Page 1029 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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No further banning of steroid use or possession for personal use should take place. All legislation relating to AS use should be reviewed and there should be an investigation into the effects of the legislation on unsafe practices with respect to AS use and HIV risk.
It seems to me that the legislation put up by Mrs Carnell can parallel that recommendation from nearly a year ago - July 1993.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am pleased that Mr Connolly has some amendments for us to look at. I am pleased that he has indicated that he would like to adjourn the debate so that we can have a look at his recommendations. I also say as strongly as I can that it is an appropriate opportunity to ensure that the appropriate services are in place. I believe that those services could be cost neutral. We certainly have enough medical practitioners in Canberra who understand the ramifications of the spread of HIV and so on. Mr Deputy Speaker, it seems to me that this Bill has quite reasonable potential. I would like to be in a position to be able to support it, but before that can happen we need to have that type of service in place.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (11.09), in reply: I welcome Mr Connolly's amendments to my Bill, because there is no doubt that the ACT lags behind every other State and Territory in its legislative approach to anabolic steroids. It is probably fairly remarkable that in every other jurisdiction in Australia - except, I must admit, South Australia, although they are moving to upgrade their legislation and say that they will have done so by 1 July - possession of anabolic steroids by an unauthorised person is an offence.
The police and Customs are in a totally invidious situation in Canberra. They are not in a position to take action against somebody who is pushing these very dangerous drugs in our gyms unless they can catch the person involved actually selling the drugs. No matter how much of these drugs you have in your possession, it is simply not an offence. If we in the Assembly here had a whole roomful of anabolic steroids, the police or Customs could do absolutely nothing about it. We have placed our law enforcement agencies in an almost impossible situation by not having moved in this important area earlier. I fully accept Mr Connolly's comments that my Bill went only half of the way, although it was a pretty important half. It really did give our law enforcement agencies some sort of capacity to stem what is a very difficult problem.
I suppose that it is important to think just for a moment about how widespread steroid use in Canberra is. That is very difficult to ascertain, as was shown in the report on harm minimisation and anabolic steroids that Mr Moore has already alluded to; but it was interesting to note what one of the people involved in that survey - Ms Marion Watson from the ACT Drug Referral and Information Centre - is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of 19 March this year as saying. The article states:
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