As the ACT prepares to decriminalise most drugs, experiences from Portugal and Oregon offer contrasting lessons

At his lowest point, Richard Duckett was spending $300 a day on his addiction.

“People don’t go and use drugs because they’re thinking ‘screw society, I don’t care, I’m going to do what I want’,” he said.

For Mr Duckett, that pain stemmed from a traumatic childhood event, which put him on the path to addiction.

“I’ve smoked pot pretty much ever since I was 14 until a year or so ago. So pot’s part of my staple diet. But heroin would be my drug of choice,” he says.

“I’ve been using [heroin] on and off since I was 18, and I’m 55 now.”

Over the intervening three decades, Mr Duckett says drugs took almost everything he held dear, including his job as a community worker.

“Once I get right into the depths of it, I’m very difficult to manage. And it’s difficult for me to hold a job down,” he says.

“I was going through a gram a day of heroin. And that’s a lot of money that you have to earn, so I did do things that were unlawful to cover that gap.”

He turned to “white-collar crime” to fund his addiction, but said he never resorted to violence, though he “did fantasise about it” when he was desperate for a hit.

“When I was doing the crime to pay for the habit I had, that lasted 18 months,” he said.

“I was always looking over my shoulder, waiting to be caught.

“Nothing lasts forever and, as clever as I think I am, things come undone.”

Mr Duckett says he is now on the road to recovery, and has found comfort and companionship in an unusual form: his three pet rats.

“They’re my little mates,” he says.

“They really are good for my mental health. Make a huge difference. Someone who’s pleased to see you when you get home.

“They only last about two-and-a-half to three years, which is a bugger because the emotional investment is not unlike a dog or a cat.”

‘Send us to treatment, not to jail’

Mr Duckett supports a controversial ACT government plan to decriminalise some of Australia’s most problematic drugs, including heroin, cocaine and methylamphetamine — or “ice”.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect police to get on top of it — people are going to do what people are going to do,” he says.

He says addicts “have enough else to worry about” on top of fearing criminal charges for their habit.

“To get a criminal conviction has lifelong consequences, and that seems over the top in comparison to what the crime actually is,” he says.

“Get it out of the criminal justice system and into the health system.

“Self-medication is a big term in my life history — it’s what I was doing. But it was criminal and that doesn’t seem right.”

What is drug decriminalisation?

Under the ACT Labor government’s amended proposal, hard drugs will remain illegal but be decriminalised — so small amounts will attract an infringement rather than a criminal penalty.

It’s like a speeding fine: speeding is an illegal activity, but you will generally only get a fine — not a criminal charge — if you are caught.

The proposed list of drugs runs from magic mushrooms and LSD, right up to those drugs associated with the worst social harms: heroin, cocaine and ice.

The allowable amount of each drug varies according to its strength and street value — for example, five doses of LSD, 1 gram of heroin and 1.5 grams of ice.

It would still be a criminal offence to sell drugs, possess more than the law allows for “personal use”, or drive with drugs in your system.

And users could still face criminal charges from any other illegal behaviour, such as theft or violence, that is related to their drug use.

The ACT has already legalised the possession of small amounts of cannabis.

The detail of this latest proposal is being debated in the ACT’s Legislative Assembly.

However, as Labor and the Greens — which share government — support it, the bill is likely to pass in some form.

Overseas examples show what can go right, and very wrong

Drug reformers pointed to overseas examples like Portugal, which decriminalised illicit drugs in 2000.

Stephanie Stephens, the acting chief executive of Canberra’s largest provider of addiction support, Directions Health Services, says the Portuguese results were dramatic.

“When Portugal decriminalised personal use of drugs, they didn’t see an increase in drug use, they didn’t see an increase in other related crime,” she says.

More recently in the United States, the state of Oregon introduced similar measures, pledging to divert criminal justice funding into enhanced addiction treatment facilities.

But nearly two years on, Portland Police Association president Aaron Schmautz says his city’s drug problems have worsened, because the promised treatment options have not materialised quickly enough.

“We’ve certainly seen a huge explosion in overdose deaths and overdose events,” he says.

“Open-air drug use, disorder, and certainly concerns that the problem of addiction is being exacerbated by the lack of available treatment and the lack of enforcement available.

“The most important thing is anything like this requires treatment to be fully in place, requires those off-ramps to be up and running before the curtain is lifted.

“Because if we don’t, we’ve seen in Oregon what happens: there’s no treatment and there’s also more drugs. And those are two bad things.”

Sergeant Schmautz says liberal drug laws had made Portland a honeypot for drug dealers.

Drug reforms split the church

The push to decriminalise drugs has attracted support from other, unexpected corners, including progressive Christians.

The Uniting Church in Australia has called for all Australian governments to decriminalise drug use, to reduce the stigma of drug use and give better access to health support services.