Pubdate: 25 May 1999 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Contact: http://www.smh.com.au/ Author: David Humphries, State Political Editor SUMMIT OVERCAME PREJUDICE The drugs debate won greater sophistication when MPs showed they could change, writes DAVID HUMPHRIES. THE Liberal MLC John Francis Ryan is known around parliamentary haunts as Ned Flanders, the Simpsons' neighbour in the cartoon series to whom, admittedly, he bears some physical resemblance. But it is the shared elements of their characters that makes the comparison stick. They are both devout Christians, diligent at their work and their families and possessing, through a shared common decency often misrepresented as dorkiness, propensities to annoy the hell out of buffoons who exhibit neither. Last Thursday, Ryan illustrated another capacity, the sort he would have encouraged in the high school students he once taught. It's about having courage enough to change your mind when the evidence before you contradicts your earlier perceptions and prejudices, even at the risk of isolation by your peers. Ryan set aside the written speech he had prepared for the Drug Summit, declaring: "Like many of you, I believe that I have learnt from and been profoundly changed by what I have seen and heard so far." He talked of being "deeply affected" by a visit the previous day to Kings Cross, where police told him and other summiteers of the 13 deaths over the past year in illegal injecting rooms. If society could cope with the established practice of giving clean syringes to drug addicts on a no questions asked basis, "it is not a great step to give them a space to carry out their deadly habit in a position that might stop them from dying", he said. That his subsequent successful amendment for the summit to endorse "medically supervised" injecting rooms was seconded by John Brogden, the youthful Pittwater MP with prospects of future Liberal leadership, and opposed and decried by the over-whelming majority of Coalition MPs, raises questions about just how out of touch was the hardline, head-in-the-sand, say-no-to-everything approach this Opposition brought to the summit. I have little idea of the correct way forward on the drugs epidemic and I couldn't pretend to have a firm grip on what voters will and will not tolerate from many of the 168 often bold recommendations the summit put forward for Government consideration over the next six weeks. But a few things are clear. Thanks partly to the summit, the drugs debate has entered a higher tier of sophistication which is already starting to disseminate through the community. It is difficult to contemplate how even the most entrenched sceptic (and I began last week dismissive of the summit's chances of finding consensus or headway) could not be moved by the emotion and evidence presented. I'm now convinced a growing chunk of society is of the view that, as distasteful as some of the propositions may be in practice, a community so tired, frustrated and fearful with past impotence is demanding advancement. No-one put better at the summit the uselessness of holding out for a miracle erasure of the drug problem or the reliance solely on law enforcement to deliver it than James Wood, the police royal commissioner who hardly could be marked as a bleeding-heart liberal. "The danger we face is the search for a single, simplistic solution ... whether by unremitting and unthinking law enforcement or a magic bullet," he said. "For law enforcement, no matter how well resourced, can never prevent the supply, let alone demand, for these substances." A still cautious but, by his own admission, semi-persuaded Premier tried to put his finger on the public mood on Friday. "The people of NSW are roughly where I am and they don't want to do anything which is going to make the situation worse," Carr ventured. He wasn't forthcoming on whether that meant the public was ready for the summit's more contentious recommendations. Carr confessed to a change of mind, at least on injecting rooms, but the test is whether those in his Government who navigated last week's passage can keep him on course. My bet is the answer rests with the direction of public mood, in all the manifestations politicians measure it, including headlines, radio talkback and the anxiety of their own backbenchers. - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski