WA has one of Australia’s highest rates of illicit drug use. The most common drug was cannabis which was used reularly by 16.5 per cent of people aged 16-24. WA also had the biggest number of injecting drug users – almost 20,000 people. After cannabis the drugs most commonly used by young people were amphetamines (8 per cent) and ecstasy (7 per cent) – BUT THE USE OF HEROIN WAS NEGLIGIBLE! ( Two things here: So why would anyone want to set up a Heroin Clinic in WA ? Prohibition works, albeit through natural drought, with the very hard work of our Federal Police. Illicit drugs were responsible for one per cent of deaths in WA in 2001 and drug-related visits to Perth hospital emergency departments more than doubled from 1993 to 1998.
The one per cent of deaths from illicit drugs is very serious because that means that, contrary to tobacco harm, 36 years of life is lost for each deceased person.
Drugs such as cannabis, heroin and amphetamines cost the State $610 million a year, according to a new WA Health Dept and Drug and Alcohol Office report. So how did we get to be in this shocking mess? I know that it is through an unholy inter-sectoral Partnership with all Health, Crime Research, Law Enforcement and Epidemiology. The evidence of deception and Public Health corruption lies within the 1997 NDS Evaluation by Single and Rohle. At a cost of over $20 million to Australian taxpayers nearly 32 million needles were distributed in “That’s not to say the problem is limited to the United States or North America,” he added. “It’s a problem found in a number of countries around the world.”