Diary: The Health System

DIARY: A short while ago, I had decided to apply for sickness benefits at Centrelink whilst I sort out some medical issues. This is because I wouldn’t be able to work for a few months and a regular income is essential. Sounds easy doesn’t it.

I have previously been on unemployment benefits for a few short periods and the only long period was when I was 17 and living away from home. The last time was about 8 years ago and after a few months I found a full time job which was a relief because Centrelink is HELL! I vowed never to return.

I thought the sickness allowance would be different though but there was a new problem ... my doctor! I like my doctor but his administration skills are poorly lacking. Problems usually involve his holidays where it is impossible to contact him or he doesn’t think through the needs of his patients.

Last time he went on holidays, he told me that another doctor would see me whilst he was away. When I turned up, the doctor knew nothing about it. Asking the doctor to ring the health department to authorise a permit for a month’s supply of morphine to a heroin addict was problematic enough but my 6 monthly authority had ran out as well. It finally was approved but it took an hour and the doctor was not happy. In a busy clinic, an hour for one patient means the other patients had to wait that extra time as well. As you can imagine, there were a few complaints.

 So now my doctor was going away again so I explained to him what happened last time. He said he had a better idea and told me to pick up a script in 3 weeks time which he would leave at reception for me. I did as I was told and went to the chemist as usual with the script he had pre-written. Easy. Then it all started again.

To avoid having to apply for a 30 day permit, my doctor had written 3 separate scripts for a lesser quantity to get me by until he returned in 13 days. The pharmacist (who I deal with every week) said the scripts didn’t say weekly pick up so I had to come in every day and pick up one days worth of medication at a time. He told me he knew what the doctor meant and it had always been a weekly pick up but there was nothing he could do. He suggested I ring the doctor’s clinic and get a letter authorising me to pick up weekly and until then I had to come in every day. I paid and left very unhappy.

Luckily the next day, another pharmacist told me that because we had been doing a weekly pick up for so long that he would use his discretion and allow me weekly pick ups. I asked why my regular pharmacist didn’t do the same and I was told that my regular pharmacist wasn’t sure because he wasn’t used to dealing with me. What could I say? He had ONLY been my regular pharmacist for 4 months.

But the worse was yet to come. I then had to pay for another 2 scripts as well. WTF?! So what was normally about $33 per month had to be paid 3 times ... for 13 days supply. Then when I next saw my doctor, I had to pay for another script. In total, I had to pay for 4 scripts for the month, 4 x $33. BTW, When I asked my doctor why the hell he wrote 3 separate scripts and thus 3 separate payments as well as the new script, he just shrugged and said, “oh well”.

 Back to sickness benefits. I had to resupply another medical certificate to replace an older certificate my doctor gave me, which had expired on Feb 10. I went to the doctor and he wrote another certificate. I then went to Centrelink a few days later and there were 60 people in the queue at 4.00pm. I was not going to be seen that day so I came back the next morning. After waiting 45 minutes in the queue I finally was attended to. After 15 minutes of phone calls and talking to other Centrelink employees, the person serving me said that my doctor had not filled out the dates properly so I would need to go back to him, get another medical certificate and return to Centrelink.

Oh dear god! I remembered why I vowed never to rely on Centrelink for income. Maybe I should have vowed never to return to my doctor?

Centrelink was surprisingly good without too many mistakes. It did take 3 months to get the right ID and forms filled out and they forgot to photocopy the back of some document. I wasn’t desperate for cash so it wasn’t too much of a worry. The problem is that I had to go to Centrelink 6 times so far and waiting in a queue for at least 30 minutes each visit. The other complaint is being told different things by different people. All this for $250 a week and a healthcare card. I suppose the healthcare card saves a bit considering all the medication I am on. Over all, I was happy with Centrelink. My real complaint is aimed at my doctor and the chemist. I have written about them before and I think somehow I will write about them again.

When you step back and compare the system I am complaining about to the US health and welfare system, I should count myself lucky. If I had been in the US, I would be homeless and a desperate junkie. Because of my drug history, I would be unemployable and not eligible for welfare housing. I would receive no income support and have to rely on charities for food. My SROM treatment would never had happened and I would not be able to afford methadone. A bleak picture indeed. The US mindset of avoiding “socialised medicine” at any cost is just unworkable ideology from the conservative elite. Leaving health to the business sector, insurance companies and big pharma has not worked out well for the US. For all the faults of our system, the main perpetrators that affected me were private businesses. The Medicare levy now seems like a very small price to pay.

Tobacco Tax Increase Hurts The Poor

A cigarette price increase to fund smoking prevention programs sounds like a good idea. . . . That is unless you're poor.

There currently is a call for a tobacco tax increase to be used to fund more smoking prevention initiatives. A proposed rise of 2.5¢ a cigarette would push a pack of 40s up another $1 and is hopefully going to reduce smoking by 2.6 per cent. This equates to about 50,000 less smokers and $400 million dollars in addition revenue. It sounds like a win-win situation by lowering the amount of smokers and providing more funds for anti-smoking campaigns. But there are some nasty holes in this strategy. Smoking costs the community $31 billion dollars every year which makes $400 million dollars seem a little insignificant . The real problem though is, who are the people who won't quit despite the price rise. For those who earn an average wage, it won’t matter too much but those who are less fortunate, it will hit hard ... very hard. Monetary penalties are biased and for people who have a good income, it offers little incentive to abide by whatever rules they are are penalised for. We see it intrenched in our society like parking fines, court fines, tax penalties etc. For example, if you are in court and can afford expensive legal representation, you have a greater chance of getting off. That leaves those who can’t afford to ‘buy’ off their conviction and are stuck with budget solicitors. What about speeding fines? If your in a hurry, why would a few hundred dollars worry you if you’re on your way to meeting where you could earn thousands of dollars? Being in a hurry to drop off the kids to your grandparents so you can make it in time to that part time cleaning job is not worth your week’s pay for a speeding fine. Monetary penalties are not relative to your wealth.

