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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3354 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

the need for provision of safer and clean injecting equipment is a basic and proven measure. This report, hopefully, will assist the government to improve access to clean injecting equipment. As I said at the beginning, it's very important that a broad approach is taken to problems related to injecting drug use. This approach has to include education, rehabilitation and mental health services that actually work for drug users, to mention a few aspects of a broad approach.

There are also big questions about why people increasingly feel they have to take drugs to get through the day. The committee's inquiry obviously didn't look at all these broader issues because we had a specific focus, which was access to clean needs and syringes and injecting equipment. But I know there have been many debates in this place about the broader questions and in fact the reports that were tabled this morning go to a degree to some of the questions regarding mental health services, and I know that we will continue to have this debate.

MS MacDONALD (12.18): This was not an easy inquiry to conduct. Without a doubt the issue of drug use and particularly IV drug use is one that causes great controversy and emotion in our society. As such, I draw the Assembly and the community's attention to paragraph 1.3, which states, "This inquiry did not look to solve or enter into the debate on drug use in the community."Rather, the committee addressed the issues around access to injecting equipment. The reason we concentrated on this issue was due to a concern about difficulty in accessing clean syringes and the alarming rate of increase of hepatitis C in intravenous drug users.

I do understand that in spite of this being the committee's focus there will still be many within our community who will have problems with the recommendations in this report. I am also aware that there are many people in our society who see the harm minimisation approach as condoning drug use. I am not of this view. Because I do believe in the harm minimisation approach, I support all 13 of the recommendations in this report. I want to emphasise that I think we need to be doing everything in our power to educate people about the dangers of illicit drugs in order to keep them from taking up a habit in the first place. I also believe that we need to try a combination of treatments to help drug users get off the drugs.

But while we have not found the magic solution-that magic bullet that prevents people from using, that makes them stop using-as legislators we must do everything in our power to help their peripheral health. We need to do this not just for their future health when they do hopefully finally get off the drugs, but also because of the massive financial cost and strain that associated problems place on our health system.

As well as receiving 15 submissions, the committee also held a public forum on 1 May in which a number of people spoke from their perspective of accessibility of injecting equipment as well as their view of the issues surrounding access to equipment. The committee heard a lot of evidence from groups concerned about the increase in hepatitis C virus, or HCV, within the IV drug-using community. This contrasted sharply with the spread of HIV/AIDS, which has been significantly curtailed with exchange programs already in place along with other prevention strategies. This is, in the main, due to HCV being far more easily transmitted through injecting drug use than HIV is.

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