Greens member of Newtown Jenny Leong and MP David Shoebridge announced today at a press conference in Sydney that they will putting forward a bill to stop the use of drug sniffer dogs throughout venues in New South Wales, including bars, clubs and music festivals.
Speaking at Martin Place, Leong said: “I’m very pleased today to be able to announce that I will be introducing and giving notice of a bill to repeal sniffer dog use in NSW.”
“For so long and for too long, a law and order approach to intimidating people at our train stations, at our music festivals and at our public events and on our streets has gone on and we need to stop it.”
Leong said that the program is a bad use of tax payers money and that the bill would see a definitive end to sniffer dogs in the state.
Shoebridge revealed that in the last four years, over 17,000 searches have been conducted on individuals and in more than 11,000 instances, the authorities had come away empty-handed.
“The data is clear – drug dogs don’t work,” Shoebridge said.
“What does that mean in practise? That means that someone has been dragged off a train, or they've been pulled off the sidewalk…they’ve been shaken down literally, had their pockets emptied, their handbags emptied, frisked and it’s a humiliating public event,” adding that over 700 cases have resulted in strip searches.
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“Even where drugs are found, it’s a tiny amount of drugs, it’s a possession charge," Shoebridge said, as he called the program a gross abuse of civil rights and police resources, also revealing that up to twelve police officers are on hand to each sniffer dog at a music festival.
Australian musicians Paul Mac and Dan McNamee of dance group Art vs. Science were also in attendance at the conference, who called the program one that was "based on fear."
“Unfortunately [the police] confused creating deterrence with creating fear,” McNamee said.
“The fear it creates actually harms people. The young people at music festivals in the last few years who have died because the fear that was created in them by this program catalysed the tragic decision to consume all of their drugs at once before entering the festival.”
“Some listening may have little sympathy for these people…but I ask you, please put yourself in their families position, put yourself in their friends position, when I tell you that their friends could have been saved if we had a drug policy which used love instead of fear…and that they would have been alive today had we treated them with respect instead of trying to force them not to take drugs."
Mac concurred, saying that: "Sniffer dogs are an aggressive way for the police force to talk to the public about drug use of any kind. "
He believes that the resources should instead be redirected to making people aware of drug use.
“…Find a way to reduce the harm often associated with drug use, then we allocate more resources for effective rehabilitation, counselling and health education programs.”
Mac concluded the conference by sharing a new anti-drug dog song he wrote, entitled Man's Best Friend.