We all know smoking is wrong and those who smoke are evil, weak and decadent. Luckily we have someone to guides them away from their wicked ways. Addiction is just an excuse. -The ideology of government anti-smoking programs

Smokers are addicts. Very simple to understand but what’s harder to grasp are the levels of addiction and the addict's situation. A financially secure tobacco addict can simply keep smoking if their addiction is bad enough. But what if you can’t afford it? The calls for an increase in tobacco excise, like most policies regarding addiction, is based on wishful thinking. Addiction can cause those with less disposable income to act completely different to our expectations and when faced with price increases will often accommodate the increase by missing out on something else. Instead of fresh healthy food, they might buy cheaper alternatives. If they need new shoes for their kids, they might keep them wearing them for a few more months. The car needs new tires? That can wait until next year. Simply increasing the cost of something is a broad remedy to discourage use. We see it in the way a tighter monetary policy is used to control inflation. We see it with alcohol being priced out of the reach of heavy drinkers. It might achieve some of it’s intended outcomes but the cost to some is far greater. It is a lazy way to achieve results and requires some spin to get support.

"With rising costs in food, petrol and housing, tobacco is now relatively inexpensive'' -Quit executive director Fiona Sharkie

Relatively inexpensive! Smoking is about 10-20% of a household budget for low income earners, about the same as food. Increasing the price of tobacco will have a profound effect on these budgets and absurd comments from anti-smoking groups show they care very little for people but more for statistics and numbers. Like most drug related programs, financially challenged and the worst effected lose out by broad, disproportional strategies. Strategies that give great headlines and target the easily converted. Of course there is never an analyses of who doesn’t quit smoking and how it effects them but plenty of back slapping at the many who have been rescued from their evil ways. The call for proper analysis is raised every time a “price increase” strategy is put on the table but it gets approved very quickly to avoid full scrutiny.

"With tobacco costing the Australian community $31.5 billion every year, it is essential proven tobacco control strategies, including tax increase, are put into place as soon as possible ...'' -Quit executive director Fiona Sharkie

We have just seen “Alcopops” receive a huge tax increase in an effort to stem “binge drinking” of teenage girls. While it is generally taboo to criticise any effort to reduce smoking levels, alcohol strategies do face scrutiny. This latest “price increase” strategy for “Alcopops” has come under criticism for lack of research, not being effective and for disproportionately effecting the less fortunate compared to average wage earners. I wonder why those same people are basically ignored when it comes to tobacco.

[Article Bumped up from May]

Corruption: The Price of Prohibition

Imagine you’re a police officer on an average wage with a large family. You have the usual problems like schools fees, utility bills and a never ending mortgage. What if one day you are sent to a special building to pick up evidence and are handed $100K in cash. The clerk tells you to sign the docket and to return the $80K in one week. As you look up at him to inform him of his mistake, he whispers “ten thousand each” as he takes back the pen. It’s only drug money right? 

No one would miss it and besides, it’s not going to hurt anyone. 

What if you are called to a domestic dispute in a high rise housing commission block. The door is already open and no one is there ... except on the table is $30K in cash? Drug money made illegally that would be used to buy more drugs. Do you turn it in knowing it will probably end up in the pockets of corrupt officers? Wouldn’t it be wiser to pay for your children’s education? What about your pension bound parents who could do with some financial relief? Certainly they deserve it more than the lousy drug dealer? 

There are many scenarios like this played out everyday. The lure of easy, untraceable cash is made easier knowing that it came from drug sales and not someone’s hard earned wages. For the less scrupulous, the opportunities are everywhere and being in a position that deals with drug money can lead to huge personal rewards. Face it, it’s only drug money ... and there’s a lot of it. 

The illicit drug industry is the second largest industry on earth apart from military and weapons spending. Estimated at between $300 - $400 billion dollars annually, it’s a criminal’s dream come true. Many, many willing clients with a daily need, large profit margins, easy to produce goods and of course, enough money to grease the palms of those who might stand in your way. 

The estimated profit margin for heroin from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the end user is 17,000% Plenty of room to pay off officials and law enforcement along the way. 

Mexico is one of the great examples of how deep corruption can go and the damage at the end of it all. With nearly 3000 drug gang related deaths (many civilians) and 40,000 soldiers fighting the drug cartels, corruption is the oil keeping the wheels turning. Last month, Mexico devised an emergency plan to combat the wave of violence caused by drug cartels. Apart from providing security forces with more powerful weapons, special prisons for kidnappers and new tactics to combat money laundering and drug trafficking, the number one point was sacking corrupt police officers. 

