Consumption Of Stimulant Drugs Across Australia

The Influence of Politics

Discuss About The Consumption Stimulant Drug Across Australia.

The use of drugs is prevalent in our society which created negative impact upon the lifestyle of the individuals. It is worth mentioning that, at the end individuals would be responsible for their personal preferences regarding the use of illegal and harmful substances. From the very beginning the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation has implemented various strategies and policies for the purpose of eliminating drug abuse in Australia (Bryant et al., 2016). The policies and strategies were implemented in order to reduce the impact of harm to the general public. However, the objective was to reduce the accessibility of harmful drugs by reducing the use of drugs on the part of the individuals. In recent era, the communities of Australia have increased the use of illicit drugs to a great extent. In order to address the issues of drug use, various law enforcement activities were introduced however; it could not eliminate the issue completely. Various policies were implemented to reduce the risk of harm associated with drug use however; failed to provide limitations to the upward trend in drug use (Chalmers, Lancaster & Hughes, 2016). It is evident that from the beginning, the trade of illicit drugs has been attracting both the political and social interest of the communities in Australia. In order to address the issues related to use of drugs, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) has implemented the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program for the purpose of conducting national research on the use of illicit drugs. However, much emphasis has been laid upon the use of methylamphetamine and other harmful substances (Degenhardt, Hall & Gartner, 2015). In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that, wastewater analysis has been considered as an international tool that is extensively used in measuring and interpreting the use of drugs within the Australian communities. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), in the early stage has recognized the benefits of utilizing waste water analysis in establishing the development of scientific expertise within the academic institutions of Australia for the purpose of introducing a national program which is based upon international models.

The Alcohol and Drug Foundation has implemented a number of programs in order to prevent harm related to drug-abuse. According to the authorities of the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, it is important on the part of the communities to promote healthy and resilient approaches for the purpose of preventing drug abuse in Australia (Gately, Ellis & Morris, 2016). In his regard, the authorities strongly emphasized that the programs has been implemented in order to prevent harm to public, environment as well as changing practices and attributes of the society for the purpose of creating the world a safer place to live in. from the beginning, the programs and initiatives undertaken by the Alcohol and Drug Foundation are based upon evidences and extensive research conducted by their authorities (Horwitz, 2017). It has also initiated collaboration and learning processes within the local communities in order to support the prevention of drug use. In the later part of the assignment, emphasis can be laid upon the impact of politics upon the approaches taken by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation as well as on the legislative developments.

The Resulting Impact on Policy

It is evident that politics plays a significant role in creating both positive and negative impact upon the use of drugs. In this regard, it is worthwhile to mention here that, though the political factors influencing the drug abuse is changeable; it is often subjected to the philosophical ideas on the part of the government. According to recent reports, the Labor Government in Western Australia supported a consideration in favor of a heroin trial on principle. However, the liberal parties were opposed to such principles. Modern authors were of the perspective that nowadays the political parties are emphasizing much upon public opinion rather than rather than providing a new shape to it. Modern scholars opined that as drug-related issues do not bring considerable votes, therefore, the government policies have been formulated to serve the interest of the drug users (Lai et al., 2016). According to contemporary scholars, there are various situations in which both the government authorities as well as the political parties failed to comply with the recommendations of extensive research conducted by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation (Maddox et al., 2016). The political parties in their part failed to address the issues regarding drug use and implementing plans for the general public. However, in recent era, various policies and penalties has been introduced by both the government and non-profit organizations as a result of public demand. According to modern scholars, in spite of various newly introduced policies and penalties, as a result of threat of legal consequences the authorities failed to deter the users of harmful and illicit drugs. According to the point of view of modern autocrats, as a result of increasing impact by the political agenda and public concern, political funding has created significant influence upon the use of drugs (Pearson-Dennett et al., 2015). In this regard, authors were of the opinion that, according to various concerns that has been raised by the families of the drug users in Australia, the number of funding has increased considerably and have targeted such population in general. Authors emphasized on the part that politics plays significant role in addressing the issues of drugs in Western Australia and its adjoining regions (McKetin et al., 2018).

