It demonstrates that harm minimisation is not where governments have been allocating funding. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on customs, police, courts and prisons, while only tens of millions of dollars are spent on needle syringe and methadone programs. Australia has been funding a solid core of supply reduction with a thin veneer of harm reduction. Despite the generous funding for measures to restrict supply, the availability of illicit drugs continues to increase. The purity of street drugs increased from 57 per cent to 65 per cent in the last financial year.
Illicit drugs are now also cheaper than ever before.
The number of first-time heroin users jumped 50 per cent in the past three years. By any criteria, outcomes have been appalling and getting worse. The six deaths from drug overdose in 1964 increased to 737 deaths in 1998. This 1998 figure represents a 23 per cent increase on the 1997 figure. Drug-related crime is also growing rapidly.