One issue we need to keep reminding ourselves of is that huge profits made from illicit drugs is a recent happening. Prior to 1968, there was no DEA in the US but the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that never had more than 17 members of staff. The ever expanding influence of the US on demonising drug use rapidly pushed up the price of illicit drugs worldwide, creating this made man problem. The DEA now has about 10,800 staff and is part of the $69 billion dollars spent annually by the US in the quest to stop drug use. 

Corruption is a nasty side effect of creating this artificial multi-billion dollar industry and will never go away until the profit incentive is removed. I have seen police corruption first hand. I have witnessed several times, police taking cash from small time user/dealers. People I know have been pulled over in the street, searched and had money from their wallets taken with no paper work or official record. It’s part of the game on the streets ... some police are corrupt and they are the ones to avoid at all costs. They are the ones who will hound you even after your days as a drug user are over. Yes, I have notified the appropriate authorities on several occasions and have made official complaints. Like many who have had contact with corrupt police, you know there’s enough money to make your complaint go away. It’s just the rules of the game.

Drugs worth millions go missing from police 

John Silvester 

The Age 

September 2008 

THE Victorian Ombudsman is investigating claims that seized drugs worth millions of dollars are missing from the police forensic science laboratory.

An internal police audit has found drugs listed as destroyed years ago have been kept, and chemicals that should have been stored are missing.

The failure to maintain stringent chain of evidence standards has the potential to have an impact on several coming trials.

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Potentially volatile chemicals, seized from drug raids over several years, are stored in a separate brick building at the rear of the Macleod laboratory and have not been subjected to the usual exhibit management standards.

Senior police have admitted privately they are unable to say whether the missing drugs have been destroyed, are lost or were stolen. A full audit would require checking thousands of computer page entries against lists of drugs and chemicals meant to have been destroyed.

"The truth is we will never know. Many cases go back years and it is impossible to find out what really happened in each case," one senior policeman said.

The now disbanded Ceja corruption taskforce investigated claims that seized drugs were recycled by the former drug squad and either sold or given to informers as a reward for information. One former Ceja investigator said there were suspicions at the time that some seized drugs were not destroyed as required by law.

Two previous police audits of the forensic unit have left the problem unresolved.

The Ombudsman - rather than the Office of Police Integrity - is overseeing the investigation because it involves unsworn scientific and administrative staff rather than sworn police. Police sources said that despite several warnings in recent years that the audit, storage and maintenance of seized drugs was inadequate, there have been no substantial improvements.

The Ombudsman's investigation began after it received information from within the police force that there was a serious problem with the handling and storage of drugs in the Macleod facility.

Ombudsman investigators have taken the allegations seriously enough to register a person within the police department with vital information as a protected internal source.

Police have twice received information relating to plans by organised crime figures and corrupt police to infiltrate the secure forensic science drugs unit.

In 1991 police discovered that 10 kilograms of an amphetamine chemical had been switched with red tile grout after it had been seized by police. Later police found that drug squad detective Kevin Hicks organised several burglaries on the Attwood police storage area to allow criminals to steal back seized chemicals.

Hicks was later sentenced to a minimum of five years' jail after pleading guilty to theft, bribery and burglary charges.

A spokeswoman for the Ombudsman's Office refused to comment. "We cannot provide any information at all," she said.

Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon's spokesman said: "As this is a whistleblower matter we will not be making any further comment."

Judges and magistrates have repeatedly criticised the delays in obtaining drug analysis reports, but police say this is due to chronic understaffing in the specialist scientific unit.

Police are conducting a separate inquiry into DNA procedures after a murder case collapsed last month.

Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland said the inquiry would review 7000 DNA cases after a sample resulting in a man being charged over the murders of mother and daughter Margaret and Seana Tapp in 1984, was found to be tainted.

The charges against the man were dropped when it was discovered the DNA evidence was worthless.

The unit also came under fire from police, lawyers and the judiciary at the height of the Purana gangland prosecutions because of delays of up to 12 months in obtaining drug test results.

Rudd & Welfare Payments for Drug Users?

Last year, ex PM John Howard said he was going to quarantine welfare payments for people convicted of drug offences. In an interview before Howard's announcement, Rudd had already said he was in favour of restricting payments of drug addicted parents. Is Rudd going to invoke Howard's harsher strategy?

With the introduction of the ‘income management debit card’ in last night’s budget, the basics have been established and the plan is to roll it our nationally starting with Aboriginal communities in NT. Can the government resist extending it too far?

An article from Blogocracy last week talks about the proposed debit card for Aboriginal parents who are negligent towards their children. It quotes an extract from an article in The Australian.

A NATIONAL welfare card that will allow the Government to control payments to negligent parents across the country will be unveiled in Tuesday’s budget.

The debit card - to be introduced in selected indigenous communities before being rolled out across Australia - will ensure half of the cardholders’ welfare payments are spent on approved goods and services, such as food and clothing for their children, rather than wasted on alcohol and drugs. The card will not carry a photograph but will be PIN-coded to prevent it being sold on the black market and abused by welfare-dependent parents.

The Government last night confirmed plans for the card, saying it would slash red tape for business and make it easier for welfare recipients to obtain goods by widening the number of outlets where quarantined welfare payments could be accepted.

It will initially be introduced into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia, where the Government has begun quarantining welfare payments to improve standards of care for children. But the Government plans to roll the program out across the country and into white communities.

