Australian Attitudes And Behaviors Regarding Drug Usage Essay.

Similarities in Drug Usage and Crime in Australia

The common assumption is that there is a direct relation between the drug usage and the increase of crime in Australia. It also states that there is a similar origin of drug usage as well as crimes. Poor social support systems, difficulties in school, associations with deviant peer groups and also the lack of access to the economic support systems are the similarities that lead to increased indulgence in drugs and criminal behavior patterns.

The drug production is also an illegal matter and many drugs are manufactured in backyard labs and nobody can be sure of the risk or the potency of these drugs. The users cannot be sure about the components of the drugs and hence they are unaware regarding the impact of the varying levels of usage of these drugs which include severe cases like overdose and even death.

There has been a clear shift towards viewing the drug use as a health or a human rights issue. People also note the fact that the enforcement of drug laws has little impact on the drug market of Australia.

There is a tendency among most Australians support some form of decriminalization for all categories of drugs. There is a very low percentage of support of the people for the drugs which are the most commonly consumed. A very insignificant percentage of Australians believe that the usage of certain drugs should be made legal. Very few of the Australians believe that the legislation of the drugs should be supported.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the illegal status of drugs causes considerable amount of harm to the users as well as to the community. It has been considered that increasing recognition is necessary for the requirement of a new form or approach to tackle the issue of drug usage.

The clearly shows the percentage of the respondents with respect to their genders regarding the survey. The clearly shows that the percentage of females is 55.17%. The percentage of males is 44.83%. The two axes show the total count of sex value and the genders respectively. Thus it can be clearly stated that there is a dominance of female respondents over the males.

The clearly shows the count of remoteness of the respondents. This means that the shows the place of residence of the people who participate in the survey. The two axes show the total count of sex value and the places of residence of the people respectively. It is extremely clear from the that around 35% of the respondents live in major cities and are female. Around 30% of the respondents are male residing in the major cities. The female respondents residing in outer regional cities are 6.21% and the male respondents are close to 5%. The people residing in inner regional cities are 11.28% for the females and around 9% for males. The people residing in extremely remote areas are 1.83% for both males and females. Thus it can be said that the majority of the respondents of the survey reside in major cities.

Drug Production in Illegal Backyard Labs

The clearly shows the category of the health of the respondents. The female respondents having excellent health correspond to a percentage of 8.66%. The Males in excellent health are 6.62%. The percentage of male respondents in fair health is 5.29% and that of females is 5.75%. In case of good health conditions, the percentage of females is 17.98% and that of males is 15.47%.  The number of female respondents in poor health is 1.07% and males in poor health are 0.96%. The people in very good health are 20.91% in cases of female and in case of males is 15.86%. In case of both males and females the percentage of people who have not answered is very low.  The percentage is 0.81% in case of females and 0.62% in case of males.

The shows the diagrammatic representation of the remoteness index across the different age groups. The diagram clearly shows that the maximum number of respondents is from the above sixty age group where the majority of people are from inner regional areas which is followed by outer regional areas, major cities and finally the remote and very remote areas. The percentage of people missing is negligible. The respondents from the age groups of 30-39, 40-49 and 50-59 are more or less similar.

The clearly shows that majority of the respondents are from major cities and in all the regions be it inner regional, outer regional or extremely remote, the females are more in percentage in terms of respondents of the survey in comparison to the males. After major cities the next higher number of respondents come from inner regional cities, followed by outer regional and finally extremely remote cities.

According to the the drug that first comes to a person’s mind at the time of a drug problem is heroin. The percentage of people who consider health to be very good is 11.27% followed by those who consider it to be good. The rest of the respondents consider health to be poor or excellent which is very low in percentage. It is followed by Marijuana Cannabis, cocaine, alcohol, ecstasy, tobacco and very few responses in case of others.

According to the the drug causing the most deaths in Australia is tobacco which is followed by alcohol, heroin, cocaine crack and followed by others. The people who are very good in health consider tobacco to be the drug causing the most deaths, followed by those who consider themselves in good health followed by those in excellent health.

Shift Towards Viewing Drug Use as a Health or Human Rights Issue

According to the survey regarding the topic of the most serious concern for the society, the clearly shows the top reasons as considered by the respondents. The clearly shows that the most significant reasons is the excessive drinking of alcohol which is around 42.96% of all the reasons. The next most significant reason is the tobacco smoking which corresponds to 14.83%. The next most important cause is that of heroin, followed by that of Meth amphetamine which is about 8.89% which is followed by cocaine which is 5.91%.

