New youth mental health centres on the way
The new Health Minister has made an announcment that may be of interest (my thoughts after the details):
“Young people at risk of mental health and drug and alcohol problems will benefit from the establishment of 20 new headspace Communities of Youth Services centres throughout Australia.
Headspace, Australia’s national youth mental health foundation, is funded by the Australian Government to provide people aged 12 to 25 with better mental health support, as well as help for drug and alcohol problems. Establishing new local youth mental health services is an important means of providing this support.
Headspace is providing almost $19 million to set up the 20 new centres, most of which will be located in regional and rural areas.
There is a pressing need for such centres, with as many as one young Australian in four having a mental health problem in any 12-month period. There are also strong links between drug and alcohol abuse and mental health problems.
The Rudd Labor Government is focused on the importance of prevention and early intervention in all areas of health, including mental health. This investment is an important contribution towards ensuring the long-term wellness of the wider Australian community, which will deliver personal, social and economic benefits.
For example, we know from a recent Productivity Commission report that mental or nervous conditions have dramatic effects on workforce participation – in fact, a greater effect than cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular diseases.
Health workers know that early intervention and support are vital for young people in trying to manage mental health problems.
The need for more youth services is particularly urgent in regional and rural Australia, where many communities continue to struggle with the impact of drought and high unemployment. Fourteen of the 20 new centres I am announcing today are located in regional and rural communities.
Regional and rural Australia have often suffered from a lack of health services. This investment will help tackle that gap.
Those areas include the Hunter, Riverina and Central West of New South Wales, Gippsland, the south-west and the Mornington Peninsula region in Victoria, and the rapidly growing twin cities region of Townsville and Thuringowa in Queensland.
Each centre funded under this round will receive almost $1 million to cover the costs of establishment, and to help better coordinate youth mental health and drug and alcohol support services throughout each region.
The Government is committed to working with state and territory governments to deliver better mental health services for all Australians.”
It’s a nice start but that’s about it - $19 million for 20 centres isn’t going to buy a hell of a lot. Here’s hoping they’re funded well enough to actually be able to demonstrate some outcomes. There’s nothing worse than a token effort in any health area.
Rudd and Drugs
Now the election is done, coming weeks will see some clarity come to the policy positions adopted by the incoming government. I’d like to make some predictions that are as staid and conservative as I believe the Rudd government will be in the ATOD area:
1. ‘Tough on Drugs’ will remain, perhaps with a rebranding.
2. No further liberalisation of drug laws will occur.
3. There will be no Federal support for other injecting room trials.
4. Drug Free Australia may be treated with a little more scepticism than currently.
5. There’ll be some increased expenditure around alcohol and tobacco prevention initiatives.
WHat are your thoughts? Am I being too cynical? I have a feeling I’m not.
Alex Wodak on the Coalition’s Tough on Drugs Election Policy
I noticed this is today’s Crikey email:
“President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, Dr Alex Wodak, writes:
The Coalition Government’s Election 2007 Policy, “Tough on Drugs”, was released over the weekend. The centre piece of the new policy, a triumph of gesture politics, is a commitment to “quarantine and manage 100 per cent of welfare payments to stop people convicted of criminal drug offences …from using welfare payments to buy illicit drugs”.
If this desperate policy is ever implemented, we can be confident of a growth in crime which will require increased resources for police and prisons and which in turn can only be paid for by increased taxes. Perhaps that was meant by the “Go for Growth” slogan? The amphetamine market has certainly gone for growth during the lifetime of the “Tough on Drugs” policy.
The new drug policy was released just after the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report which represents even greater political difficulties for the Coalition. Surely the timing of the release of the new drugs policy was intended as a distraction from the new IPCC report.
It is hard to understand how a government which prides itself on understanding markets can reconcile itself with a drug policy which attempts to defy economic gravity.
Sooner or later, the major parties will have to accept the reality that while there is a demand for drugs, there will always be a supply. And if there is no legal supply, other forms of supply will inevitably emerge. Wasn’t that the lesson of alcohol prohibition in the USA? The ability of governments to modify powerful market forces is marginal, as we all now know from the collapse of communism.
The Coalition also criticises the ALP for supporting a trial of a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre, a scientific trial of heroin prescription and the decriminalisation of cannabis. The trial of a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in NSW was supported by a number of Liberal members of the NSW Parliament including a future Liberal Leader of the Opposition (John Brogden). A scientific trial of heroin prescription was first proposed in Australia by Mr. N. Greiner in 1984 while Leader of the Opposition in NSW (before he went on to become a Liberal Premier).
One of the major advocates for a scientific trial of heroin prescription was Ms Kate Carnell while Chief Minister of the ACT. The Liberal Commonwealth Minister for Health and Minister for Justice both voted for a heroin trial at a major Ministerial meeting in July 1997. Many prominent past and present Liberal politicians support sensible reforms of drug policy. Coalition state and territory governments have liberalised cannabis policies or retained policies liberalised by previous Labor governments.
So far this is one policy that the ALP Opposition has not cried “me too” on, but don’t hold your breath. ”
Crikey is well worth the $100+ dollars to receive a daily email full of commentary in a range of fields. Health topics get regular coverage in an in-depth manner - something the major media outlets would do well to emulate.