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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-30 Daily Xml
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DRUGBEAT

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. A. Bressington:

That this council recognises the valuable work and outcomes achieved by the DrugBeat Program of South Australia in Elizabeth Grove over the last 14 years and that this program:

1. was the first to develop a painless and humane detoxification process for opiate addiction and methadone;

2. was the first to use naltrexone in a therapeutic situation for opiate addiction;

3. was the first to recognise the need for a structured and sequential recovery program for addicts;

4. was the first to recognise the need to include family in the recovery process;

5. was the first to develop a proactive parenting program for recovered addicts to break the generational cycle of addiction; and

6. fulfilled all three objectives of the harm minimisation policy, those being to reduce the harm, reduce the demand and reduce the supply of illicit drugs.

(Continued from 16 May 2012.)

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (16:27): I rise to speak to the motion of the Hon. Ann Bressington on 16 May—the last Wednesday of sitting in this place—concerning DrugBeat, of course. In that motion, and indeed in her speech following that, she detailed the history of DrugBeat and the circumstances leading to the cessation of funding for DrugBeat.

She touched on some fundamental issues that I consider should be the subject of further discussion and, indeed, action by this place. It was very clear from her very passionate speech, which included a great deal of her personal experiences and personal knowledge, that both the philosophy and methods used by DrugBeat were fundamentally different from those used by Drug and Alcohol Services (DASSA).

Questions about how we should deal with illicit drugs and drug addiction are of such fundamental importance that it would be irresponsible for us as legislators to avoid making an evaluation of the available evidence concerning methods of drug rehabilitation. There can be no doubt that drug addiction is one of the greatest threats to society as we know it today. In 1998, the United Nations set itself the aim of a drug-free world by 2008. So much for good intentions: another one of the United Nations' great lofty aims and dismal failures.

I will not summarise the whole speech of the Hon. Ann Bressington, other than to say that her passion was compelling, but I do wish to speak on two key questions that were raised by her expressly in her speech and touched on in a number of ways throughout her contribution. The first question was: what is the success rate of various organisations providing rehabilitation and what advice do they give to drug addicts? This is a fundamental question.

The Hon. Ann Bressington said that DrugBeat had an unrefuted 95 per cent success rate over a seven-year period. This is outstanding. She explained that, after seven years, former addicts were still drug free in these cases. Another organisation of which I am aware, Teen Challenge, is a Christian not-for-profit organisation and also runs abstinence-based drug rehabilitation programs for young people.

It has not received recurrent state government funding, although it has until now been receiving commonwealth government funding, but I am sad to say that this will soon cease. However, Teen Challenge is expected to continue to provide its services because it has supporters and workers who are personally dedicated to improving the lives of drug addicts. For the workers there, it is not just a job: it is a mission. Indeed, I have a close personal friend who is training to be a full-time worker for Teen Challenge.

It has an 80 per cent success rate with this program—another outstanding result—where success is defined as being drug free from addictive behaviour five years after graduating from the program. Teen Challenge has also been working in the remote Aboriginal lands of South Australia for some years and has received an award from the Prime Minister for this work. Both DrugBeat and Teen Challenge do fantastic work.

I recently sought, through a freedom of information request addressed to DASSA, details of the numbers of persons who completed methadone treatment, on the basis that they no longer took methadone or any other drug for addiction treatment. The response staggered me. It was that there were no documents with that information.

I must say that I was absolutely staggered by this, so I followed it up with a question in this house on 17 May, asking why DASSA does not keep records of the apparent success or failure of its programs and seeking details of what its policy objective is. Obviously, I still await the response but, just to be clear, it does not keep the data and it does not track whether it is working or not. It has a program and it simply does not know whether it works.

I cannot understand why DASSA does not publish or even appear to keep records of the success rate for its methadone program. Could it be that it simply does not wish to know the outcomes of its program? Why on earth does DASSA receive government funding, whilst other non-government organisations that are successful, indeed highly successful, like DrugBeat and Teen Challenge, do not?

Does DASSA have any measurable success with drug rehabilitation programs generally? Does it have any measurable objectives at all? These are not questions that can be idly pushed aside. The young people in our community affected by drugs are far too valuable and, indeed, far too vulnerable for these questions to go unanswered. Nobody objects to taxpayers' money being spent on worthy rehabilitation methods, but I think everyone has a right to object when that money is just squandered and results are not even tracked for the success or failure of the program that valuable taxpayers' money goes towards.

The second question that the Hon. Ms Bressington raised in one way or another throughout her contribution was: what are the criteria for the funding of organisations that provide drug rehabilitation services? The Hon. Ann Bressington complained that it was made clear to her that DrugBeat's funding ceased for political reasons. She said it was clear that the funding submission from DrugBeat would never have been good enough because DASSA never wanted DrugBeat to get funding in the first place.

She detailed how DrugBeat was a leader in the field of pioneering new methods of rehabilitation and new drugs that were useful as an adjunct to rehabilitation. She detailed how DrugBeat had achieved award recognition for quality assurance. The submission for funding that was unsuccessful had actually been professionally prepared. The question must be asked: why was funding for a successful organisation suddenly cut off? If the Hon. Ann Bressington was totally unaware of any shortcomings of DrugBeat, were there any proper grounds for the funding to be cut?

As members of this house will be aware, I have been concerned about rehabilitation of drug addicts for some time—certainly since I have been in this place and, indeed, well and truly before that. Indeed, there are a few issues about which I am more passionate. I want to take the opportunity to thank the Hon. Ann Bressington for her speech and for sharing with us the story of her involvement in DrugBeat. I support her request for answers to the questions that she has raised.

I strongly support the motion and I think it is incumbent upon members in this house for us to take a look at this issue of why these very successful rehabilitation bodies such as DrugBeat and, indeed, Teen Challenge and the abstinence-based programs will no longer receive state funding, and yet we continue to fund an organisation that does not even track its success or failure, does not keep any records of how many people actually successfully get off drugs in any time period whatsoever—not one month after they cease treatment, not one year, not five years; nothing. They simply do not keep records. It is not good enough.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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