The Queensland Government can't win the war against bikie gangs while it continues to prop up their business model through the criminalisation of drugs, writes Greg Barns.

Before the Queensland Government goes much further with its tough talk this week about laws designed to smash bikie gangs, it might like to consider a more rational alternative, and one which would enable it to achieve its aim without trashing freedoms and liberties.

The major income source for elements of the bikie culture, and other criminal enterprises like it, is illicit drugs. And according to new research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the illicit drugs market is thriving despite a ramping up globally of law enforcement efforts in the so called 'war on drugs'.

If the Queensland Government, and other governments around Australia which have adopted laws designed to crush bikie gangs (such laws are generic enough to enable police to similarly crush unions, environmental groups and any other organisation government didn't like), were to decriminalise and even legalise drugs through a regulated market, then the business model of the bikie gangs would be severely undermined.

The BMJ paper, written by researchers from Vancouver and California, finds that during the past two decades law enforcement authorities have increased their seizure of illicit drugs and their ingredients. Seizures of raw and prepared opium from Afghanistan have risen by 12,000 per cent since 1990; coca leaf seizures have increased by 188 per cent, for example. But during the same period the price of illicit drugs has fallen and potency and purity has increased. The global illicit drugs market is now worth $US350 billion annually.

The conclusion of the researchers is unambiguous:

The global supply of illicit drugs has likely not been reduced in the previous two decades. In particular, the data presented in this study suggest that the supply of opiates and cannabis, in particular, have increased, given the increasing potency and decreasing prices of these illegal commodities.

Surveillance and law enforcement efforts are having zero impact on the demand for illicit drugs.

For individuals and groups like bikie gangs (and it should be stressed that not all bikie gangs, or all members of gangs, are involved in criminal activity), the illicit drugs market is booming. The prices might be coming down, but as Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker writes:

Drug prices are much higher than they would be if drugs were legal - probably much more than 100% higher for most drugs - because drug traffickers must be compensated for the risks of going to jail and the violence from being in the drug business.

It is clear that prohibition policies, no matter how well enforced they are, will never reduce the reach of the illicit drug market because the profits to be earned are so outlandishly good for groups like bikie gangs.

What Queensland Premier Campbell Newman should be doing is talking about undermining the business model that sustains some in bikie gangs and their allies. If he were to decriminalise drugs such as heroin and cocaine, for example, so that using and small time supplying were no longer criminal offences, then that would reduce demand and price. If he were to go a step further and legalise, through a regulated market, so called 'party drugs', cannabis and other drugs then the consumers would move to that affordable market where quality control ensured a safer product.

The lesson from the BMJ paper is clear. You can spend billions of dollars on law enforcement in the drugs area and you will never win. You will never stop drug cartels and distribution networks like elements of bikie gangs from chasing the extraordinary profits that are made every day around the world, including in Queensland.

Mr Newman might also like to heed the wise words of Mike Barton, the Chief Constable of the Durham Constabulary in the UK. Barton, a police officer with 34 years' experience, wrote in The Observer last Sunday:

Not all crime gangs raise income through selling drugs, but in my experience most of them do. So offering an alternative route of supply to users cuts off the gang's income stream.

Barton notes that if addicts could access drugs via health services or other regulated providers, "then they would not have to go out and buy illegal drugs".

Waging a war against bikie gangs as the Queensland Government is doing this week is futile. It is ignoring the elephant in the room which is the demand for, and supply of, illicit drugs in Queensland. If Mr Newman were serious about links between bikie gangs and crime, he would look to end the policies of prohibition.

Greg Barns is a barrister and writer on Australian politics. He was campaign manager for the WikiLeaks party in the the 2013 federal election, but is not a member of the party. View his full profile here.