Drug Dealers Have to Live Somewhere

What should the Office of Housing do when someone is convicted of low level drug dealing? This seems to be the hot issue at the moment. You may have heard recently that due to a technicality, VCAT have overturned an eviction notice for “TK” who was charged with selling heroin on public housing property. Apparently, there is a loophole that clears “TK” because the incident did not occur in his flat but on common ground.

This has sparked an outrage from hundreds of readers and listeners of various media outlets. Leading the pack of course is News Ltd’s HeraldSun who have published at least four articles about the issue in 24 hours. Check out these headlines: Heroin Den Makes Joke Of Legislation and Hot Topic: Heroin Den Shame

A ludicrous technicality has allowed a convicted heroin dealer to stay in his apartment in a public housing estate.

[…]

A needy family will have to wait for the next vacancy while the legislation is made to look a laughing stock.

--Herald Sun Editorial: Heroin Den Makes Joke Of Legislation

Hot on the heels of the HeraldSun was 3AW and their crack announcer, Nick MaCallum. On his show, Nick interviewed Housing Minister, Wendy Lovell who was just as outraged as the announcer. The happy couple chatted intently about disgraceful drug dealers, the appalling decision by VCAT and who deserves public housing.

It’s not acceptable that people who are in public housing abuse the system. We want to see good families housed in our properties.

[…]

Clearly, Victorian taxpayers have a right to expect that there’s a mutual obligation if the taxpayer subsidises housing for people then there’s a mutual obligation for those people to treat that housing with respect and to act in a way that we find acceptable in our society.

-- Wendy Lovell: Victorian Housing Minister (3AW)

Eventually, an underlying theme appeared when a perspicacious Nick probed the Housing Minister about her views on heroin dealers. Wendy Lovell admitted it was not part of her portfolio but coughed up an opinion anyway.

Nick MaCallum: On the broader issues here. I know they don’t fall into your portfolio but I just want to get your gut reaction to this. First of all, admitted 3 times to trafficking in heroin. Are you frustrated that he didn’t go to jail in the first place. 

Wendy Lovell:  Well that’s not for me to comment on. That’s outside my portfolio area but what I can say Nick is that I have  Zero Tolerance with drug dealing and I will be looking to make sure that we toughen up every law possible to ensure that this activity is not taking place on Office of Housing properties.

--3AW

But this whole affair is not really about VCAT or some legal loophole. It’s about the public’s attitude towards drug users. Especially those who sell drugs. 

The fact is, most small time heroin dealers are addicts who desperately need money to fund their addiction. But this act of selling drugs is abhorrent to most people who’s views have been clouded by years of anti-drug rhetoric. Mostly, these small time dealers or user/dealers keep to themselves and operate within a tiny circle of other users or addicts. We tend to overlook the fact that selling drugs keeps them from committing crimes which would involve hurting others. 

Why do so many people want to dig out these user/dealers and create an even worse scenario? What is the logic behind this insatiable need to stop an activity that doesn’t affect them? It doesn’t make sense to end their income stream when the alternative involves committing crimes against innocent victims. The question we need to ask is why small time drug dealing warrants more disdain than robberies, theft and hold ups?

If they commit a crime anywhere, whether it be on the property or not, surely they should lose their right to public housing.

[…]

Why wasn’t he sent to jail for 3 times trafficking.

--Nick MaCallum: 3AW Announcer

The response from the Housing Minister, Wendy Lovell and the media missed a vital point in regards to the issue of public housing for drug addicts/users/dealers … these people have to live somewhere. Simply moving the problem around has become the standard course of action regarding drug issues. The infamous balloon effect should be an easy concept but the number of government officials and policy makers who fail to grasp this notion is just incredible. If “TK” was kicked out, I wonder what the harsh critics would say if he moved in next door to them?

It is unacceptable for everyone - the taxpayers who are subsidising public housing and those waiting for public housing - to see people in public housing abusing the system. It is not acceptable for people being forced to live next door to drug dealers.

-- Wendy Lovell: Victorian Housing Minister

Using the excuse that over 41,000 families are waiting for public housing is just a excuse to direct anger at a public enemy - druggies. These people are not rich but border on the edge of poverty. Many of them suffer depression or some mental health disorder and live a daily nightmare we can’t even imagine. They need accommodation just as much as anyone else. If public housing was only for “good families”, as Wendy Lovell said, the high rises would be nearly empty.

As usual, the News Ltd readers flocked to the comments section, attracted by the opportunity to slam those filthy junkies. And, as usual, we saw how screwed up some people really are.

123!:

Good lord. Can someone just take out the tool and give the flat to a much needy family? Better still, HOW ABOUT YOU OD AND GO AWAY you filth.

Jackie of Victoria:

What an a$$hole he deserves to be living on the streets - the courts need to be examined for their senseless judgements.

