I remember at the start of Riverina College of Advanced Education back in 1972, the first in-depth conversation I had with a newly landed English colleague was about the drug situation after the principal Dr Cliff Blake had properly decreed that anyone associated with “drugs” (I don’t think he meant alcohol) could expect no support from the college if they got into holts with the law.

Our familiarity with the so-called drug scene, me from Newcastle and Canberra, and he from North London, limited to cannabis and LSD, led us to agree that the only way to deal with any perceived threat was to legalise all drugs and sell them through the pharmacy system without allowing any promotion.

The prohibition on some drugs is an American invention that they have inflicted on the world. Up to 1915 there were no impediments to drug use but then the wowsers thought it would be a good idea to stop people drinking alcohol because there was drunkenness and disorderliness abroad and so they got Prohibition going; that as we know was a total disaster.

After 1915 a man named Harry Anslinger got to make his name as an investigator for various railroad, military and police organisations and by 1929 had risen to assistant commissioner for the US Bureau of Prohibition, a department that was by then on the nose. So with a defunct department on his hands and in need of a job, Harry managed to convince the powers that cannabis and opium were the real evils and in 1930 had himself appointed as commissioner of the re-badged department: Federal Bureau of Narcotics and set to work in the same old stupid fashion that had proven a farce with alcohol – but because drugs are more mysterious and secretive it was easier to create and maintain community fear.

We know how successful it all was with the international drug industry of today run by barons that can boast bank accounts that some countries would envy; we know how many millions of deaths they have caused, lives ruined, families smashed. We see the odd triumphal photograph of investigators smiling over the latest drug bust and know that all they have done is create a new “business” opportunity for the next thugs in line.

What we need to do is legalise ALL drugs, sell them through the pharmacy system without promotion; we can monitor price and quality and then monitor and police the behaviour of those who use them, the way we monitor the behaviour of people who drink alcohol. Monitor the behaviour of the users not prosecute them for their use. And educate, educate, educate – the way we have done for tobacco.

As it is the drug scene is all cost: cost for policing, cost for prison capacities, costs to the health system, costs for families and societies while all the vast profits go to the crims. I’ll bet even Boo Hoo Hockey could see both savings to his budget and more taxable income out of that lot. Blind Freddy could see it in 1972 when all we had was a bit of cannabis and LSD and if you don’t believe me check out Johann Hari’s new book: Chasing the Scream; you’ll need a shave after it.

-  Fred Goldsworthy