Professor Alex Stevens:

I completely agree with the point that all drugs should be covered by decriminalisation. Most countries that have decriminalised drug possession have done so for all substances, recognising the argument the Senator has just made. It does not make any sense to criminalise people for the position of any drug. Making an exception for cannabis does not make any sense either.

On diversion, it is interesting that there is a danger of something criminologists refer to as net widening, which is the idea that providing the police with an alternative to use against people who use drugs might increase the criminal justice interventions in people's lives, especially if there are penalties for non-compliance. As I mentioned earlier, it seems rather counterproductive, if one has decided it is not worth punishing people for the possession of drugs, to then punish them for not complying with the sanction that has been put in place.

There is evidence, for example, from Australia where there was an expiation scheme in one of the states whereby instead of getting arrested, people got a ticket and a small fine to pay. The problem was that it led to net widening. It was easier for the police to give these tickets than to arrest so they increased the numbers of tickets they gave compared to the previous number of arrests and because a lot of the people could not afford to pay the fines, they ended up being criminalised for non-payment of the ticket rather than for the original possession offence. This is why it is so important to look at the details of the schemes to ensure that there are not unintended consequences and recriminalisation of the people who use drugs. As the Senator stated so eloquently, these people often have problems that are not going to be helped by adding yet another criminal record to the complex range of issues that they face.