LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND DISABILITY –
INQUIRY INTO THE USE OF CRYSTAL METHAMPHETAMINE
submission by Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform
This submission concentrates almost exclusively on ways and means that problems
associated with crystal methamphetamine can be reduced. Not so much as by way of
being prescriptive about treatments that could be provided – that is for others to say –
but by way of adopting different strategies and policies, by evaluation of outcomes of
those strategies and policies and adjusting them when they prove to be ineffective or
less effective than alternatives.
While the Committee’s terms of reference relate only to crystal methamphetamine,
the use of that drug is currently fashionable and at some point in time will fall out of
fashion and be replaced by another drug. Thus the Committee should in its
recommendations adopt a broad approach and be forward looking, else the problems
currently being experienced with crystal methamphetamine will simply transfer to the
next most fashionable drug. And it is entirely possible that the next most fashionable
drug will be more concentrated and bring with it a whole new set of problems,
including as with methamphetamines an unpreparedness of suitable responses.