AFP Commissioner Blames People Who Use Drugs for Prohibition Policing Failures

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett has hit out at people who use illicit drugs, stating that all illicit drug users are ‘contributing to deadly street violence and expanding criminal networks. 

These comments have been widely reported on mainstream commercial media, most notably the Murdoch press. 

It’s not the first time that a senior police officer or politician has come out batting against people who use drugs and blaming them for the general malaise that policymakers feel when they analyse the failure of law enforcement and drug prohibition to stop people using drugs.

It seems that there’s an obvious degree of frustration in Barrett’s comments, underpinned by an inability to stop people from using substances that many people, yes, find pleasurable.

I agree with the Commissioner, it is time to have an open and honest conversation about drug use, however I doubt that such conversations would actually be open enough to acknowledge that despite what the media, police and politicians try to convince otherwise, most people use drugs because they provide functional benefits, including pleasure, stress and anxiety relief, enjoyment, fun and that drug prohibition has failed. For most it’s not driven by despair and addiction.

Statements such as these by Barrett will continue to fall flat and only reinforce stigma, discrimination and stereotypes about illicit drug use until new policy and education approaches are adopted.  

One factor, apart from the fact that we’ve heard all of this before, is that complaining about illicit drug use and linking these behaviours to street violence and expansion of crime networks is over simplistic and patronising.  They don’t work anymore than the ‘just say no’ or ‘one hit and you’re hooked’ contrived scare campaigns have in the past.

This is seriously an insult to all Australians. These comments sink like a lead balloon because they lay the blame at the feet of everyday people and not the core of the issue, drug prohibition.

Commissioner Barrett – it’s not people who use drugs that are the problem – it’s our archaic laws based on drug prohibition that are causing the expansion of criminal networks and the associated violence linked to market turf wars.  

People use illicit drugs for many of the same reasons that people use other drugs such as alcohol. People who use drugs are smarter and better informed than you give them credit for and this needs to be acknowledged.

People will continue to enjoy drugs and there will still be a demand. While there’s a demand there will be suppliers. 

Legally regulate, control and manage access to drugs.  Take the ‘product’ out of the hands of dealers and watch the violence and criminal networks disappear. Deal with the reality not the myths and misconceptions that those that have invested in the war on drugs are trying to fool people about.

The Australian federal government has recently announced that they are spending $600 million on drug enforcement in the Pacific, aimed at disrupting the illicit drug supply. It’s doubtful that this funding outlay will have much impact on drug availability.  

It’s not surprising therefore that Commissioner Barrett feels the need to blame the drug problem on people who use drugs, people who are coincidentally the least able to defend themselves.

Greg Denham is a former Senior Sergeant of Victoria Police and a Board Member of Harm Reduction Australia.

Main image: MDMA pills from Shutterstock. Greg Denham supplied. Krissy Barrett taken from AFP Instagram post about her appointment to deputy commissioner