Drug Free Australia and Australian Christian Lobby
Written by enadmin7 on December 5, 2012
I almost want to start a post on these two with profanities. But that would be childish and play right into their alley.
If you haven’t heard of these two organisations, here’s a quick run-down:
Drug Free Australia
First, let’s see who they say they are, straight from their website:
Drug Free Australia is a peak body, representing organizations and individuals who value the health and wellbeing of our nation. It plays a key role as a community voice, staying in touch with every day Australians – families and young people – via newsletters, community forums and the media, to ensure a clear message of healthy, drug free lifestyles is assured for generations to come.
Our goals are:
- To ensure that current, accurate illicit drug prevention messages are disseminated widely within our communities
- To support those who are alcohol and drug dependent to access pathways to recovery
- To conduct research into emerging AOD issues in order to ensure that primary prevention and recovery-based treatment options, are given top priority
Many of the members of the DFA management committee were on former Prime Minister John Howard’s Australian National Council on Drugs when it was first formed in 1998 as an independent advisory committee on drugs. It was stacked fairly heavily with people perpetuating myths surrounding various substance and emphasising and exaggerating the risks associated with these. The ANCD is the organisation behind the abysmal waste of tax money that is the National Drugs Campaign, which is little more than a graphic-designer’s drug-horror nightmare.DFA’s management committee is heavily stacked with the religiously-inclined, primarily of the Christian persuasion who are pushers of a moral-imperialist agenda… If I’ve lost you a little bit, basically they are mostly Christians who think that you are immoral if you’re not also a Christian who lives by their rigid Biblical definitions.
Let’s not get caught up on their religious affiliations alone (although if you go check out their affiliations page, you will notice many religiously motivated anti-drug groups).
Although the credentials for the people in this group seem to look impressive, they are largely irrelevant to the field they comment on: Currently illicit substances. Jo Baxter is an excellent example of someone willing to speak out on just about anything with hardly any relevant credentials at all… In an interview with World Federation Against Drugs, Baxter slagged Australia 21 for apparently having “celebrity-like figures” who make comments which are “superficially persuasive”. Baxter recites a line that fellow DFA’er (Major… lol) Brian Watters noted in an interview with the sparsely supported Australian Christian Lobby. The line is clear rhetoric that the mob of ’em would’ve been told to emphasis, that there is no “War on Drugs” in Australia, referring to the fact that this term was an American term. Major Watters hits the craptoric home with this beauty, “If what has been happening in Australia over a number of years was a war, if we fought the second world war that way, we would all be talking Japanese, I can tell you.” (ACL Interview)
Although the term ‘War on Drugs’ came from a U.S. President, the policy was taken up by the United Nations due to U.S. pressure and the term is colloquially used to describe the world-wide anti-drug policy. Going on about this is purposefully distracting. Baxter claims that Australia’s Harm Reducation strategy, which began with Prime Minister Paul Keating in the 1980’s has failed, because, “It does not put prevention first,” which she believes would stop the use of illicit drugs.You can pretty much guarantee that when a DFA member opens their mouth to squeak, it’s going to be a muddle of truths, half-truths and flat-out lies. This is an excellent strategy for obfuscating debate, especially if you sound all Mr. or Mrs. Authority! Baxter makes the unfounded, but nice and authority-sounding claim that 70% and up to 90% of Australians don’t want to see a change in drug policy. She actually minces her words a little bit, mixing up legalisation and change in policy… but that’s one of the tactics of a numb-skull. In a quick Google search, I found that a McNair Ingenuity survey on attitudes toward illicit drugs and drug use conducted in 2010 showed only around 15% of respondents believed the current drug policy framework is working. Breaking down the statistics saw varied views, with around half of the respondents looking for a new strategy and around half who believe that marijuana specifically should be decriminalised.
Australian Christian Lobby
Lobby groups are the marker of a time-poor democratic population outsourcing their critical thinking, voting-decisions and opinion-developing to well funded, often ideologically or corporately backed small contingencies of people often trained in public relations, whose sole job is to lobby politicians for their ideology or business wishes. The ACL seem to be often criticised by other Christians for not really representing Christian views. They’ve got themselves into all sorts of hot water over comments like:
“Smoking is healthier than gay marriage” (Jim Wallace, 2012)The Australian Christian Lobby are paid sponsors of Melbourne Christian radio station ‘Light FM‘ and have sponsored a segment called ‘On the Political Spot’, which the DFA’s Major Watters spoke on in April 2012.
Just about my favourite part of reading, seeing or listening to political discussions on the internet is the comments section, which is almost always filled with unintelligent dribble, obvious trolling or comments from the tin-foil-hat brigade.
I wrote a comment for this story, but then noticed that the ACL has certain conditions on their comment approval process… specifically: Though this site is primarily for ‘supporters’, respectful disagreement is allowed. However, this blog is not the forum to debate and persuade ACL and its supporters against position on issues.Ah. Ok. So… your comments section is for (a totally straight, or course) circle jerk? Everyone grab the person next to you in the crotch and start pleasuring! We ain’t havin’ none of that dissent crap here!