-The Australian

The article is prior to the budget so there is still some uncertainty. Nevertheless, comments started to speculate whether the welfare card should be distributed into the white community. Instinctively many started on why drug users should have their payments restricted or even stopped. There was plenty of opinions both ways but a comment from one reader put the problem in perspective:

This is a band-aid solution - it does nothing to address the real issues. I don’t think it will result in any real change at all. People aren’t going to stop problem drinking or drug use because of a card. When you make it harder, you just make people more deceptive.

-jm of adelaide

JM of Adelaide had hit the real issue. The crackdown on negligent parents was not the only problem, the use of penalties on drug addicts was. A debit card as a welfare penalty is one more issue that people with health issues like addiction have to deal with. There is an underlying health problem being ignored and applying a restriction will just create more desperate and maybe more deceptive practices to obtain money for drugs. Blogocracy content and it's readers are leagues above the usual Daily Telegraph/Herald-Sun/Courier etc. crap but many of the comments made were still ignorant of the health issue and were happy to dish out harsh penalties to those who really need help.

... if they test positive to drugs they automatically go on to the welfare debit card, if they are not already on it, and are subject to testing for the next 3 months. If they are already on the debit card they lose 10% of their cash payment, and 10% each time they test positive, after a month of no positive test they go back to normal. If they wipe out their complete cash payment Centrelink starts paying their rent and the have the debit card for food. At the end of the day though there is only so much you can do to help people.

When you drive down the street on a dole Thursday and see people passed out in the median strip there is something wrong. As the tax payers who support the system that gives them the money to do this we are responsible. The current system is not making the problem any better so we have to try something different, and anything we can do to stop them drinking themselves to death has to be an improvement.

-Link

I was interested to know how Link deducted that the “people passed out in the median strip” receive payment on “dole Thursday”. The fact is there is no set day for unemployment payments. Similar to how my brother once said that the streets were out of control on ‘methadone day’ assuming that methadone patients got dosed on the same, one day of the week. Interestingly, he said it was Thursday as well. Also, Link’s plan to penalise drug use is as ignorant as it gets. It’s a familiar argument though, where if tested positive, instead of getting help, you get punished. What if the person was given drugs for free? There’s no misspending of their welfare payment but would be penalised anyway. Moral welfare?

Why should government welfare go to supporting a drug habit(thats all drugs not just the illegal ones).Which currently they do.Should government be in the business of encouraging its citizens drug dependence.Then having to pay for the medical conditions that result from that dependence.

-sandgroper

When it becomes mainstream for welfare, who determines who receives the card and what they can buy? If someone has a drug problem are they allowed to buy smokes or porn? What about a heroin addict on treatment, would they qualify? And if they lapse for for a few weeks, what then? Most people on treatment lapse sometimes and if they don’t have cash ... that leaves begging, borrowing or crime.

I still like the idea of drug & alcohol testing people when they get the dole. -Link

So you go out for a family diner paid by your brother, have a few glasses of red wine and tested the next day. Where does this leave you? What about pornography testing? Gambling testing? The ‘income management debit card’ cannot be used to purchase alcohol, tobacco, pornography, gambling or to withdraw cash.

There was even that favourite of the modern right, “if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide”.

If you want the money it is because you want to spend it on things the government did not provide it for.

-sandgroper

The need to punish drug users was often outweighing the actual discussion of restricting welfare payments of those who neglect their children. It was becoming a forum for why drug users/addicts should get payment at all.

If any parents, aboriginal or otherwise, want to kill themselves with drugs and alcohol they can do it for all I care. I just don’t see why tax-payers should subsidise it, and if this card goes towards preventing that then I’m all for it.

-Banjo of Brisbane

And even this.

Yet a terrible thought crossed my mind going through this topic. Some of the worst addicted at worst might kill their children in the belief they will get more for their addictions, or at the least will blame the kids for their reduced ability to obtain drugs and alcohol and foist even more and terrible abuse on them.

-Adrian of Nowra

If the purpose of the ‘income management debit card’ is to stop purchases of alcohol, tobacco, pornography, gambling or to withdraw cash, what's to stop the government expanding the program to include workers? The current plan is targeted at a specific group but the government hasn't announced it's drug policy yet.

A lot of posters seem to assume that only welfare recipients neglect or abuse their children. What about parents who have jobs and waste their money on drugs, alcohol and gambling and neglect or abuse their children? Will the government confiscate their wages and issue them with a card?

-janetheunhowardhugger

Would you support the quarantining of payments for all Australian parents who use drugs and neglect their children? The moralists will argue feverishly for this and in today's political climate, it may be a vote winner. Somehow though, I feel the emphasis will be on the drug usage separately from the neglect of children. The one bright spot is that both Nicola Roxon and Kevin Rudd have mentioned that future drug policies need to be more individualised. An extremely important point that Howard's Zero Tolerance badly missed with it's blanket approach. Remember Howard was determined to change drug terminology and lump all drug use into one evil bucket of death.

And I’m seeking to conclude our point about child welfare to say that that policy was put out by us in July this year prior to Mr Howard making any such statement. Secondly, on the question of broader quarantining of welfare payments, we believe that the smart thing to do there is to take the advice of a combination of the police and the relevant health authorities as to what is best in individual circumstances. And I’ve tried to look at the detail of what Mr Howard has said. It’s full of holes, and I’d much rather see what concrete proposals he’s really additionally suggesting here. Our approach to this is to make sure that we’ve got a tailored approach to individual circumstances which is based on the best law enforcement advice, and the best advice of the health professionals.

