Australia: Back Off Drug Addicts, Law Society President Urges



Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) 



Pubdate: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 



Author: Amanda Phelan 	



ubject: BACK OFF DRUG ADDICTS, LAW SOCIETY PRESIDENT URGES 	



The use of marijuana should not be a criminal offence and a trial of legal heroin use should go 

ahead, the State's leading law body has urged. 	



The new president of the NSW Law Society, Ms Margaret Hole, said addiction was a social, not 

criminal, problem and that the legal profession must be brave and support major reforms.	



Addressing a dinner hosted by the society at Parliament House to launch the start of the legal year, 

Ms Hole urged her colleagues to devise compassionate and effective ways of dealing with drug 

addiction. 	



"For the law society, the first constructive step is to decriminalise the personal use of marijuana," 

she said. "The second positive step this year is to support a trial, as proposed in the ACT - and 

unfortunately knocked back at the last moment - of legal heroin use." 	



Ms Hole's comments follow the weekend controversy which saw a needle exchange program 

abandoned after a young boy was shown injecting heroin. 	



She said addiction was a medical disease, and that addicts needed treatment, not punishment. 

Another area of concern to be addressed by legal circles was youth and crime.	



"It is the duty of lawyers to speak up for the next generation," said Ms Hole. Many children were 

neglected and suffered violence. 	



"This shameful situation belies impressions that children are chiefly perpetrators of crime, who 

have little or no regard for law and order, and who disregard the rights of anyone else." 	



Ms Hole announced that the society would launch a children's legal services committee to guide 

the profession on youth issues, as well as advising on legislative changes.	



The NSW Chief Justice, Jim Spigelman, delivered the keynote speech, urged lawyers to resist 

being motivated by self-interest. 	



"We must as a profession resist what appears to be the dominant perspective in our society that 

people who put duty and service to the public ahead of self-interest are eccentric," he said. "The 

law is not simply a job or a business focused solely on maximising the income of its members. 	



"The profession of the law has a strong ethical dimension, and seeks to attain the objectives of 

justice, truth and fairness, not simply the promotion of the self-interest of members of the 

profession or their clients."