• JOHN RYAN
  OCTOBER 14, 2019

The Australian 

A recent front-page report in The Weekend Australian (“Cannabis lifts risk of psychotic cases”, October 5, 2019) described how Health Department staff prepared a briefing for Health Minister Greg Hunt that highlighted the links between cannabis use and adverse physio­logical and mental health effects.

Identifying the potential risks of expanding access to cannabis only tells half the story. We should also be prepared to identify the costs of enforcing existing drug laws, because they are substantial.

Cannabis is illegal in Australia and as a result the cannabis market is controlled by criminals. That trade funds other criminal acts that arguably create more harm, including the importation of ice to Australia.

According to the latest research, Australian governments spent $1.1bn on enforcing existing drug laws in 2009-10. That was about two-thirds of our total spending on illicit drugs.

Meanwhile, according to the ­Illicit Drug Data Report, almost half (72,381 out of 148,363) of all drug-related arrests in 2017-18 were for cannabis.

This data suggests that right now significant policing resources are allocated to the arrest of people who use a drug that, according to our recently published Australia’s Annual Overdose Report, wasn’t responsible for a single ­unintentional overdose death.

Early evidence from the US supports the view that we could ­indeed be allocating those resources more efficiently. A study has shown that in Colorado and Washington, two states that have legalised cannabis for recreational use, crime clearance rates for both violent and property crimes have risen in the wake of legalisation.

Law enforcement should focus on more harmful substances such as ice — a very dangerous drug ­already here — or illicit fentanyl, a drug causing mayhem in North America and likely to arrive on our shores soon.

Another important, but largely hidden, cost of today’s approach to cannabis is that the model encourages the cultivation of high-THC cannabis (which has been linked more strongly to the onset of ­mental health disorders) at the ­expense of the less dangerous, self-produced cannabis that would become more prevalent in a legal market in which it is much easier to regulate dangerous consumption and volume of supply. Legalisation arguably allows for better control than the black-­market system run by criminals.

With the mental health concerns raised in the Health Department’s briefing, it’s important to realise that, as credible as these links seem, they remain hotly disputed in the academic literature. This is a live issue that very ­respected researchers spend their time debating.

What the ACT has done, by passing its legislation, is create the conditions for us to learn about the effects of cannabis decriminalisation in an Australian context.

As it happens, we have an interesting lesson from our own history of what might happen to our use of a substance when accompanied by appropriate efforts to educate the community about risks, advertising bans and other regulatory ­interventions — that substance being tobacco.

Tobacco use — and subsequently the harms it causes to the community — have been steadily declining in Australia for years and we’re right to be proud of our world-leading ­approach to this important public health issue.

With enough attention, I am confident we could achieve the same kind of results when it comes to cannabis.

Australia has embraced smaller government in many areas, from the floating of the Australian dollar and the reduction in tariffs to the liberalisation of liquor laws, but we’re seemingly still ­content to believe that a centralised, top-down drug control system is worth the many billions of dollars it costs us as taxpayers, even though criminal supply networks ensure easy availability across the country.

Milton Friedman called out government overreach in economic markets but also called out the drug war as doomed to fail for the same reason.

If it is true that our democracy rests on individual freedom and individual responsibility, where might Australia find the right balance in relation to cannabis?

We should ask ourselves where that balance lies.

Looking at other jurisdictions doesn’t provide us with a definitive answer. Every jurisdiction has unique characteristics that makes it difficult to confidently predict what will happen elsewhere.

That’s why the best thing to do is evaluate the effects of cannabis in the ACT — including the prevalence of mental health conditions — and accompany it with the kind of concerted public health education campaign Australia has ­excelled at in the past.

We’re right to be concerned about the risks — especially when it comes to heavy cannabis consumption.

However, what’s harder to ­defend are existing cannabis laws, especially because it means we are distracted from more serious threats to our health and security.

John Ryan is CEO of the Penington Institute which publishes Australia’s Annual Overdose Report.