Hi Friends, A brief report of the NSW Drug Summit. The general feeling was that our wide coalition did well in its presentation. The polarisation of the debate by the Liberal and National parties was widely criticised in view of the agreement that it would be non-partisan. The prison movement has free access inside Parliament and have been involved in meetings/lobbying/media etc. Except we can't talk to the Summit and have been locked out of the workshops where the resolutions are created. However we just walked into the prisons workshop and sat down anyway. Minister Debus almost had a fit. But we were amazed to look around and find that there weren't just the 16 selected delegates, but 26 people there including Ron Woodham, Catriona McComish etc from prison dept! We remained and are negotiating ourselves the "invite" to make our position more legitimate. The prison officers union rep Horgan said he found our presence "offensive". Some amazing things were said. Ron Penny, Chair of Corrections Health said that fresh needles weren't being blocked by prison officers, but just hadn't been proposed by Corrections Health as methadone was available. Woodham pressed for more money to cut supply of drugs - it was even in nappies and grandmothers hair. And "no administration wants drugs in jail". We intervened a couple of times and pointed out the stated position of Commissioner John Ellard a few years ago who said that drugs in jail make a quiet jail. The real problem for management was alcohol. And how the admin controls the conduit of supply through their people and controls the jail in the process, as well as getting corrupt money. The battle continues... POSITION PAPER Here is our position paper presented to all conference people, media etc. It was intended to give a direction rather than detail. Please comment and give support where possible. Justice Action & PRISONERS ACTION GROUP BOB CARR IS COMMITTING FRAUD drug summit 17-21 may 1999 The refusal by Bob Carr to permit prisoners and ex-prisoners as direct participants of the drug summit, and instead putting government and service providers to talk to each other about the problems, makes his statement of openness of minds no more than a political sham. Service providers and government opinions are not those of the prison movement. Mr Carr stated that there is no room for more people to participate in the Summit. Yet last night in an approach to a service provider to step aside to make room for prisoners and ex-prisoners to directly participate, she said that she thought she must remain as she is concerned about their funding coming up next year. We have had enormous support in our call for those most directly and personally affected by the drug laws to directly participate. (see letter on back from Parliamentarians). We support the Communities for Constructive Drug Action briefing paper. Additionally we DEMAND: * That prisoners have ready access to general community services ie, clean needles, drug and alcohol workers and drug education. * Hope and incentives be developed rather than leaving suicide and drug use as the only way out. Morale is deliberately kept at rock bottom. * Return of sentence remissions incentives that were removed in 1989 with Truth in Sentencing. Both the prison administrators and prisoners know how important this is. * Respect for prisoners' rights and responsibilities as citizens, despite being locked up. They must have rights to information, their communities and their families respected and supported. * Prisoner control of services, provided through prisoners' own committees and structures. In answer to the survey a prisoner on remand at the MRRC said: 'Condoms are made available to reduce transmitting diseases but deadly diseases are also spread by needle sharing. Drugs are illegal on the outside but needles are still made available as a health issue, why not so in jail. Do we cease to exist as people? No our health is just as big an issue and concern as it would be if we were not incarcerated.' justice ACTION PO Box 386, BROADWAY, NSW 2008 Ph: 02 9281 5100 Fx:02 9281 5303 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.justiceaction.org.au -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
