NAP - Network Against Prohibition

DATE: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 From: "Piergiorgio Moro" pmoro@vicnet.net.au

To: "Gary William Meyerhoff" gary.meyerhoff@eudoramail.com

Dear NAP, all the very best with your activities.

The debate around drugs needs to become more open.

Cheers

Piergiorgio Moro

Community Development & Education Officer Metro region

Ph: (03) 9380 4644
Mob: 0411 603 003 Rural: 1800 703 003 Fax: (03) 9380 4688
Hepatitis C Council of Victoria
Suite 5, 200 Sydney rd, Brunswick, 3056 Victoria, Australia

https://worldcom.nl/pipermail/icn-drugs/

From astrid.forschner@rhein-main.net (Astrid Forschner)
Sat Dec 8, 2001

Subject: [Icn-drugs]

Fwd Informations and call for protest-- NT Australia

Dear comrades of ICN and ENCOD, I want to forward the report following these short lines. I believe this is going back to middle age, and it is absulutely intolerable for us who are trying to further a just and humane drugs policy all over the world, if we have the possibility.

This is why I ask you to join many users on an international mailing list and myself in protesting against this by writing protest mails to the mail addresses in this message. Can you imagine what will happen to thousands of methadone users if all the centers get closed down at one time? Can you only imagine how they will feel---for weeks?

You know, Methadone withdrawal symptoms are by large worse than the worst "cold turkey" on Heroin. AND this was supposed to HELP these people legally!!!!!!!!! Now all of a sudden it becomes illegal again???? This is an excellent example on what prohibition spawns.

Specially all NGO-members and orgs on ICN and ENCOD are called for prostest, because if just "some junkies" will raise their voices, there will not be enough social pressure behind the protest to prevent the worst...

Please help the using people in the Northern Territorys of Australia!!!!!!!!!!! X-mas is coming soon. Peace on earth to users???????

Thanks for trying, love, Astrid

>Delivered-To: astrid.forschner@rhein-main.net > >Organization: DrugSense http://www.drugsense.org/ > > Just keeping you up to date with what is happening in our neck of the > woods.

We are now the only place in Australia without a methadone program. > Here is an article from this weeks Green Left Weekly. >* * >

Drug user advocate groups have long argued that the Northern Territory >should replace its methadone reduction program, (which only gives opiate users access to the drug for three months) with a long-term methadone maintenance program, such as exists in every other jurisdiction in Australia.

> >Such attempts by the Top End Users Forum, the Northern Territory's drug >user organisation, were unsuccessful when the Country Liberal Party's >Denis Burke was chief minister.

> >Under the CLP, authorities focussed on a purely zero tolerance approach to >drugs. It was illegal, for example, for GPs to treat opiate addiction with >opiates, forcing many users onto the street and into a flourishing black >market.

> >So users of illicit substances and their supporters celebrated when Clare >Martin's Labor government was swept into power in August. > >But when they breathed a sigh of relief, they breathed too early. This >week, drug user activists were stunned by reports that the methadone >program will be closed altogether, probably until the outcome of a review >which is not expected to be completed before June.

> >This means that the NT now has no methadone program, either reduction or >maintenance. A spokesperson for Territory Health Services Alcohol and Drug >Program confirmed that the program had been closed down and that currently >no-one is being assessed for the methadone reduction program.

> >This is a huge step backwards for drug users in the Territory. The closure >of the methadone reduction program by the Labor government is of major >concern, especially in the context of recent policy announcements.

> >Labor has established a new drug taskforce, appointing Dr Valerie Asche as >anti-drugs chief. This task force will look at Territory Police enforcing >a zero-tolerance attitude to drug production and distribution, and the >compulsory treatment of drug addicts arrested on drug-related crimes. > >Labor's mini-budget, released last week, revealed a funding increase to >enable the doubling of the size of the drug squad.

> >Labor police minister Syd Stirling has also promised to make the sections >of the Public Order and Anti-Social Conduct Act that deal with drug users >harsher, as he tried (unsuccessfully) to do when Denis Burke's CLP >government introduced the legislation earlier this year.

> >Labor has repealed Burke's mandatory sentencing system only to replace it >with their own system of mandatory sentencing which in some cases will be >even harsher. > >Mandatory sentencing legislation for drug offences has not been touched by >the new government: it is still illegal for GPs to use opiates to treat >addiction and rather than ending zero tolerance policing, it is being >expanded.

> >This, coupled with the closure of the methadone reduction program, is >causing alarm bells to ring across the Territory. > >Left-wingers have condemned the government's direction, with the >co-convenor of the Territory Socialist Alliance, Ruth Ratcliffe, stating: >"Rather than a reduction in the number of options available to opiate >dependent users, what we need is a massive expansion in the number of >options available, including improved detox and rehabilitation facilities >and further investigation of other pharmaceutical alternatives."

> >Ratcliffe argued that other pharmaceutical products which are available >for the treatment of opiate addiction, including naltrexone, buprenorphine and diamorphine (heroin), should also be available.

> >Opiate users need to have a range of options open to them. Ultimately, we >need fundamental law reform in the Territory.

> >[Support drug users in the Territory by emailing the Territory health >minister Jane Aagaard at jane.aagard@nt.gov.au and send a copy to the > Chief Minister clare.martin@nt.gov.au and the police minister > sydstirling@nt.gov.au.

Also send a copy to the Top End Users Forum, > topendusers@eudoramail.com > >