Book synopsis
The grave health risks of taking illicit drugs have long been known to the medical profession. Yet for decades the Australian public has been kept in ignorance, and often deliberately misled, about these dangers. The powerful pro-drug lobby and its allies in the mainstream media and academia have dishonestly misrepresented their agenda to legalise drugs as innocuous and beneficial for all.
‘Street Drugs’: The New Addiction Industry, is the culmination of author Elaine Walters OAM’s life-work of educating the Australian public about the dangers of illicit drugs. In this, her latest book, she exposes the falsehoods behind the innocent-sounding, softly-softly phrases such as “harm minimisation” and “harm reduction”, which have long been part of the pro-drug lobby’s public-relations stealth campaign.
In a series of lucid short essays, she describes the grave health dangers for people who take mind-altering and addictive drugs. In particular, she highlights the long-proven link between prolonged cannabis use and the greatly increased risk of psychosis, especially schizophrenia.
Her book is an invaluable compendium of the latest scientific findings on drug harms. She discusses not only cannabis, but other drugs such as opium and its derivatives; cocaine; synthetic drugs, such as amphetamines, including crystal meth (ice), LSD and “Ecstasy”; designer drugs; and hallucinogens and psychedelics. She rebuts, with copious evidence, the supposed benefits of establishing “safe” injecting facilities for drug-users, introducing pill-testing, or emulating Portugal’s discredited model of drug decriminalisation.
The book also chronicles her fascinating forty-year career of researching, writing and speaking about street drugs, and her encounters with the pro-drug elites. She exposes the true agenda behind drug law “reform” initiatives and the financing of many pro-drug think-tanks by hedge-fund billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute, now being run by one of Soros’s younger sons, Alexander.
Mrs Walters reproduces letters from distraught parents trying to cope with drug-addicted children. She describes her own past efforts to set up drop-in centres in her home-city of Melbourne so that these parents could receive the counselling and help they needed.
She writes, “Prevention/prohibition is the most important component in drug policy. It not only discourages the use of street drugs, but targets the next generation of potential drug-users.”
‘Street Drugs’: The New Addiction Industry equips parents, police, social workers, teachers and politicians with all they need to know to protect Australia from the scourge of street drugs.
About the author
For four decades, Australian drug-educator Elaine Walters OAM has worked tirelessly to warn the Australian public about the dangers of illicit drugs. Since 1983, she has travelled extensively across the world, researching the impact of street drugs on individuals and communities. As a Churchill Fellow, she was able to observe first-hand the results of various countries to either accept or control cannabis. While in Europe, Mrs Walters conducted further research at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna.
Mrs Walters has written a number of books, noted for both their lucidity and meticulous research. Her skills as a teacher and public speaker have seen her invited to speak at conferences in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. While overseas, she has conferred with government ministers, departments of health and university research institutes. In her home city of Melbourne, she has counselled distraught parents trying to cope with drug-addicted children.
Her work over the years has been endorsed by not only prominent overseas figures such as Carl J.G. Persson, Sweden’s National Police Commissioner (1964–1978) and chairman of the Interpol (1976–1980), but also prominent Australians such as the late Rt Hon. Sir Zelman Cowen, AK, the 19th Governor-General of Australia (1977–1982); the late Dr Joe N. Santamaria OAM, fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians and chairman of the Australian Medical Society on Alcohol and Drugs; the Hon. Greg Hunt, Australian Minister for Health (2017–2022); T.J. ‘Jack’ Martin, AO, FAA, FRS, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne; Mary Hiscock, emeritus professor of law at Bond University, Queensland; and Dr René Dupuche, MB, MRCP, MRACP, FRACP, an internal medicine specialist based in Melbourne; and eminent Australian pathologist John McKenzie, MSc, FRACP, FRC Path., FRCPA, FAACB.
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Other books by the same author
- The Cannabis Connection (1989)
- Marijuana: An Australian Crisis (1993)
- The Cruel Hoax: Street Drugs in Australia (1996)
- Be Alert and Alarmed: Illegal Drugs — Power, Policy and Propaganda (2015)
- A contributor to Drugs Dilemma: A Way Forward (2000),
edited by Dr Joe N. Santamaria OAM