-Kevin Rudd. Radio Interview ABC 774 Melbourne. November 2007

Once again we are seeing a health issue being treated with disciplinary action. I have no qualms about parents who neglect their children being scrutinised and dealt with but these new measures and the possible outcomes are also targeting drug addicts are a priority. They are not targeting drug addicts to help them as there are many other ways to help that are being ignored. Punitive actions are counter productive and do not address the core problems. I once described these actions as fighting a fire. You need to attack the base not the tips of the flame. It might dull the fire and keep it out of sight from a distance but the core fuel is burning hot as ever. Simply put, welfare quarantining for drug addicts solely because of their drug use does not fix the problem, it makes it worst. Medicine diagnosed addiction hundreds of years ago. Society just chose to treat it as a crime.

What If We Gave Her Heroin?

The recent ABC documentary,The Oasiswas a real eye openerto theproblems that youth facewhen raised in a dysfunctional family. A recurring issue was drug use and how every cent they had was spent on drugs. One girl in particular tried to go to rehab several times and was unable to kick her heroin habit. After two years she was spending $600 a day to feed this habit as we watched her deteriorate before our eyes. All this effort and pain just to take a type of medication. Yes heroin (diamorphine) is still used around the world for the treatment of pain and ... addiction. Why not here? Australia is after all, supposed to be a modern, prosperous country.What if she was given free clean heroin in a hospital or clinic? They do this in many other countries. She was doing it anyway and there were no signs of stopping. If she received government assisted heroin, she would have money and not have to live in hyde park under a bush. If she didn't have to spend every minute of every day trying to find money, she might be able to find a job instead. If there was a program for hardened addicts to receive the drug that ran their lives, she would not have to commit daily crimes to pay for her heroin. Many in her situation turn to dealing to support their own habit. Those desperate enough will cut it and if that added ingredient is dangerous enough, well we might be talking about her in the past tense. The other problem is that if she is accustom to low grade heroin and she stumbles onto a stronger batch, there is no label to advise her of the strength or ingredients. She will overdose and die. Drug dealers don't answer to a licensing board and there is no complaints department either.

Aside from the moral issues, heroin is almost non toxic. It does no harm to you physically except constipation and a subdued respiratory system. The main damage is caused by an unhealthy diet, blood borne diseases and dirty needles causing collapsed veins etc. All this would stop if heroin was a treatment for addiction like in those countries who continue to beat the trend and have a negative growth rate of new heroin users.

In reality, the girl in question is probably dead now and is just one of the thousands that were cheated by a minority group of elitists. These elitists go out of their way to stop the progress needed to introduce real strategies that work. If they left these issues to the experts in this area, the girl we talk of might now be reading this on her way to work.

Rudd Falls Into Line / Luck Of The Draw

KEVIN RUDD had a chance to continue the success of his current world trip and impress NATO with some fresh ideas on Afghanistan. He could have at least given his support to some alternative plans being suggested by several NATO members. He could have ... but he didn't.

Is Kevin Rudd just another US stooge like John Howard and taking the same familiar path?  

When Kevin Rudd took office last November, there was some optimisism from drug policy reformists. After 11 years of ignorance and Howards curtailing to the US conservative forces, there was some hope that Australia would join other countries in redefining a more pragmatic drug policy. The statement from Rudd that futures policies would be “evidence based” gave hope that finally facts would win over political, moral and religious rhetoric.

Except for some off handed comments that Labor were “tough on drugs”, there has been very little indication about which path Rudd will take. That was until his recent overseas trip. Rudd has just spent time in the US to discuss our diplomatic ties and it looks like the spin doctors had a field day with him.

At the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in Bucharest, Rudd has made his priority the eradication of Afghanistan's opium fields including detailed plans on how to do it. The influence from the US was obvious and the European leaders in NATO were not impressed with the tired old agenda being thrown at them. The European leaders were expecting more from our new PM considering they had made their feelings clear about Howard’s constant mirroring of US policy. The call for more troops was also seen as another US ploy and again reminiscent of the Howard years. Australia has only 1000 troops in Afghanistan and is often criticised by the Europeans for pushing the US agenda without fully committing more troops themselves.

Crop eradication has never met expectations with Colombia being the obvious benchmark. Crop spraying has had very little success and Colombian cocaine has actually increased in production. The only visible results is a country now being run with a paramilitary style police force murdering locals on the street and thousands of innocent farmers losing their legitimate crops to US led cocaine eradication programs.

In Afghanistan, the US has already poured in $1.2 billion into a program of slashing the poppy harvest worth only $1 billion. Opium production went up 30%. The main outcome was increasing hatred of the west from farmers who had their livelihood taken away. The US is now trying to force the Afghanistan government into arial spraying and Rudd is seen as a keen US supporter much like Howard was. The US has appointed former Colombian ambassador, William Wood as it’s ambassador in Kabul. Wood is commonly known as "Chemical Bill" in Washington for his introduction of the Colombian chemical eradication program. You know, the program that didn’t work.

