Neil Gaughan, ACT Chief Police Officer and Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner, is a decent man who has tried to be a loyal servant of two masters, the ACT government and the federal government, but enough is enough.
In a blistering attack on the ACT government and its decriminalising of hard drugs – especially ice (crystal methamphetamine) and heroin – the CPO said:
“We legalised cannabis in 2021, and there was a 20 per cent increase in usage, so it’s safe to assume we are going to see an increase in other drug usage, and Canberra already has a fairly strong use of coke [cocaine] per head of population. The nation will be watching us – we are the first to go this far.”
He went on to say that one of his main concerns was the relaxation of the possession of ice.
“You will be allowed 1.5 grams, which is 15 hits, which costs about $1,500. Not many users will have that money, and that could see other crime problems. Meth (ice) is highly addictive, so the worry is people will go on four- or five-day meth benders, go out and drive, and kill someone.
“Last year, we had 18 people die, a 300 per cent increase on the rolling average, and most of those people had meth or cannabis in their system.”
I know from bitter personal experiences how right he is there. My youngest son Joe died in January 2018 in a car accident where the driver was on meth.
Health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith says the idea behind decriminalisation is to send people to rehab, but former Detective Sergeant Jason Taylor [the Belco Party’s candidate for 2024] has found out it is only mandatory for a referred user to go to ONE session – hardly effective rehab.
Neil Gaughan is also worried that the ACT might turn out to be like San Francisco, Portland, and Vancouver, where personal use of hard drugs has also been relaxed.
He said: “From what I saw over there (in February this year), it is not working … What I saw was not pretty. I saw in the States people smoking crack in the streets, and the cops are turning a blind eye to that usage. Cops are walking around giving people a nudge to make sure they are not dead … A city like San Francisco has entire blocks that are literally no-go zones. Whole neighbourhoods are boarded up with people walking around zombified.”
Naturally, the ACT government will ignore these comments from its own top cop. However, I am confident from what he says that over the next couple of years a number of ACT parents will, like me, lose a son or daughter as a result of drug driving accidents – who may not have been lost if we didn’t have these disastrous dangerous laws.
All that decriminalisation will do is encourage more young people into becoming users – with tragic consequences. The first duty of a government is to protect its citizens, not encourage dangerous practices that put them in harm’s way.
Editor’s note: Bill Stefaniak is founder of the Belco Party.
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