, especially when Chief Minister Clare Martin herself has perverted the justice. She told parliament on the 18th of June last year: "While I am on my feet, I say very categorically that I welcome the very decisive sentencing that happened to those members of NAP who invaded this parliament the May before last… It is a very serious offence to invade parliament, and I welcome the very strong decision from the Magistrates Court."

Abbott must retract Wooldridge Trial

The Federal Government may be forced to retract its twenty million dollar trial of retractable syringes following allegations that the trial poses serious risks to the health and safety of participants.

Dubbed the “Wooldridge Trial”, the experiment is the subject of a complaint lodged by the Network Against Prohibition with the ethics committee responsible for the trial at a Sydney health service.

Kim Breheny, Executive Officer of the South East Sydney Area Health Service Health Research Ethics Committee, confirmed yesterday that an investigation has been commenced into allegations that the trial breaches principles of the Nuremberg Code.

The Nuremberg Code was drawn up in 1946 during the Nuremberg Trials, in which 23 Nazi physicians went on trial for crimes committed against prisoners of war. It consists of 10 conditions that must be met to justify research involving human subjects.

Wooldridge trial participants are given $25 to trial an experimental syringe without any supervision or medical backup.

NAP spokesperson Gary Meyerhoff said “The Wooldridge Trial was rejected by healthcare workers and diabetics and has been forced on people who inject illicit drugs by a Federal Government that views them as Untermenschen.”

Earlier in the week, the Network Against Prohibition demanded that Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott sack Michael Wooldridge from his position as chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Council on AIDS Sexual Health and Hepatitis after it was revealed that he stands to benefit from the introduction of retractable syringes in Australia.

Michael Wooldridge is a member of the advisory committee of the syringe manufacturer Ritract.

For further information call Gary Meyerhoff on 0415 16 2525 or see:

http://www.napnt.org/arse/syringegate.html

Further contacts:

Jennie Shortt (Assistant Director) Department of Health and Ageing Retractable Needle and Syringe Initiative: Population Health Division (02) 6289 1555

Their Department’s Retractable Syringe website: http://www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/strateg/needle/

Dr Fadil Pedic - The Research Forum: (02) 9687 4744

Ritract: (02) 8923 2511

South Eastern Sydney Area Health Service Research Ethics Committee:

Kim Breheny, Executive Director (02) 9382 3587

Retractable syringes are Dangerous

The Darwin based drug user organisation Network Against Prohibition (NAP) has called on the Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott to stop the trial of retractable syringes in Australian Needle and Syringe Programs (NSPs).

NAP has labelled the trial a dangerous experiment on human beings that could have disastrous consequences.

NAP spokesperson Gary Meyerhoff said “Retractable syringes are a serious threat to Australia’s first class public health approach to the HIV epidemic.”

The syringe manufacturers have billed their products as “the ultimate solution to unsafe injecting practices.”

Many healthcare workers are concerned that the retractable syringe will increase rates of HIV and hepatitis C transmission because drug users will be using an unfamiliar and untested piece of medical equipment, they will be more likely to have to help each other inject and that they will go back to reusing conventional syringes when the Federal Government phase them out as planned.

The private company engaged to facilitate the trial, the Research Forum, has ignored concerns about possible harm, including serious vein damage and an increased risk of exposure to HIV or hepatitis C, that these experimental devices could do to participants in the trial. The Research Forum has pressed ahead with the trial despite serious opposition from the harm reduction sector.

The Network has lodged a complaint with the ethics committee overseeing the trial of retractable syringes at the Kirketon Road Centre in Sydney’s King’s Cross but at this stage has had no response.

Earlier this week the Network asked Tony Abbott to dismiss former Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge from his position as chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Council on AIDS Sexual Health and Hepatitis after the revelation that he is on the payroll of the syringe manufacturer Ritract.

Gary Meyerhoff said “Wooldridge has used the information he had access to as Health Minister and as global chairperson for UNAIDS to ensure that his company is in the best possible position to break into the multi-million dollar global syringe market.”

“Tony Abbott has continued Wooldridge’s access to privileged information. This is clearly a conflict of interest and if Wooldridge doesn’t resign Tony Abbott has no option but to sack him.”

For more information call Gary Meyerhoff on 0415 162525 or see:

http://www.napnt.org/arse/syringegate.html

Further contacts:

Jennie Shortt (Assistant Director) Department of Health and Ageing Retractable Needle and Syringe Initiative: Population Health Division (02) 6289 1555

The Department’s Retractable Syringe website: http://www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/strateg/needle/

Dr Ingrid van Beek (Director) Kirketon Road Centre: (02) 9360 2766

Dr Fadil Pedic - The Research Forum: (02) 9687 4744

Ritract: (02) 8923 2511

South Eastern Sydney Area Health Service Research Ethics Committee:

(02) 9382 3587

Throw Wooldridge overboard or resign

The Darwin based drug law reform group, the Network Against Prohibition, has called on the Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott to sack Michael Wooldridge from the Ministerial Advisory Council on AIDS Sexual Health and Hepatitis.

The call for Abbott’s resignation follows revelations that former federal health minister Michael Wooldridge will profit from the introduction of retractable needles and syringes in Australia.

Wooldridge has used his former positions as federal health minister and global UNAIDS chairman for his own financial gain. He has aggressively pursued the retractable syringe concept.

Documents obtained by the Network Against Prohibition provide evidence that Wooldridge is on the payroll of Ritract, a company trying to break into the global syringe market.

NAP spokesperson Gary Meyerhoff said “The decision by Tony Abbott to appoint Michael Wooldridge as the chairperson of the MACASHH is a clear indication that Abbott is using his authority as health minister to line the pockets of his mates.”

“It is bad enough that just before resigning, Wooldridge used his position as health minister to guarantee a $30 million trial of retractable syringes. The fact that he is now the chairperson of MACASHH with access to privileged information that will benefit Ritract is clearly an indication of the corruption that is so entrenched within our federal government.”

“Conveniently for Wooldridge, Ritract is the second company to receive approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration to distribute their retractable syringes locally.”

“We will make approaches to the Australian Federal Police to ensure that Wooldridge is prosecuted for official corruption.”

The Network Against Prohibition is preparing a number of complaints regarding the trial of retractable needles and syringes citing evidence that companies are misleading the government, investors and the wider community.

The companies claim to have the magic bullet to prevent unsafe injecting practices in healthcare settings in the developing world and among people who inject illicit drugs, claims refuted by the Network Against Prohibition in a booklet released yesterday – “Syringegate”.

NAP spokesperson Gary Meyerhoff said “Three million people died as a result of HIV last year. Wooldridge, a former Australian health minister and chairman of UNAIDS has proven be heartless enough to cash in on the HIV pandemic.”

NAP called for Abbott’s resignation while announcing the 3rd Darwin International Syringe Festival, to be held in early September. During the Festival activists will formally launch The ARSE Foundation (Anti-Retractable Syringe Education) to educate people about the real motives behind the retractable syringe – profit.

For more information please read Syringegate, available from:

http://www.napnt.org/arse/syringegate.html

or contact Gary Meyerhoff on 0415 16 2525

Suggested links:

The ARSE Foundation:

http://www.napnt.org/arse.html

NAP:

http://www.napnt.org

Federal Government retractable syringe trial:

http://www.health.gov.au/pubhlth/strateg/needle/

Wooldridge wanted:

http://www.napnt.org/images/wooldridge_wanted.jpg

Abbott must resign:

http://www.napnt.org/images/abbott_joker.jpg

The 3rd Darwin International Syringe Festival

http://www.napnt.org/sf/2004entry.html