The US could have bought the opium from the farmers and burnt it but it would be “sending the wrong message”. Such is the stupidity of the “War on Drugs”. The other plan to turn Afghanistan’s farmers onto alternative crops has been tried and failed several times. This was Rudd’s sugestion to deal with the locals and the loss of their primary income. It was dismissed quickly by nonchalant NATO officials.

If this is an example of the alternative to Howard’s drug strategy then we are in for a long three years. Australia has spent decades building up Harm Minimisation and was considered a leader worldwide until Howard rode the wave of US conservatism and tried to replace it with a US style zero tolerance policy. Rudd has the chance to now catch up and once again show that facts, research and humane government policies will put us on the map far more than kissing US butt ever will.

The Luck Of The Draw

Mr. David Paterson, newly elevated Governor of NY, recently acknowledged that he used cocaine and marijuana in his younger years. Had he been unlucky enough back then to get busted for possession of a single joint, or a trace amount of coke, he'd probably be in jail now, or trying to overcome a "criminal record" and find a job, or perhaps dead. Instead, because he had the good fortune not to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he is responsible for governing NY State - and however one judges his likelihood of governing well, no one has suggested for a moment that he's unqualified in the light of his acknowledgment. 

Justice should not hinge on luck. Hopefully, the new governor will reconsider our drug policies in light of his own experience. He has long advocated changing the Draconian Rockefeller Law; now he should push for an even more radical change in how we approach drug use in our state and nation. If any political leader can empathize with the real victims of the drug war, he can!

-RG Newman MD, Opiate Addiction. 

Diary: Methadone vs Morphine Result

DIARY:

I did it. I am now on slow release oral morphine!

Technically I am not taking morphine to manage my addiction but for a pain issue. I now take enough morphine everyday that would kill over 5 people. Impressed? To prescribe this amount daily and to a known drug addict requires a permit from the Health Department. Under no circumstance is morphine allowed to be prescribed to manage an addiction so the emphasis is on the pain.

Even though I have fought for this for a long time, I am not sure if it is going to work for me. My diagnosis is Co-Occurring Disorders (COD). Drug addiction and depression which was being treated by methadone alone. This was hell for me because of the depression only dissipating in the mornings and resuming in full force for the rest of the day. The problem I am having is I feel depressed all day now. There is no doubt morphine manages addiction extremely well but methadone gave me a morning of well being or what you lay folk would call normality. I don't get this now and I am in panic mode again. The weekend was shocking for my depression and I used heroin to shake it off. I am ringing my doctor first thing after this post.

The results though could be good for others as there are some great benefits treating heroin addiction with morphine. Obviously treatment with heroin is ideal for those long term users but morphine offers some advantages over methadone. I no longer have to go to a chemist 3 times a week and pay $35 for my methadone. I now pick up my morphine once a week and but only pay $33.50 once a month with my script. I do have to see my doctor though every month instead of every 2-3 months. Morphine holds you from withdrawal much better than methadone and doesn't have as many side effects.

The down side though is diversion. It would be easy to divert for profit but as I always argue, if you sell your medication, you have to buy something else to replace it. You simply cannot go without it for even one day. Why would you sell it just to buy it back back on the street? Some might use the proceeds to buy heroin but if they were just given heroin to start with, most of these issues would disappear.

Diary: FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!!!

DIARY: 

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!!! 

I have been pissed off all day, nagging fuckers of clients, other fuckers not paying me and useless fucking MS Word. I finally do the stupidest thing I could do and borrow $150 and score. Oh yeah, some relief from this fucked up day. 

But I wasn't going to have any sort of day no matter what! I can't shoot straight and I'm hacking up my arm ... I can't see if I'm getting a vein or not because the syringe is starting to fill with blood. In panic, I rip the needle out and blood oozes out all over my arm, dripping on the floor. I rip my tourniquet off and quickly tie my other arm and start pumping my fist. I try again but I can't see if I am hitting a vein or not. 

Sweat is now in my eyes and I am even more desperate to get this shit into me. 'Get the FUCK in', I yell. I know it's not going in right and I can see a small bulge popping up. 

'FUCK FUCK'. 

I plunge it in a dozen different ways. Is this it?. Is this it?. I push harder and half way through, it starts to bulge again. More plunging into this bloody spot and out of patience I just plunge the rest when I think I have even the slightest chance of getting that vein. In the end at least half goes into somewhere in my arm it shouldn't and I think I got some into a vein. Whose fucking knows? I have a huge lump on my arm amongst the blood and sweat, my other arm is bleeding on my shirt ... 

'FUCK!!!' I scream ... Fuck you. 

Why can't I just be happy on methadone? Why can't I just keep dropping my dose to nil? Why the fuck, why? I just realised I am in tears. I'm not sure why, I just am. I should be happy I had something at all but I,m not ... I'm never really happy. Even if I'm high, at the back of my mind is guilt. 

This has to stop ... it has to fucking stop. In 90 seconds I have blown $150 and I am in the most depressed and angry state of mind possible. Good job, Terry. 

Tomorrow is what I am now dreading. The drone in my head. The drone that lets me know that I now need to repay $150 I can't afford... This is what my life is like sometimes. Though it may sound horrible and degrading, it's doesn't bother me until I write about it - probably why I never do it in front of anyone. I really hate it and I see no end in sight. I don't want to be injecting myself with street made heroin to avoid a melt down or worse, to get some normality out of my life.

