Chibo Mertineit, Lillian Rock
Statistics clearly show our so-called legal drugs are the worst killers: 17,000 deaths a year through tobacco and 6,000 through alcohol. It makes one wonder why we are letting uneducated politicians make decisions about drug laws at all.
The NSW government’s decision to not allow pill testing and creating harsher sentences for handing on pills at festivals is a childish overreaction in the wrong direction. Australia has the highest use of ice in the world and we now have three deaths a day through opioids – the same level of the USA ten years ago. It is urgent that we rethink our current drug laws.
The number of people losing their driver licence, and with that their job (not enough public transport) through saliva testing is enormous. The social impact for the families is indescribable.
Stop the madness, the war on drugs is lost! Let’s look at Portugal and the success they achieved.
I do not know why anyone would commend Portugal to us as an example of the impact of drug driving. Portugal had a long history of tolerance of driving under the influence, and at one point it was one of the most dangerous places to drive in the world. Just as we did in the seventies Portugal has changed in recent years, but it still has a higher death rate than Australia and also other European countries. By contrast Scandinavian countries like Norway and Sweden that have much lower death rates than us and are targeting zero road deaths, have very strict laws on both drink and drug driving, including driving under he influence of cannabis.
We too should be targeting zero deaths, and emulating the Scandinavian approaches, particularly lower speed limits, and also continuing tight control on driving under the influence of legal and illegal drugs
Hi Peter Hatfield, I didn’t mention Portugal in relation to driving at all. It was more to the point how their change in the laws has saved soo many lifes, created better health n more honesty, soo much saved money n created a better society. I’m with you on targeting zero death on roads, but not with a saliva test unable to test for impairment. Thanks for your comment.