Respected private sector analyst Access Economics says in a special report
published today that spending on illegal drugs in Australia amounts to $7
billion a year, or 1.4 per cent of total spending.

This is more than cigarettes and tobacco ($6.2 billion) and medical/legal
drugs ($4.2 billion), but well under the $13.3 billion spent on alcohol.

Cannabis accounts for 70 per cent of the spending on illegal drugs.

"The illegal drugs industry in Australia is a major industry, equivalent in
size to the oil industry" the report says. "It generates substantial costs
for society, while generating no government revenue".

The report suggests that legalising or controlling cannabis use would
switch the profits from organised crime to governments.

"Prohibition of drugs has not prevented widespread use and has created a
criminal run industry which corrupts law enforcement agencies".

With 90 per cent of the returns from heroin going to traffickers, "the
attraction of the industry to organised crime is obvious, given willing
buyers and huge markups (estimated at 3,000 times)".

While illegal drugs are part of the black economy, Access Economics used a
variety of Australian and international studies to arrive at its estimates.

By way of illustrating the lucrativeness of trafficking, another article
this morning (Daily Telegraph 9 October 1997 p17) tells of a waiter earning
around $200$300 a week appearing in Sydney central court after police
found heroin worth more than $20 million under his bed. Jim Chui Loi, 21 of
Carlton, is alleged to have kept 21.487kg of the drug in a bag at the flat
he shares with his mother and sister.