Diary: Getting Paid, Xmas Shopping & Well Being

Diary: A Small Reprieve...

My client is finally coughing up the lousy $300 and I have had another job extended worth $400. So I get to live on for another week."

I'm wondering if anyone reading this thinks I am a whinger when others have it so much worse than me? It's all relative I suppose. Fact of life: someone is always better than you, better off than you, smarter than you, funnier than you, more likeable than you and someone is always not as good as you, worse off than you, dumber than you, less funnier than you, less likeable than you. If i got a job, i would bring home about $600-$1000 clear each week. This would solve my financial problems and take away so much stress and depression. 

Diary: Cheated...

Well, its Saturday morning and we get up and checked our bank account and guest what. Yep, both the promised payments have not been paid. Today was such an important day to get paid. I had spent our last $50 on methadone and literally only had $2-3 dollars in coins. We had no food for our pets, enough for maybe a week of meals if we used every last can, egg, slice of bread etc., half a packet of smokes, no petrol, no ... everything.

Diary: Saved...

Angela checked the bank on the internet and I asked her who paid. She said to guess. "First client" - "no". "Second client" - "no". mmm aghhh, I got it, "No client" - "no". I don't get it. Funny enough, another client paid. They paid an invoice 2 weeks early and luckily we were saved.

Diary: My Importance...

Am I that unimportant that clients would just not pay me even though they knew how vital it was to me. Without getting into details, I had done so much more than I was being paid for and continued to give 110% and all I wanted was to be paid. One client has had my invoice for 3 months and received another one 10 days ago with a note from a director to settle my account. Next a phone call from me just annoyed the accounts bitch as she told me there were invoices before me that need to be paid. I mentioned sending it 3 months ago but she overrode me with "anyway we pay suppliers on Fridays" and hung up. I felt like an insect. I do really good work and offer service like no other developer but she doesn't see this so I am just another whining pest to her.

Always being short of money means I have to constantly ring clients chasing money. Some accounts people are great but some are just rude, nasty pieces of shit(PoS). A piece of shit is left over waste that really smells ... the useless gunk that is excreted through an arsehole. People avoid shit as much as possible. When you are considered a pest by a piece of shit, it's really degrading. I am not getting used to it but planning revenge is my way of coping with such disdain. I dream up scenarios where I tell the PoS a horrific tale of whoa that the missed payment has casued. This accounts PoS who didn't pay me this weekend will probably get a dish of my revenge ... served cold. I think I am going to tell her my 9 year old daughter can't go to her mother's in Perth because the payment was supposed buy her a plane ticket. I will be in hospital over Xmas and she will now have to spend Xmas at her Grandfather's retirement village. It is going to be the worst Xmas ever for my daughter. All her presents are in Perth and she is going to miss Santa. I can hear the sobs already and I really, really hope it fucks up her day. I am going to explode about how deceitful she has been and how much it has effected a little girl who will miss out on a normal Xmas. That's my plan at the moment but will probably change tomorrow. 

Diary: Xmas Shopping...

Shopping is like military service. Angela is a veteran soldier but I am not. After 3 hours, my feet hurt, i was sick of dodging robot shoppers, I could no longer wait in queues and now I was hanging out. Luckily with this early payment I was able to score when I got home. My awful day finished with shot of heroin that took away the abnormal feelings after shopping all day and replaced it with a sense of well being. I got a bit high this time feeling slightly euphoric for about 10 minutes. After that I gladly made a beautiful roast and settled down to some prime time DVDs. 

Diary: Well Being...

The feeling of well being is a pleasure I crave and it costs me $150 each dose. Luckily for most people it is free and is the normal I so desperately desire. I dream about the day when long term addicts like me can buy clean, cheap medication. I can only imagine starting off each day with my medicine and topping it up once or twice each day. This might seem extreme to some but remember most heroin addicts don't get high anymore just normal. Before heroin I was always on a natural high but that started to slip into drinking binges or sometimes speed weekends. Now I just want a normal life. I want the right to feeling normal and well being. 

Is that too much to ask? Considering other countries already do this for people like me. The only thing making my life not worth living are some people in Canberra who I don't know. I wish I could just sit down with them and explain how miserable thousands of addicts are because of propaganda spewed out by religious nutters. I wish I could convince them to spend just 30 minutes researching it on the internet. Such a simple action would save my life.

Bitter Australians

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Diary: It just never ends...

From Dec 6 2007: "AND a client might be finally paying their invoice ... 4 months late but still it's worth $300."

Well I still haven't been paid and it's causing major drama in my life. How I wish I could just go to work everyday, earn a wage and feel normal when I get up.

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Bitter Australians

The Bali 9 have asked that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, not forget them. Most of them are sentenced to death for drug dealing in Indonesia.

I was reading the comments in The Herald-Sun and I was blown away by the bitterness and cries for blood from readers. So many readers were completely heartless and full of self righteous hate:

"Do the crime, do the time... I doubt many Australians feel much compassion for these fools"

"I'm christian and i have zero issues with them been put to death"

"They deserve the death penatly! Drugs KILL thousands per year"

"..Let them DIE"

And my favourite:

"They committed the worse possible crime, drug traffickers are mass murderers. They carry a tool that kills many. They must die. Death to them. I'm Australian and happy for them to die. I hope they get to see this also and understand very few Australians care for them"

All these mindless, uninformed trash seemed to blame these people for the drug misery in Australia. It is just incredible.

