The Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) and Governance in the Australian Drug Policy Arena

Abstract

The Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) was introduced into the Australian drug policy community in 1997 by the Howard conservative government as part of its “Tough on Drugs” policy initiative. Support in 1997 by the states and territories through the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy (MCDS) for a trial of prescribed heroin prompted the prime minister to attempt to directly control drug policy by changing national drug-policy-making processes. It has been suggested that the ANCD was introduced to short-circuit the power of the states and territories to structure national drug strategy, signaling a shift from consensus decision making through a policy community approach to centralized executive decision making through the prime minister's office. Interviews with key policy makers during 1999–2000 and findings from recent evaluations point to a climate of distrust, over-bureaucratization, slow decision making, and overt paranoia about the presence of new players in the drug policy arena, resulting not from inadequacies in governance but as a resistant response from policy makers to the introduction of the ANCD. This shift in the model of decision making may lead to an obsolete national drug strategy (NDS) and undermine a unified approach to national drug policy.