Mr ZAHRA (4:20 PM) —In the debate relating to illicit drugs my experience has been that the attitude you take depends primarily on whether you believe that someone who uses illicit drugs is capable of making any sort of positive contribution to our community. If you take the view that under no circumstances can an addicted drug user contribute anything positive to our society then you will most likely take the prohibitionist line.

If, on the other hand, you accept that the drug user may still be able to make a positive contribution to our community if we put in place changes relating to drug law and provide policies which recognise that drug addiction is a health problem and, through this, remove the need for that person's drug use to be linked to illegal activity, then you will most likely be willing to embrace new ideas and strategies which have as their primary focus the reduction of harm associated with drug use rather than simply blindly pursuing law enforcement as a way of eliminating the problems associated with illicit drug use.

For the benefit of this House, I make plain that I place myself squarely in the latter category. I am a strong supporter of those who want to radically change our approach to illicit drugs with a view to reducing the harm which our community experiences as a result of illicit drug use.

As it presently stands those people in our community who are chronically addicted to drugs have available to them a number of options. None of them are good. The first option they can take is that they can commit a crime to get the drugs which their addiction demands of them. It is well known that more than 70 per cent of all crime is drug related. The second option they can pursue is to prostitute and degrade themselves in order to get money which they need to feed their habit, with all the debilitating long-term social stigma and humiliation involved with going down this path. In fact, some 90 per cent of all prostitutes are addicted to heroin.

The third option they can take is to try to get into a treatment program. Often there are long delays in getting into detox, and by the time a place becomes available the addicted drug user's circumstances will most likely have changed profoundly. Treatment may no longer be an option for a variety of reasons—the addicted drug user may by that stage, for example, be working as a prostitute and might feel powerless to leave the industry for fear of physical violence.

I take the view that we have a responsibility to provide addicted drug users with another option—an option in which they are genuinely provided with an alternative which allows them to break the cycle of illegal and harmful activity which their habit, and present drug law, requires them to involve themselves in. I take the view that every person who is able to free themselves from the pattern of illegal activity presently associated with illicit drug use is one person who is not being forced, by their addiction, to mug an elderly person in the street or degrade themselves through prostitution. As a result of removing the pressure on addicted drug users to break the law, our community will be made safer and drug users—people who presently exist only at the margins of our society—will be able to contribute positively to our community.

This debate on approaches to illicit drug use is a long way short of reaching its conclusion but, as the youngest member of this parliament, I intend to make sure that the interests of young people—who make up the great majority of illicit drug users—are not forgotten about. This debate should not be allowed to deteriorate into a banal bidding war between certain politicians and social commentators who are obsessed, at present, with proving themselves worthy of the title `Tough on Drugs'. This should not be what the debate is about. Whilst it may be politically convenient for some governments to participate in this debased bidding war, my advice would be to ignore the fashion and to focus on those strategies which will make our community safer and which will prevent any further unnecessary deaths as a result of the illegal activities which are presently associated with illicit drug use.