Illicit Drug Policy Suggestion: The Case of Australia

Introduction 

Illicit drug abuse has been on the rise in Australia, with Cannabis being the most abused drug. The Australian Commonwealth laws criminalize the export and import of some drugs, including Cannabis and narcotics. The Australian territory and state laws criminalize the possession of illicit drugs, their use, and supply. Historically, Australia has explored prevention and treatment options as the main ways to deal with opioids and other illicit drugs. However, despite the numerous efforts to control illicit drug abuse in Australia, there are no signs of the government winning this war soon as figures indicate escalating figures in opioids abuse. This paper observes that the Australian government has, for the last 35years, been increasing alcoholic beverage taxes year-on-year, making it unaffordable to most Australians. As a result, the people go for the cheaper alternative illicit drugs that are readily available in the Australian black market ( Stanley, 2019) . The paper suggests a new policy approach to review the current Australian alcoholic beverages and beer levy policies to influence the Australians behaviors from using the illicit brews to a friendlier beer and other options. 

Policy on Alcohol Taxes in Australia 

Like industrialized countries, Australia has been faced with a serious increase in the use of illicit drugs beginning the 1960s. The initial response to the illicit drug problem was mainly focused on law enforcement activities, and this was not successful. The policies that followed centered on reducing harm in the mid-1980s, and they were useful in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDs amongst the injecting drug users ( Ritter et al., 2017) . However, they failed to reduce the gradually increasing drug abuse trend in the country. By the end of the 1990s, Australia recorded one of the highest levels of drug abuse in the world. This trend was reversed by the implementation of the National Illicit Drugs Strategy in 1998, referred to as the 'Tough on Drugs" approach. With the primary elements of the earlier policy still in force, the policy strengthened the reduction of the supply and demand of illicit drugs in Australia ( Haavio, and Kotakorpi, 2011) . The policy also led to an increase in research to guide policy development. Alongside the changes in the illicit drugs policy, the government created ANCD (Australian National Council on Drugs), which worked effectively towards increasing the drug control status over the general policy agenda. The country also experimented successfully with the increase in police powers, creating drug courts, and creating substance-specific strategies ( Thornton, 2005) . A few years down the line, it seems these policy efforts are not working, and the drug abuse trend is on a steady rise. 

Australia is today paying the 4 th highest beer taxes of the world's most advanced industrial countries. On February 3 rd, 2020, the beer taxes increased again to A$2.26 per liter of beer. This increase was as a result of the automatic tax applied to alcoholic beverages every six months, and this has been ongoing for the last three and a half decades. The Brewers Association of Australia report disclosed that the Australians are paying seventeen times more taxes on beer in comparison to Germany ($0.1), seven times more than America ($0.3) and almost double the taxes in New Zealand ($1.26). Beer has become so expensive that a significant number of Australians cannot easily afford it on a regular basis ( Bird et al., 2019) . 

The Australian government imposes taxes on alcohol to discourage citizens from consuming alcohol to make society a better place to make a living. The old age policy to control alcohol consumption has not worked in achieving its objective. Figure 1 shows the Australian government's mortality rates from alcohol, opioids, and other illegal drugs. As is evident from figure 1 statistics, opioids are the leading cause of drug abuse in Australia, followed by other opioids, excluding heroin, then depressants, followed by anti-depressants ( Joshua, 2017) . Unsurprisingly, these deaths were significantly low in 2002 but began rising significantly and steadily over the years. These opioid deaths increase every year are responding to an increase in alcoholic beverage taxes. What does this indicate? Australians are going for alternatives to the safe beer like marijuana, heroines, and other drugs because these are in the illegal market, they are affordable, and they can sustain their abuse. 

Policy Proposal and Opinion 

The current and historical Australian illicit drug policy has failed. There are more reported deaths, and more reported interrupted lives as a result of the drug abuse ( Miron, 1998) . There is a need for a new approach. The alcohol policy that indices high taxes on beer is also targeted at reducing beer and other alcoholic beverages consumption with the intention of changing people's behaviors of consuming lots of alcohol. While this has worked to reduce beer consumption in Australia, more and more Australians are going for alternatives to highly taxed alcoholic drinks. The immediate cheaper alternative is illicit drugs. This paper proposes an immediate and significant reduction in taxes on specific alcoholic drinks approved by the relevant authorities to encourage the consumption of safer tried and tested beers and drinks to reduce the use of illicit drugs. 

Using Policy to Change Behavior of Society 

The American government is always interested in influencing or regulating the individual's behavior and companies through a range of policy tools, including regulations, sanctions, legislation, subsidies, and taxes. The most viable reason for governments across the world to change or influence the behavior of society is that it can confer social, economic, and community benefits ( Benson, and Meehan, 2018) . Some behaviors are negative and extremely undesirable, and the government needs to bring them under control. In some situations, people do not behave in the best interest of the entire society, and such behaviors have to be prevented for the interest of the entire society. There are several intervention policies that the government can use to control such behaviors; some works perfectly well, while others do not work well even in the long-term. From some social policy challenges, changing human behavior is not an easy affair and is very sophisticated, and the traditional approaches may not give the desired results. This calls for a better understanding of behavioral change in the community. For energy efficiency, there are several interventions that the government can try to use to try and create behavior changes in order to bring energy efficiency. The best way to change behaviors is through a mix of methods and approaches that uses both regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms to effectively change behavior. 