The analysis of the data shows that when the people speak of drugs then they think of Heroin. Heroin is the most prevalent drug to be used with an occurrence of 30.42%. The use of heroin is closely followed by Marijuana / Cannabis at 23.02%. The  use of Ketamine and Kava is the least at 0.03% and 0.02% respectively.

The clearly shows the graph or the pictorial representation showing which drugs cause the most deaths in Australia. It is clear from the graph that the most important causes are that of tobacco which is followed by alcohol, heroin, cocaine, meth amphetamine, ecstasy and other insignificant causes. The percentage of non responsiveness is very low.

The is related to the approval or the disapproval of regular use of alcohol across region. It clearly shows that majority of the people approve of the regular use of alcohol across region of which majority of the people are from major cities followed by the respondents from inner regional, followed by outer regional and finally those from extremely remote areas. Around 35% of the respondents neither approve nor disapprove which come primarily from major cities. It is followed by 13% who disapprove and less than 10% who strongly disapprove. Very few people strongly approve and very few have not answered the survey and even fewer do not know what to say.

Majority of the people strongly disapprove of the regular use of tobacco by an adult where the majority of the people are from major cities. The strong disapproval is followed by the people who disapprove and then by the people who neither approve nor disapprove. This is followed by the people who approve of it, then by the people who have not answered and then by those who strongly approve and finally by people who do not know enough to say anything on the topic of the survey.

Australian Attitudes Towards Decriminalization of Drugs

The first drug people think of across age group is that of Heroin. This is followed by Marijuana, Meth amphetamine, cocaine, alcohol, ecstasy and followed by very low percentage of others. The opinions are helmed by the senior citizens, followed by age group of 50-59, then according to the decreasing age groups. It is same in the case of all the other drugs.

Regarding the approval or disapproval of the regular use of Marijuana or Cannabis, the highest response is that of strong disapproval. This corresponds to the thought processes of the senior citizens followed by higher amounts of contribution according to the decreasing age groups. The strong disapproval is followed by disapproval, neither approval nor disapproval, approval, then by not answered, then by people who don’t know and finally who strongly agree.

The clearly shows that majority of the people say that their health is very good. Of them majority drink weekly who are followed by those who drink less frequently than weekly, then by those who do not drink followed by those who drink daily. Then the opinions are those of health being good, excellent, fair and poor.

The clearly shows that the majority of the people think that their health is very good. The majority of the respondents namely 22.71% have never used marijuana which is followed by the ex-users and then by the recent users. Thus the very good, good, excellent, fair, poor and non-answered are the rest of the responses. In general there is a decreasing or deteriorating trend about the health. A very few percentage of respondents did not give any answer to the survey as is evident.

The analysis of the data shows that most of the respondents have never used a drug. 13.47% of the female respondents and 11.54% of the male respondents are Ex-users. Most of the respondents interviewed were recent users. The percentage of male users of illicit drugs was more than that of female users. Some of the respondents did not prefer to report the use of illicit drugs.

Investigation into the use of illicit drugs across region shows that most of the ex-users were from major cities (16.29%). In addition, the majority of recent users of illicit drugs are from major cities (8.50%). The number of recent illicit drug users from outer regional areas as well as remote or very remote users is negligible as compared to Inner regional areas of the cities.

Most of the respondents with lifetime risks were those who had 2 or less drinks     on an average. Moreover, the lifetime risks of females (64.70%) were higher than of males (52.44%). Males who took 2 drinks or more on an average were at an higher lifetime risk (29.84%) than females (11.47%). Females who abstained from alcohol were at a higher risk than males.

The investigation into the data found that male respondents who had more than 2 drinks on average and were in the age group of 18 – 24 years were at a higher risk of using illicit drug than males of other age groups. Similarly, females in the age group of 18-4 years and had an average of 2 drinks or more were at a higher risk of using illicit drugs.

The investigation into the data found that male respondents who had less than 2 drinks on average and were in the age group of 40 – 49 years were at a higher risk of using illicit drug than males of other age groups. Similarly, females in the age group of 30 - 39 years and had an average of 2 or less drinks were at a higher risk of using illicit drugs.

The analysis of the survey shows that according to guideline 2 the percentage of low risk respondents (less than 5 drinks) was the highest. 32.28% of the females were at risk as compared to 20.65% of males had less than 5 drinks a month. On the other hand 9.75% of females who have more than 5 drinks a month are at risk as against 16.24% males.

The study also found that people from major cities who had less than 5 drinks a month were at a higher risk (34.69%) than those who had more than 5 drinks (15.94%).