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The Family Update On-line
Family Update is the regular publication of the Australian Family Association.
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Family Update - April-May 2007 Vol.22 No.1 2007
Download as a PDF
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Drugs impact on families
Submissions are invited to a parliamentary inquiry
into the impact of illicit drug use on families – due
March 23, 2007. Bronwyn Bishop, chairman of
the House of Representatives Standing Committee
on Family and Human Services, has called for
submissions detailing information and offering
advice under the following headings:
the financial, social and personal cost to families
who have a member(s) using illicit drugs,
including the impact of drug induced psychosis
or other mental disorders;
the impact of permissive “harm minimisation”
programs on families;
ways to strengthen families who are coping with
a member(s) using illicit drugs.
The cost to families
While detailed submissions may be difficult to
compile, a large number of letters with anecdotal
evidence, based on personal experiences and
observations concerning extended families, neighbours,
friends and workmates, would impress on
the committee that this is a real social problem,
involving real people and requiring real responses.
Most people are aware of cases of psychosis resulting
from long term use of cannabis, and cause-andeffect
relationship is now generally accepted. Those
who have had many first hand experiences in a role
such as that of a St Vincent de Paul visitor should
be able to make valuable observations on the harm
to families.
Apart from the obvious cost to established families,
illicit drug use has had a significant effect on the
development of an underclass. These are generally
young men whose drug use has made them unfit
for study, training and employment, and consigned
them to unemployment benefits (Newstart) or more
often the Disability Support Pension. Conversely,
lack of training and employment opportunities may
have encouraged the slide into drug dependence
and psychosis which makes them unfit for work.
They certainly form a large component of the 29%
of men aged 25-29 identified by Bob Birrell in
the 2001 Census (Men and Women Apart) as not
working full-time and being unable to form and
support a family.
Another phenomenon which is growing more
common is the responsibility for children being
placed on grandparents and other family members,
when drug abuse and sometimes prison or suicide
render the parents absent or simply incapable of
caring for their children. If you know of families in this
situation, a general description of their circumstances
should also be of interest to the committee.
Harm minimisation
Permissive “harm minimisation” programs are
fatally flawed, as they remain permissive concerning
drug use, avoid value judgements, have not been
accompanied by adequate resources to treat
addiction, and have seen illicit drug use increase.
Yet so-called harm minimisation has been the
mantra of officially sanctioned programs for more
than a decade.
Parents will have been alarmed at children’s reports
of their schools’ drug education programs, which
teach an equivalence between legal drugs, such
as alcohol and tobacco, and illicit drugs such as
cannabis and amphetamines – as if there were
no essential difference beyond the preferences
of one generation over those of another. This has
encouraged the perception of there being so-called
“hard” and “soft” drugs and use of that dangerous
term “recreational” when describing illicit drug use,
and it can and does undermine parental authority.
Harm minimisation is always a double-edged
sword. Needle exchange programs can reduce risk
of infection, but can normalise and encourage the
injection of intravenous drugs. The policy of
‘increasing the knowledge and skills of young people
to contribute to the minimisation of harm from the
use of drugs’ (Department of Education and Training,
Victoria) could impart a sophisticated knowledge of
drugs and their dangers, but can normalise their use.
For example, the “save a mate” program offered by
the Red Cross to Victorian schools this year starts
with the acceptance of widespread drug use among
teenagers and the need to teach their friends how to
respond in an emergency.
This was justified at its launch in 2006 with the
rubbery figures from the Victorian Youth Alcohol and
Drug Survey, 2004, of the number of young people
with a friend who uses drugs – 80% for cannabis,
60% for ecstasy and 47% for amphetamines.
The latest national data suggests that 15.3% have
actually used an illicit drug in the past 12 months.
The long and well-documented experience of
drug prevention in Sweden is far more instructive.
Although elements of harm minimisation strategies
are used in some areas, the overall aim is ‘a drug
free society’, which other European countries such
as its neighbour Denmark regard as ‘not realistic’.
Nevertheless, Sweden’s holistic approach to illicit
drugs, which combines reducing supply, punishing
abusers and coercing them to undergo treatment,
has had startling success. Drug use in the 15-
24 age group is less than one-third that of other
EU Member states (United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, September 2006). Only in the
mid-1990s, when budgetry constraints cut drug
treatment programs, was there any decline in this
trend, once harm minimisation had given way to a
holistic approach and a concerted effort to achieve
a drug free society.
Strengthening families
Families trying to cope with a member using illicit
drugs should not be abandoned to their own
resources or reduced to cutting that family member
adrift. The Swedish example shows that availability
of treatment for drug addiction is a vital part of any
community approach to the drug problem. Adequate
funding for residential treatment as an alternative to
a custodial sentence for drug abuse, or as a part of
that sentence, gives hope to the subjects and their
families, and certainly provides respite for parents
and siblings. This would require serious funding
of programs on the part of the Federal and State
governments, which at present are taking the easy
option, in contrast to the Swedish government.
A U S T R A L I A N F A M I L Y A S S O C I A T I O N
Harm minimisation “in the community” is cheaper,
but is ineffective, and families are regularly terrorised
by drug-addicted members, while being constantly
threatened with the knock on the door that will
announce that some harm has come to them.
One hard but effective approach, often embraced
by families when all else has failed, is “Tough
Love”. In the US this has become a billion dollar
industry, with expensive boot camps and many
passionate advocates and critics. However, the
principles of Tough Love may help in the case of
younger teenagers especially: adopting safety
practices, setting house rules, clear and consistent
consequences – involving police if necessary, and
encouraging drug abusers to undergo treatment.
Send submissions or letters under one or more of
the three headings to the House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Family and Human
Services, at Parliament House Canberra, ACT 2600
or fhs.reps@aps.gov.au
ACTION
Offer your own thoughts and experiences on these
issues and/or use the material provided to urge
the Federal government to introduce workable
alternatives to harm minimisation, in the interests of
families as well as drug abusers. The aim of a drug
free society and adequate funding for treatment
should be the keys to any constructive suggestions.
Sam and Bethany Torode, authors of
Open Embrace..
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