Senator GIBBS (7:25 PM) —In the past few weeks, the government's Tough on Drugs initiative has come under increasing scrutiny. A Herald AC Nielsen poll indicated last week that almost two-thirds of people surveyed thought the Howard govern ment was doing a poor job on the drug problem. Mr Howard recently met with Mr Louis Freeh, from America's FBI, after expressing significant interest in implementing zero tolerance strategies as a means of addressing the country's growing drug problem.

To most Australians, it is fairly obvious that there is very little logic in asking the Americans for help with our drug problem. The US has failed to arrest its ever increasing drug problem, despite years of `Just say no' drug education programs reinforced with rigorous policing measures. An examination of the American approach to solving the drug problem reveals a system that has metered out extreme punishments for years to the detriment of users and the broader community.

A recent article in the Seattle Times titled `Reduce crime without obscene prison-building binge' gives a good indication of widespread disillusionment with the American approach to the so-called war on drugs. Traditionally, the American answer to social problems such as drug addiction has been incarceration. Consequently, 1.8 million Americans are currently behind bars in federal and state prisons and local gaols.

America imprisons more of their citizens than any other nation on earth, including Communist China. They have the highest incarceration rate in human history for non-political offences. Some may interpret this to mean that all their dangerous criminals have effectively been rounded up and taken off the streets. Not so. Fewer than a third of American prisoners have committed a violent crime. Drug related cases predominate. Due to mandatory sentencing, drug offenders spend more time in gaol than rapists. The average sentence is 82 months for a drug offence and 73 months for rape.

Nelson Rockefeller introduced mandatory sentencing laws for drug offenders in the US in the 1970s. As a result, 1,000 new prisons were built across America in the 20 years that followed. These prisons are now full and overflowing. According to the Seattle Times article, California alone now has more inmates than France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands com bined—445 people per 100,000 are now in gaol.

The author of the article goes on to question whether crime could have been reduced in America without what he calls the `obscene prison-building binge'. He concludes in the affirmative, asserting that prisons in America have become nothing more than `a revolving door for poor, highly dysfunctional, often illiterate drug abusers'. The article asserts:

Diverting some of the billions now going to the prison-industrial complex for drug treatment and other prevention efforts could start us on a much saner course.

Another recent article, this time in the New York Times , bears further testimony to the rejection of zero tolerance strategies in the US. The article, titled `The War on Drugs Retreats, Still Taking Prisoners', points out the glaringly obvious, and that is that neither the US nor Australia can afford to fight a war on drugs based on complete prohibition for any extended amount of time. The article begins with some more extraordinary facts on incarceration rates in the US:

Every 20 seconds, someone in the United States is arrested for a drug violation. Every week, on average, a new jail or prison is built to lock up more people in the world's largest penal system.

The article contains comments from Barry McCaffrey, the four-star general who heads the National Drug Control Policy Office in the US. `We have a failed social policy and it has to be re-evaluated,' says General McCaffrey, `otherwise we're going to bankrupt ourselves because we can't incarcerate our way out of this problem.' General McCaffrey goes on to say that the quarter of a million Americans in prison for drug offences could be better dealt with in treatment programs, saving the taxpayer up to $5 billion a year.

It strikes me as somewhat strange that the Prime Minister is initiating talks with the FBI when there is another national body in the US working specifically to address the drug problem. If Mr Howard had talked to the experts in the National Drug Control Policy Office, he would already realise that zero tolerance is certainly not the way to go. Even more pertinent is the fact that, even if it were deemed to be a good idea, the drug problem in Australia is of such magnitude that we could not afford to build enough prisons to fit all the drug users in anyway!

A recent US study examining government data and independent research has drawn equally damning conclusions about the US drug policy to date. The Network of Reform Groups study concluded that the drug war has not deterred children from using illegal drugs, nor has it resulted in fewer deaths and injuries from drug use. In fact, drug overdose deaths are up 540 per cent since 1980. Thirty-three people per day are infected with HIV from injection drug use in the US. The price of heroin and cocaine has continued to drop since 1981, while the purity of both drugs has also increased.

It is time for the Prime Minister to stop ducking and weaving and to make some tough decisions. He needs to stop putting the taxpayers' money where his mouth is and wasting valuable resources on punitive zero tolerance measures that have already been proven ineffective overseas.

The availability of naltrexone is a valuable step toward increasing the treatment options available to Australian heroin users. Since 1 March, Australian GPs have been able to prescribe naltrexone for heroin addiction. Once again, however, the government's failure to grasp the magnitude or nature of heroin use has prevented a worthy initiative from delivering its potential benefits.

Mr Howard has overlooked the glaringly obvious need for naltrexone to be covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Consequently, a month's supply of 30 tablets costs $280, putting the treatment out of the financial reach of many heroin users and their families. What is the point of releasing a new treatment when no-one can afford it? The point is supposed to be to reduce the incentive for users to commit property crime. How can this be achieved when treatment is so expensive?

I received a call last Thursday from a mother who has two sons using heroin. She was absolutely devastated because she had just found out how much it would cost her to treat them both with naltrexone, and she could not afford it. This lady had hoped that naltrexone might provide some hope for her sons who had failed on the methadone program. `Bitterly disappointed' does not go far enough to express how this mother felt when she found out she could not afford it. Mr Howard should not even entertain the notion of instituting zero tolerance policing when there is not enough money being spent on treatments that work.

It is now decision time for Mr Howard. Does he really want to emulate the American system by instituting the unsustainable mass incarceration of people for personal drug use? Does he really want to turn normal people into criminals, ultimately leaving no room in our gaols for rapists, murderers and the like? Does he want our gaols to become `revolving doors for poor, highly dysfunctional, often illiterate drug abusers'—as has occurred in the US?

I think it is time for him to put his own prejudices aside and recognise this problem as a health issue that can be addressed in the long term through a more thorough range of widely available treatment options. It would be foolish to follow the Americans down the zero tolerance road when it has failed to work, and they are now realising the benefits of treatment as opposed to incarceration.

In my opinion, the heroin trial is an inevitability in the long term. Last year in Australia, 600 people died from heroin use alone. It is not appropriate for the Prime Minister to be digging in his heels on a matter of life and death for many Australians. He should admit he made a mistake in panning the heroin trial, and let us have one as soon as possible so that this year some of those statistics might be avoided. The more treatment options we have up our sleeve, the more chance we have to successfully address the problem.