When policymakers choose to alter the society or economy's behavior, they prefer to use the tax code as their main tool. Taxes are collected to support government agencies' activities. Taxes are not just meant to be a source of revenue for the government. They can also be used as a tool to achieve policy objectives. If an activity is subject to being taxed, people will factor in the cost of paying the tax and adjust their behavior accordingly (Dolan, 2010). For instance, if the consumption of a given commodity is taxed, let's say an excise duty on alcohol, then the regular alcohol consumers will opt to consume less amount of alcohol than they would consume on a regular basis when there is no tax placed on alcohol, or the people may choose to go for the cheaper alternative. Another example is when a service is taxed; let's say fossil fuels. Firms may decide to use alternative substitutes of goods or services like renewable energy sources to avoid paying the tax. Therefore, the governments use tax policies specifically for inducing some desired behavior. 

There are several other examples where the government uses tax to change the behavior of the people in the society. The government could pass a law that bans smoking in public places and restaurants. This ban could potentially lead to some level of reduction in smoking, but it may also lead to a change in people's behavior by avoiding smoking in public places to private spots. The government also has the option to invest in a campaign to train and advise people not to smoke and tell them of the dangers related to smoking ( Grossman et al., 1993) . However, this is often ignored, and the results do not last. The government also has the option of introducing taxes on the purchase of the production of cigarettes and tobacco and related products. The taxes will lead to an increase of the respective products, and people will smoke less due to high prices. Many countries also use alcohol levies to control the consumption of alcohol. The higher the sales tax placed on alcohol, the lower the consumption of alcohol. The same applies to harmful sugars like soda and sugary beverages, which causes obesity. When the government imposes taxes on these sugary beverages, consumption reduces and, as a result of the government, significantly controls the levels of obesity in the country. However, new studies are showing that alcohol consumers do not stop drinking because a tax is imposed on alcohol; the drinking nation will always get their drink through other means. For addictive substances, even tax does not stop addiction. The consumers look for alternatives that suit their pockets. 

Policy Recommendation and Justification 

Based on the discussion, a policy is proposed to significantly cut taxes on alcohol with the intended outcome of enhancing the Australians behavior to gradually change their behavior from consuming illicit drugs to safer licensed alcohol and drugs (Meier, 1994). 

The situation in Turkey has been identical to the situation in Turkey. In a recent study, Kizil (2019) confirms that Turkey taxes increases have led to the rise in alcoholic beverages prices in the country. In turkey, the overall incidences of mass alcohol poisoning and the number of deaths resulting from drug use increased. This situation is an indicator that the store-purchased alcohol in Turkey increased in prices and became unaffordable for most citizens. As a result, the consumers begin to look for alternatives, pinning this evidence to economic theory. Taxes against alcohol are truly significant sources of income for governments. The governments, therefore, use the need to reduce alcohol consumption as an excuse to levy more to get more funds from the sin taxes. Kizil (2019) research reveals that levying excessive taxes on alcohol causes more harm than good to society and the economy. High taxes may not have an overall outcome of breaking alcohol consumption habit, but instead, replace it with a more serious addiction, or pushes the alcohol consumers to illicit drugs. 

The economic theory provides that the demanded quantity of a good or service is inversely related to the product price, and this association is estimated through price elasticity. When the demand is highly inelastic, the changes in price cause a proportionately smaller change in demand. Alternatively, some goods and services are highly elastic, and the buyers respond substantially to the changes in the prices of these products. Most studies investigating alcohol price elasticity of demand disclose that demand is relatively inelastic with respect to price ( Studies like Gallet, 2007; Wagenaar et al., 2009 ). This implies that when the alcohol prices are increased, it leads to a drop in the consumption of alcohol. However, this drop is smaller in comparison to the increase in price. 

Other critical factors that need to be considered in the relations between alcohol demand and prices are the income effects and the substitution effects. In respect to the consumer choice theory, the substitution effect is the component of a change in demand for a product due to a change in its price that can be attributed to substitution between different products (Reiter, 1995). As the price of a commodity increase, the consumer replaces the highly expensive products with the less costly alternative products. Income also plays a very important role in the preferences and choices of a consumer; this is referred to as the income effect. The people in the high-income segment in the society may not feel the effect of change in alcohol price, meaning that, however much the government increases the prices, this class of people will continue consuming their favorite brands, implying that government taxes affects the people in the lower-income bracket. 

Inelastic goods like alcohol are categorized as necessities; they are addictive and have just a few substitutes. However, this does not imply that alcohol cannot be replaced over the long-term, especially when the consumers are exposed to ridiculously high taxes and high prices ( Harris, 2017) . Over the short-term, users reduce their consumption of alcohol. However, in the long-term, the users adjust their consumption patterns; they become aware of cheaper alternatives and slowly shift to new alternative options. Unfortunately, it turns out to be illicit drugs. Therefore, the government needs to consider reducing taxes on alcohol to promote alcohol consumption and minimize the use of economy threatening illicit drugs. 

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