"they were ruining the lives of drug addicts so they deserve it"

"I say THEY DESERVE TO DIE and in the manner of the thousands of drug addits die in"

"...and when you see what drugs are doing to young people on our streets alone they all should be shot and forgotten about"

The other sickening trend was to use Howard's terminology, "sending a message".

"An example must be made, they must die. It's as simple as that. They have done the crime, now be an adult and take the punishment"

"I feel absolutely no sympathy for them, and if anything the fact that they got caught and are on death row / have long jail sentences means that less people will attempt to do what they did"

To sum it all up:

"I'd like to ask everyone where do we draw the line? We have people here who say drug trafficking is not a serious crime or that they made a mistake, but do we actually do anything to deter others with dollar signs in their eyes? We have all witnessed a proliferation of drugs/addicts on the streets, we have seen, heard, been, or know of victims of drug addicts who go to extraordinary lengths to get their next hit; are we just to expect this as the norm? The lack of law enforcement and a soft judiciary is played out before us daily and we have resultantly seen massive increases in crime throughout the country so again I ask, where do we draw the line? Do we just accept ever increasing crime as part of life, or de we do something to stop it? Unfortunately for the Bali 9, they probably will set the benchmark and hopefully will deter others from being tempted to run drugs. I think we as a nation need to harden up and re-introduce a tough stance on crime so that law abiding citizens can lead their lives without fear. Bring in mandatory sentencing"

I added my 20¢ worth (1200 characters or less):

"Before we condemn people to death, ask yourself, do you really know the facts?.

Why are so many countries now tackling the obvious problem ... people are always going to use drugs, whether it's alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or something else. No matter what the penalties are, people will always take something and addicts will feed their habit. No amount of law enforcement will stop them. It's been like that since the dawn of time. Some countries like Canada, Britain, Netherlands, Spain and Germany are now even giving addicts prescription heroin. The realisation is that problems caused by drugs is mostly because of the price and legal drugs like alcohol have far more problems including addiction. But alcohol problems are treated as a health issue and it is cheap so they don't have to resort to drug dealing to buy their drug.

So should drug dealers be executed? Should moonshiners face a machine gun? Should pubs that serve minors be hanged? Arguably they supply a drug that causes more damage than all illicit drugs combined.

Drugs are a problem but being constantly told by politicians and religious groups that it's O.K. to snuff out someone's life is barbaric."

What has happened to Australia? Am I just deluded that Australia hasn't always been like this? I am fairly sure that after decades of demonising drug addiction, it has paid off for the politicians and religious who need enemies to crusade against. I wonder has Howard's nasty Australia policy including "tough on drugs" helped to make us so hateful?

You can read this articles here:

Bali Nine begs PM: please don't forget us

PM to appeal for Bali Nine mercy

Diary: A not so depressing day...

Diary: A not so depressing day...

I picked up a job yesterday. Just a small $500 job but still a job. Also I might have another one from a client recommendation. AND a client might be finally paying their invoice ... 4 months late but still it's worth $300.

It's funny how having work makes my life so much more bearable.

Diary: More Depression

Diary: Another depressing day...

I am getting deeper into depression. By midday I am coming down from my methadone and normality starts turning into hurt. I have started going to bed for about 30 minutes each day instead of having lunch. I then spend my afternoon panicking about money and bills. I try to work but I haven't had any new business for a while now so I work on the freebies or the on going jobs I have already been paid for. I have nothing coming up until Feb next year so I am wondering how I am going to pay the mortgage and other bills. I also owe a bit and have some payments I have postponed for way too long. They will come knocking before Xmas. Funny how I keep hearing Howard's echos, "Australians have never been better off...".

I helped a friend get some grass the other day. She gave me the money and I gave it to the grass girl who then had a complication with her pregnancy and went to hospital. My friend wants her money and I have to pay it out of my pocket. It's only $120 but I don't have that at the moment. Usually something would come in but I don't even have enough for us. She rings me needing her money and I can hear the disappointment in her voice when I tell her she has to wait a few more days. This hurts. I owe my neighbour $100 as well and he really needs it too. I am having to pretend I'm not here until I get some cash. This not what I expected from my life in my forties.

Ripped Off

It wasn't my drug dealer. It wasn't a street dealer. It was someone much more sinister ... a legitimate, registered business. 

When you're an addict, money is your world. It's not because you're greedy or because you have to buy those wonderful electronic gadgets you want so much. No, none of those ... money can buy drugs. Simple. 

It's extremely difficult to manage money so I work out ways to divert it before I spend it on heroin. I now have all payments from my clients go into a bank account that I cannot access. Mrs Wright has the only ATM card and I don't know the PIN. I have also been removed as a signatory and Mrs Wright pays all the bills. This means only she can access my earnings from the bank account. 

Of course, being a long time user, I try to get around my own safety net by asking clients for cash when possible or making up excuses for Mrs Wright to give me cash e.g. urgent purchase for a client's project. 

Anyway back to getting ripped off. This scum bag business decided I wasn't worth paying after working on a potential project together about 18 months. Skipping the details, it was a huge blow to me personally and even more to my budget. It would have been worth about $20K to me and all up over the last 6 weeks, I have lost about $45K worth of work. I then did what anyone would do in my situation ... blow $150 on heroin.