Glenn of Melbourne:

I'm sick to death hearing that Drug Dependance is a disease. Clearly, it starts as a Lifestyle choice before it becomes an addiction. The easiest way to handle this, is to build more jails, make them less friendly to be in (no internet, tv etc..), make the sentences longer with no time off for good behaviour and lock them away. Eventually they may see the light.

teepee:

Wot a joke! socialist do-gooders helping drug dealers. Oh and ahhhh, even if he is jailed, DHS keep the flat for him for when he gets out as I understand it.

Comment 9 of 199

Very angry of St Albans:

…Does this make anyone else want to vomit with rage or is it just me

Tom Payne:

…Lock the freak up

BILL:

This country is gonna be the third world pits in less than 20 years, and it's because we try to be the do-gooder, fair legal system, help everyone, CRAP! Build more jails, Get rid of nice-as-pie judges, Lock up criminals, Close down Centrelink forever, and this country will be beautiful again!

Ike of Melbourne:

Breaching this unnamed drug dealer's Rights? ?!! What about the safety concerns for families and children living nearby in other Units...while some of these drug dealing transactions were going on? Drug transactions do not always go according to plan, or on the most social and friendliest of terms , do they? It is a fair thing to consider that neighbors were placed in some danger, by the types that would be attracted into the same vicinity, to negotiate and buy. Perhaps, ask some of those V.C.A.T members whether they would be also willing to tolerate drug dealers next door, to their homes. The legal hick-up though, not to oust the dealer under Victorian Government 'Human Rights' Laws...goes straight back to legislation by the previous Labor Party Victorian Government. Don't you JUST love the Labor Party ....for all their stupid ideas, which finished up protecting Melbourne's criminals ?

Pedro in the Marsh:

Hooray for VCAT, I will chuck in my job and become a drug dealing housing commission resident, get a job driving a taxi where I can happily watch porno movies and breach traffic laws safe in the knowledge I will be protected by VCAT.... Get real. Who are you people. Offenders such as these should be punished, the community demands that this be so.

Jo of vic:

show us the name, face, ethnicity of this loser.. why are we protecting the thugs? Is he one of the 'refugees'? How did he get here?

typical herald sun reader of the western suburbs:

THIS IS ALL BRUMBYS BL**DY FAULT FOR GOIN SOFT ON BL**DY DRUGGIE SCUMBAGS!!!THEYRE EVERYWHERE IN MY ESTATE!!! **shakes fist at high rise commission flats**

chris of kurunjang:

Why is this piece of scum not in jail? and when will any Govt put into place proper laws that will fix this and other similar situations so that we can reclaim this state from the filth dealing drugs. dealers caught and convicted should automatically go to jail for a minimum of 20years.

Nik of Travencore:

Fantastic!!!! Now that this person is still able to maintain his residency, I will have to keep an additional eye on all my property. Police have convicted him as a drug dealer ...... so im sure his current job role will soon change from "dealer" to "stealer". How else will he maintain his current drug habit.

Comment 179 of 199

And out of nearly 200 comments, these were the only sensible statements.

Andy of Sunshine:

This poor fellow has a drug problem. He is attending to the financial requirements of that by selling drugs to willing buyers. Would you rather he broke into your house and stole your laptop? This is not a drug kingpin we are talking about here. Better access to a wider range of treatment options (including prescription heroin) would go a long way to fixing issues like this. And of course, we could do a lot better with our welfare system - currently we seem hell-bent on creating and maintaining a permanent underclass who are virtually shut out of "respectable" society.

Pat of Melbourne:

He is selling heroin to support his own addiction. He had $400 in crime proceeds, this is a non-story. What will throwing him on the streets acheive? The poor guy probably has a horrible addiction and illness. I think the bigger isssue is the fact that the cops can never find any of the main players, yet they think they have hit the jackpot when they arrest a pointless guy like this.

Prescription Heroin Clinics - There Goes The Neighbourhood?

There are some major opponents of Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) including a few well known opinion writers. Fortunately for the public, the critics can never produce actual evidence that supports their claims of a negative impact on the surrounding area. Some of the claims include an increase in disregarded needles, drug dealers and devious behaviour and even falling local real estate values.

A group of anti-MSIC nuts were so convinced that they took a bin of disposed needles from a veterinary surgery and dumped the contents outside the MSIC. They then informed the media that it was the result of junkies that lurk around the MSIC. Luckily someone pointed out the difference between brands sold for animals and brands sold for humans.

The insatiable quest by some to keep drug treatment centres out of their suburbs is astonishing. It’s known as NIMBY(Not In My Back Yard). One can only imagine the outcry if these drug treatment centres also supplied prescription heroin as well.

Likewise in the US. Often when the establishment of a methadone clinic is proposed, there follows a mass of protests, outrage and claims that some precious suburb will be overrun with dangerous junkies. Imagine the uproar that if instead of a methadone clinic, an outlet for providing injectable heroin was proposed? The paradox of not allowing a methadone clinic is that those dangerous junkies that the community fear so much, are left without treatment which is why drug related crime occurs. A clinic would reduce this crime but for many, the fear of seeing addicts seeking treatment is more terrifying than the unseen junkie burglarising their house.