Both the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation have created favorable impact upon the newly implemented policy frameworks that has been designed to respond to the issues regarding drugs. Modern scholars laid much emphasis upon the National Drug Strategy (NDS) that has been implemented as a result of various initiatives on the part of the government of Australia. Therefore, modern researchers were commissioned to examine the development of drug-related policies in order to address the prevailing issues of drug abuse. In this regard, modern researchers intended to highlight the fact that the potential value of these policy frameworks has the ability to involve themselves in the relevant sectors of the government and beyond (Tscharke et al., 2016). The goal of these policy frameworks implemented by the government and non-profit organizations is to promote the creation of an environment where the Commonwealth and the State Territories has developed various drug policies and strategies. Modern scholars highlighted the fact that, the implemented policy frameworks has been evaluated in terms of its ability, principles, approaches and objectives across various jurisdictions and between different sectors. However, contemporary scholars were of the opinion that for the purpose of efficiently addressing the emerging harms and risks associated with drugs, it is important to take into consideration sound evidences as well as social and economic conditions. However, researchers have a different perspective towards the impact of policy frameworks on drug-related issues. According to them, in order to address the prevailing issue of drug use in Australia, detailed research should be carried and in such process the national and state policies needs to be examined (Weinberger, Funk & Goodwin, 2016). However, much attention should be paid on interviewing the authorities of government and non-profit organizations in order to gather detailed information regarding the initiatives that were used in addressing issues in communities.

Impact on Legislative Development

The approaches on the part of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation have reasonable impact upon legislative development as well. The framers of legislative policies were of the opinion that from the very beginning the possession and the trade of harmful drugs and substances have been criminalized in Australia. It is worthwhile to refer here that both the state and territorial laws the use and supply of harmful drugs in Australia. However, modern authors were of the opinion that the possession of small quantities of harmful substances and drugs were decriminalized in various jurisdictions of Australia which includes both South Australia and Western Australia (Yadav et al., 2017). Modern autocrats emphasized on the diversionary programs. In their opinion, various diversionary programs which operates under the Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative as an important part of the national approach of Australian Government efficiently intervened and prevented the use of illicit drugs. In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that the main objective of the Drug Diversion program is to enhance incentives for drug users for the purpose of identifying and treating the illicit use of drugs at an early stage. According to the point of view of modern authors, various Drug Courts were developed in various jurisdictions of Australia in order to deal with offenders depending upon harmful drugs.        

Conclusion:

In the conclusion, it can be stated that both the government sector and the non-profit organization provided active support in implementing various programs in order to address the issues of drug use. It is worth mentioning that these policies and programs created favorable impact upon politics, development of legislation and other policies.

References:

Bryant, J., Ward, J., Wand, H., Byron, K., Bamblett, A., Waples?Crowe, P., ... & Kaldor, J. (2016). Illicit and injecting drug use among Indigenous young people in urban, regional and remote Australia. Drug and alcohol review, 35(4), 447-455.

Chalmers, J., Lancaster, K., & Hughes, C. (2016). The stigmatisation of ‘ice’and under-reporting of meth/amphetamine use in general population surveys: a case study from Australia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 36, 15-24.

Degenhardt, L., Hall, W. D. U., & Gartner, C. E. (2015). The epidemiology of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use and their contribution to the burden of disease. Addiction Medicine: Principles and Practice, 61(279,000), 8-21.

Gately, N., Ellis, S., & Morris, R. (2016). Drug use monitoring in Australia: An expansion into the Pilbara.

Horwitz, R. M. (2017). Using implicit association to access drug use trajectories of young people: Understanding the different drug use pathways for young people who use illicit substances and investigating the role of implicit identification as a useful indicator of risk of drug dependency.

Lai, F. Y., O'Brien, J., Bruno, R., Hall, W., Prichard, J., Kirkbride, P., ... & Burns, L. (2016). Spatial variations in the consumption of illicit stimulant drugs across Australia: a nationwide application of wastewater-based epidemiology. Science of the Total Environment, 568, 810-818.

Maddox, A., Barratt, M. J., Allen, M., & Lenton, S. (2016). Constructive activism in the dark web: cryptomarkets and illicit drugs in the digital ‘demimonde’. Information, Communication & Society, 19(1), 111-126.

McKetin, R., Degenhardt, L., Shanahan, M., Baker, A. L., Lee, N. K., & Lubman, D. I. (2018). Health service utilisation attributable to methamphetamine use in Australia: Patterns, predictors and national impact. Drug and alcohol review, 37(2), 196-204.

Pearson-Dennett, V., Flavel, S. C., Wilcox, R. A., Thewlis, D., Vogel, A., White, J., & Todd, G. (2015). Hand function is altered in individuals with a history of illicit stimulant use. Drug & Alcohol Dependence, 156, e174.

Tscharke, B. J., Chen, C., Gerber, J. P., & White, J. M. (2016). Temporal trends in drug use in Adelaide, South Australia by wastewater analysis. Science of the total environment, 565, 384-391.

Weinberger, A. H., Funk, A. P., & Goodwin, R. D. (2016). A review of epidemiologic research on smoking behavior among persons with alcohol and illicit substance use disorders. Preventive medicine, 92, 148-159.

Yadav, M. K., Short, M. D., Aryal, R., Gerber, C., van den Akker, B., & Saint, C. P. (2017). Occurrence of illicit drugs in water and wastewater and their removal during wastewater treatment. Water research, 124, 713-727