Here’s what I wrote… awaiting moderation:
Since we’re on the anecdotal-train here, I use ‘drugs’… specifically, I enjoy MDMA, Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, Mescaline, DMT and Marijuana. Many of my friends also enjoy these things. None of my friends have problems with these substances to any great extent. I personally get irritated when people decide to get high in the morning and then don’t want to come out and do things on a nice day, but they’re enjoying themselves just the same.
We work. We pay taxes. We have partners and are good with our families.The idea that ‘drug’ user – abuser is a fallacy perpetuated by specific anecdotes and morality-imperialists like Watters.
Stepping outside of the anecdotal territory, there is ever-mounting research that show the effects of a criminal black market. It is not the product that is sold, but the market that causes the problems here. We also see that those who do develop a problematic relationship with an illicit substance are only hindered further and further by a ‘War on Drugs’ mentality.
Who exactly are you people trying to help? If it’s the people – then understand that:
a) Not everyone who uses a substance is an abuser nor wants help ‘getting off’ it.
and
b) Those who do have a problem aren’t helped by prohibition law.Watters perpetuates this silly idea that not pursuing prohibition is “giving up”. He compares it, rather emotively, to giving up on policing rape or road crimes – both of which are violent crimes against another person.
If I smoke marijuana – where is the victim? If I have grown that marijuana in my backyard, who is harmed? If I pick mushrooms from the forest and eat them, where’s the victim?To me it seems like there is an underlying issue here – What forms of consciousness are allowed?
One of the main reasons I enjoy the things that I do, are for their consciousness-altering effects. They give me a LOT to think about and ponder upon. I find it deeply intriguing that relatively simple chemicals, some of which are nearly identical to the neurotransmitters in our brain… and some COMPLETELY identical (DMT) can alter perception so vastly. It makes me wonder what the nature of reality is, what the nature of the human is.
It seems to me that perhaps some people don’t like others asking these questions, or don’t see the point of it. To me, this is an integral part of being alive.
I know I’m using some dickhead language here at Enpsychedelia, but generally I believe in engaging people in sensible, rational debate to try and get to the bottom of these issues. I don’t imagine my comment will be published… people might have to lift their jerkin’ hands, think and type for a moment.
Fuck.
That was not really a quick run-down.
Point is – ACL and DFA are both what I like to term reality-imperialists. These are folk who believe it’s their way or the highway. Which is funny, because they’re also often the ones pedaling paranoid, nationalistic crap, supporting quasi-racist policies and attacking other religions for their apparent desire to enforce their views on others. While trying to force their religious views on others.
I contacted ACL and DFA over a month ago, politely informing them of Enpsychedelia. Perhaps the email didn’t get through, perhaps they’re just ignoring me. If they would agree to put the bullshit aside and chat, I imagine there’d be a very illuminating discussion awaiting.
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Ariane On December 7, 2012 at 17:34
Hi Nick, to begin with – completely agree on every point. But, contrary to what would be expected based on your evidence, what this article pleasantly raised for me was hope. Christianity in Australia is a rapidly dying-out religion, with the fastest growing religions I believe Hinduism and then Buddhism (not entirely sure where atheism fits in, probably at the top). Point being, the majority of die-hard conservative Christians, particularly in the more traditional wings such as Catholics and Protestants, are running out. The young Christians I do know (and I realise this is anecdotal and not factual, but regardless, it implies to me an overall cultural tone) either half-heartedly offer an ‘oh, I don’t care if anyone else does it..’ attitude to drugs, or often take them themselves in private away from their communities (surprisingly common). If what this article presents is true, then the Australian version of War On Drugs is being run primarily by older Christians, so ideally in the next 40+ years once most of those presently middle-aged preachers are retired, dead, or otherwise incapable of imposing their ‘moralist-imperalist agenda’ on millions of people, the Australian attitude towards drugs will be (hopefully!) vastly different. (As a 20 year old, I still feel idealistic about drug reform within my lifetime.)
ALSO – a lesser point, but what with the US having been so progressive and legalising marijuana in two states now, I doubt it’s long before the issue becomes raised in Australia, or COULD be raised – on a massive scale – with a little tinder. After all, Australia supposedly prides itself on being on the forefront of world issues (although in many ways more theoretically than practically, ‘we’re such a multicultural loving society’ vs ‘keep those weak begger asylum seekers out of our country’, but regardless..) and I feel that Aussies would hate to think of ourselves as trailing in progression behind the US, who I know a lot of people still think of in the Bush ‘all Americans are fat, loud and stupid’ terms.. More on a sociocultural level, but when you combine minor points such as that with the fact that only 15% of people think drug reform is working, and the millions of safe, normal, recreational drug users that would come ‘out of the closet’ if they didn’t feel their reputations and status legally were at stake to act as examples for the cause, I feel a bit more positive about all this.
Have you heard about the Australian government’s recent introduction of policies to allow them to ban any plant or substance without any approval required whatsoever? I’m paraphrasing from something I read on a Happy High Herbs Facebook post, haha, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on that too.