This type of thinking would make it impossible for a heroin assisted treatment (HAT) clinic to appear anywhere in America except maybe near Area 51 in the Nevada desert. As usual though, a little research dispels all those nasty preconceived ideas that helps fuel the "War on Drugs" as a war on people.

Medical Prescription Of Heroin Does Not Pose Neighbourhood Risk
Science Centric
February 2009

Providing heroin to drug addicts at medically supervised clinics does not pose risks to surrounding neighbourhoods, according to a new study by Serge Brochu, a researcher at the Universite de Montreal School of Criminology. Brochu found that the Montreal leg of the NAOMI project, otherwise know as the North American Opiate Medication Initiative, didn't have a negative impact on its surrounding neighbourhood.

Launched in 2005, the NAOMI project did not foster increased criminal acts, dangerous debris, deviant behaviour or emergency interventions in its downtown community. A comparable study of the Naomi project's sister clinic in Vancouver, led by Neil Boyd of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, also found the impact of that heroin clinic to be negligible. The NAOMI-CI (Community Impact) studies were launched simultaneously in Montreal and Vancouver to measure the community impact of the experimental NAOMI project.

As part of his study, Brochu and his team interviewed close to 40 residents, business owners, police officers, security guards, social workers, kindergarten employees and homeless people between May 2005 and June 2008. Police data (criminal and uncivil acts) was obtained from the Service de police de la Ville de Montreal for the period from 2002 to 2008. What's more, Brochu and his team undertook 150 observational walks in the streets, alleyways, parks and parking lots within a 200-metre radius of the NAOMI clinic in to assess the levels of debris, deviant behaviour and observable emergency interventions in the heart of the experimental sector.
Data collected during the neighbourhood walks revealed that the quantity of drug injecting debris (syringes, needle covers, stericups, spoons, etc.) decreased significantly. What's more, the NAOMI clinic had no impact on the quantity of various street debris (drug containers, condoms, alcohol bottles, etc.), on deviant behaviour (loitering, solicitation, public consumption of alcohol or drugs, squeegees, or rummaging through garbage) or on observable police and ambulance interventions in the heart of the experimental sector.

The NAOMI project was established after research showed that the injection of pharmaceutical heroin is more efficient than simple methadone treatments to help some drug addicts that do not respond to traditional treatment. In Montreal, the study was led by Dr Suzanne Brissette, head of the drug addiction rehabilitation program of the Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal and a professor at the Universite de Montreal's Faculty of Medicine.

Results from the last 12 months have been very positive. NAOMI patients undergoing treatment throughout the program increased 88 percent and participants reduced their consumption of illicit drugs by 70 percent, reduced their criminal activity by 36 percent and improved their health by 20 percent.

'Steps have been taken with the Quebec Ministry of Health so this type of program can be offered to heroin addicts that don't respond to traditional treatments,' says Dr Bissette. 'These new results obtained by Professor Brochu are keeping us hopeful.'

'Studies conducted on the NAOMI project as well as my own study on the criminal impact of the project highlight its validity: the health of drug addicts is improved with no negative impact on the urban area. That said, why not continue helping these marginalised people combat their dependency problem, or at the very least, help them improve their physical health?' says Professor Brochu.

Drugs & Crime ... Next Suburb Please

Some articles you read deserve serious head shaking and this is one of them. Here we have the Sunshine Residents Association worried that crime has risen locally because of a zero tolerance policy on crime and drugs in the adjoining suburb of Footscray. And their solution? - do the same in Sunshine and send the drugs and crime to the next suburb. Someone should tell Darlene Reilly from the Sunshine Residents Association that if you squeeze a balloon in one spot it bulges in another. Oh, she already knows that. Pffft, who cares then, squeeze away.

Sunshine Residents Urge Zero Tolerance Approach To Crime ABC News March 2009 Residents held a rally at Sunshine Station last night, to voice their concerns about violence in the Melbourne suburb. Members of the Sunshine Residents Association say violent crime is up in their area, and something needs to be done about it. The association's Darlene Reilly says there has been an increase in the number of attacks and the intensity of the violence over the past year. She says things have deteriorated since Footscray brought in zero tolerance for crime, drugs and inappropriate behaviour. "We've seen what's happened is that's been great for their community, but it's just moved everything up the line," she said. "It's just come up the railway line and now we have it here and I think that we need to have a zero tolerance, but we need the police force, we need the numbers, we need the boys in blue on the street." Inspector Bill Mathers says police are doing what they can to help "We do have some problems with the community and crime and we're trying to address those," he said. "We've had a slight increase in robberies and armed robberies, we've had a slight decrease in assaults, so some of the things we're doing's working, but we realise there's a long way to go."